Filed under: Internet
AOL refreshes Netscape as social news site with a twist
AOL yesterday relaunched the aging Netscape.com as a social news site (yea, like digg) but with a professional journalistic twist. Check it out. Anyone can sign up, submit and vote on interesting stories from across the web in a wide range of categories from politics, money, television, technology, health and even 'do no evil'. Going above and beyond the social news bookmarking concept, however, is a staff of journalists, including TUAW's own C.K. Sample III and Fabienne Serriere, who will follow up on some of the stories and dig deeper by nabbing interviews, posting related links and keeping users informed as the situation develops (on a side note, we finally figured out why C.K. and Fabs gave us that 'we'd tell you what we're working on, but then we'd have to kill you' bit a while ago).Why are we telling you about all this since it isn't specifically Apple-related, you ask? Well, we should probably tell you the project was headed up by Weblogs Inc.'s CEO, Jason Calacanis. Granted, Weblogs Inc., including TUAW, are owned by AOL, but we could still call it crummy if we wanted to - fortunately, that isn't the case. We think it's a great concept that you should go have some fun with. Still, if you're looking for some Apple-specific details before you fire off a flaming comment, how does 'full-Safari compatibility' work for you? In fact, I think the site actually looks surprisingly better in Safari than Firefox.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Nate K said 3:48PM on 6-16-2006
Personally, I think the site is great - and has something different from others in that it will have follow up reports. This may be very useful to some.
The layout and interface is clean and simple, and it works in all of the browsers I have used today (camino, firefox, and safari). I applaud the team who worked on this for a job well done.
Dont mind the digg trolls - they will always come out of their wholes if there is e-thugging involved.
Peace,
Nate
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Fra said 3:49PM on 6-16-2006
Thanks for the link, but I'll wait for the next Digg update :)
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Jon said 4:13PM on 6-16-2006
"The layout and interface is clean and simple" --- and is a complete ripoff of Digg. Jason Calcanis justified this by noting that Digg is based on other sites like Del.icio.us, etc. But that misses tthe point and dodges hte question --- it's not the IDEA that is a ripoff, it is the layout and interface. Calcanis and AOL are a bunch of thieves, and ought to be ashamed.
As for CK -- hnow much does AOL pay that guy? Since I have been reading this site in the last eight months, he has bought: an iPod Nano 4GB, a 15 inch PowerBook, a 5G 60 GB iPod, an iMac Core Duo, a MacBook Pro, a MacBook and probably some others stuff I can't remember. Is AOL hiring? I want his job, especially since all you need to do is rip off someone else's interface.
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kevin said 4:26PM on 6-16-2006
i couldn't agree more with jon. however, the idea is a rip off too.
and yea, how much do you get paid writing for this blog anyway? so you write a paragraph of two about quirky apple stories and an article on another new dashboard widget that does what some other widget did last week, and you actually get paid for this? not only that but you get paid pretty handsomely, it seems.
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narco said 4:42PM on 6-16-2006
Yeah, I was a bit shocked when I saw CK as one of the head bloggers at the new Netscape site, but knowing that AOL owns Weblogs, Inc. and Netscape, it makes total sense. Congratulations to him for the promotion, but it's still sad to see him hardly post here at TUAW.
I did spend some time with the Netscape site and can imagine it being pretty popular, but it's really not for me. I "hang out" at places like Macrumors, Engadget and TUAW -- so the majority, if not all the news I search for is either tech or science related, both of which are heavily submitted/discussed on Digg. I know Digg plans on adding more topics, but I can imagine that it'll still be tech related for the most part.
So regardless of who copied who or however the story goes, I'll still remain a Digg user. That's the glory of the internet -- I can choose where I want to spend my time.
Fishes,
narco.
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David Chartier said 7:30PM on 6-16-2006
While C.K. is still a blogger on our list, he's actually gone off and gotten a *real* job within WIN (Weblogs Inc. Network). Y'know, shiny new corner office, limo service, automatic opening doors at the grocery store - the whole works. So he's being compensated a tad more than us grunts still in the trenches, but he's also working as more of a WIN ninja in the background.
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John said 8:27PM on 6-16-2006
" a professional journalistic twist"
I don't hold high hopes for this given the shameless off-topic cross promotional shill on the front page of TUAW.
"Why are we telling you about all this since it isn't specifically Apple-related, you ask?"
Yes, actually, I do.
"Well, we should probably tell you the project was headed up by Weblogs Inc.'s CEO, Jason Calacanis."
Oh.
Got any other nice CEO side projects to push? We'd love to know all about them so we can check them out and go have some fun with. Go on, you've got the whole front page of TUAW at your disposal. Feel free. Don't mind me. I just come here for the Apple news ...
