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SS Netscape heads into the crapper

by Darren

Recent events at Netscape have made it look like the decision to turn the Netscape portal into a Digg-style clone have failed. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch made one of his more coherent posts today when he outlined the potential red flags concerning the new Netscape. At first I supported the new Netscape because of what I felt was a better user interface, but the way the Old Netscapers reacted to the change made me reconsider.

They’re still out there. They want to Bring back the old Netscape and they’ve even petitioned AOL VP Jason Calacanis to do it. So far, Netscape has turned a blind eye to the shrill complaints, but it’s gone on long enough now that it’s attracting negative attention even in the MSM. The SS Netscape is taking on water, and it looks like they can’t bail the water fast enough now to stop from drowning.

Calacanis has had a very successful career, but he seems to be handling the apparent woes by hiring Digg power users to edit the New Netscape page. To me this reads: “we aren’t getting enough news submissions and the ones we’re getting are spam”. But wooing away pimple-faced eggheads from Digg? It seems much more promotional in nature than a real attempt at upping the quality of “the News”. Most Digg users wouldn’t know a quality story if it jumped up and bit them in the ass.

Can the SS Netscape steer its’ way back to clear sailing? They’ll need to, all the while seemingly ignoring the “user-generated feedback” that they’re creating daily. Since so much of it is negative, you’d have to think they’ll have to take some of it into account at some point.