"Granted, Weblogs Inc., including TUAW, are owned by AOL, but we could still call it crummy if we wanted to"
Well, you would say that.
Do you even imagine this statement could be taken seriously? Even if it were true, it can't be credibly asserted by you because of the financial relationship.
"... fortunately, that isn't the case."
Well, that's all right then.
" Still, if you're looking for some Apple-specific details"
Yes, actually. Kinda what I come here for.
"before you fire off a flaming comment"
Don't think of this as a flame, you'd get the wrong idea. Think of it more as being called on inexcusably unprofessional behaviour.
"how does 'full-Safari compatibility' work for you?"
It doesn't. Not at all.
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Zach Marshall said 12:04AM on 6-17-2006
For Jon, Kevin, John, and the like: chill out. If you're really so bothered by the self-promotion, don't read this blog. If you don't like the new portal, don't visit it. I, for one, don't like the new site and I'll stick with Digg, but I'm not out on netscape flaming off. It adds nothing to productive to the conversation and it wastes your and everyone else's time. Note your displeasure, as is your right, but don't sound so offended and self-righteous.
And saying plugging a sister site is unprofessional? Hardly! You've obviously never been involved in a REAL profession. Plugging sister products is the name of the game for the material good market. Same goes for journalistic endeavors; big magazines often plug sister publications' material (if you don't believe me, I'll dig up some material). The blogosphere is no exception, either.
My signature: "I wish I had something cool to say like narco"
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Geoff said 12:15AM on 6-17-2006
I like the new Netscape a lot. Digg is an awesome idea, but it just never worked well for me in practice. I don't read the comments and the tiny descriptions in Digg are pretty irritating. Also, the titles are very often quite useless. So far the editorial add ons for the stories at Netscape have been really nice.
I don't think you can blame TUAW for cross promoting the site. However, TUAW pretending to be independent is kind of silly. But something that makes all these blogs so strong is how they work together. The interplay between Engadget, Autoblog, Luxist, and the others allows for some really in depth coverage in each field. A hidden cost of that integration is the occasional cross promotional post which really isn't much of a price to pay for such great coverage.
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Mac Diva said 1:57AM on 6-17-2006
A pox on bloggers who refer to themselves as journalists. Unfortunately, I believe that many of them do not know the difference between what actual journalists do and posting an opinion to a web page. It is about time they learned.
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rob said 7:32PM on 6-17-2006
Netscape is downright terrible and unusable.
"I like the new Netscape a lot. Digg is an awesome idea, but it just never worked well for me in practice. I don't read the comments and the tiny descriptions in Digg are pretty irritating. Also, the titles are very often quite useless. So far the editorial add ons for the stories at Netscape have been really nice."
Geoff, I'm sorry but you're insane. Netscape uses the same idea as Digg. How does Digg not work out practically when Netscape does exactly the same thing Digg does in idea and also in practice? You also say you don't read comments in Digg yet Netscape has comments too. And what "tiny descriptions" are you talking about? Digg has readable font for post descriptions, and even a functional font resizing button at the top-right of the page below the ad.
And speaking of ads, Digg is clean and unobtrusive with text ads, and very sparse at that. Netscape has lots of ads and most of them are irritating graphics. The color scheme is subpar, the way information is organized is all over the place, and . The UI is just cleaner at Digg. I mean, can someone seriously give me a good reason to visit Netscape over Digg that doesn't involve contradictory reasoning and "new features" that I don't care to use? Even the new version of Digg that's coming out will include broader topics so I don't see that as an advantage for Netscape.
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Patrick said 7:47PM on 6-17-2006
What i don't get is why this is posted in the first place?? Honestly, this is an Apple fansite, who cares about your sister projects that have nothing to do with Apple? And if you really want to plug it so badly, start posting ads for it or something. Don't make it your actual content and get completely off-topic.
Fishes,
Patrick
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Sarah said 7:53PM on 6-17-2006
okay, this is my opinion on the subject. as unproductive as it is to complain about this (noted by zach), it's equally if not even more unproductive to post this in the first place when it doesn't have a place in an Apple fan site. but i can understand it to a certain degree since they are all part of the same company or whatever. but still, it's not that cool and i think the basic idea is that it's kind of annoying and people don't seem to like what Netscape is doing anyway.
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kyle said 10:56PM on 6-17-2006
hmmm thats true.. you dont see engadget posting about this new netscape thing, even though they're also under the same company...
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C.K. Sample, III said 11:42AM on 6-22-2006
How does Netscape relate to Apple stories, you guys ask? Well, there's this: http://www.beta.netscape.com/tag/apple/
and then there's this:
http://www.beta.netscape.com/tag/steve+jobs/
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