Netscape Needs to Find its Calling

I was too tied up last week to blog about the whole Netscape debacle. Kevin Rose from digg weighs in on it here. I have, however, discussed it with the media on a couple of occasions so I thought this would be a good time to share my thoughts.

Overall, I do think Jason Calacanis' attempt to court the influential residents of his competitors' sites with cash, while noble, screams desperation for Netscape and appears short-sighted. My reaction today is consistent with how I felt initially: AOL is not giving Jason the time he needs to build a community and they are impatient. Such impatience leads to poor business decisions.

Nevertheless, I do think the new Netscape will succeed, but it's going to take time. Although digg's rise is nothing short of remarkable, it was spurred by the community. The digg team didn't grow it. The people did. What Kevin and crew did was create the means for the community to do its thing. In this case that "thing" was a desire to coalesce around a common passion - technology - in a unique way that was simple, yet engaging.

Netscape needs to find its calling. What will it be - politics, health? Who knows? The community will tell us. Once it appears, Jason and the Netscape team then should quickly build new enhancements that help the audience share content in that vertical in a way they can't anywhere else. Once this happens, Netscape will become a successful site. But paying people to come over is not the answer. That's like bringing Dom Perignon to a frat house party. It might look good, but it's out of place.

Technorati Tags: digg, Jason Calacanis, Kevin Rose, memediggers, Netscape, AOL

Comments

[Peter]

I agree that AOL is putting too much pressure on Mr. Calacanis to make the new Netscape an overnight, huge success, and I think that shows a poor understanding on the part of AOL.

I don't agree with the decision to offer money for people to "defect" over to Netscape and post stories there - I think it violates the unwritten rule of how these community sites should operate.

However, I'm not so sure this new Netscape will survive - at least in its present form. A lot of people from the "mainstream", who were the previous Netscape's main base, don't care/like the idea of a social news site.

[Russell Page]

I have heard people call Calacinis short-sighted, and I don't believe this is a correct assumption.

There's a key principle in life (and capitalism) that is called "dollars follow value," and it's following that principle that made Weblogs successful for Calacanis. Bloggers got rewarded for the value they created (Peter Rojas is a great example of this, and Calacanis is one of the first to praise Rojas for his vision).

He (Calacanis) understands one of the key principles of life, which is dollars follow value. Or you can call it "value follows value."

And, I say this just to make the point, but why did Steve Rubel leave Cooper Katz to go to Edelman? Was it all money? Not likely. Part of it probably had to do with Edelman's vision being inline with what Rubel saw as the future of PR. "Value follows value."

Likewise, Calacanis sees these top Diggers as valuable, which is why he is offering dollars. Dollars follows value.

[Eoin Purcell]

Why does Netscape necessarily need a central theme like digg? If it is going for a mass market surely a single core will result in alienating a large portion of that market?

If we can make a guess that the mass market will be less interested (or certainly less quick to get started) in acting as posters/diggers, then the cheaply poached top "diggers" will prove an excellent investment for Jason. His offer attracts attention, he gains new activity from great posters and the mass market can do as it always seems to; take advantage of the active posters and voters and continue to just read stories and visit sites essentially passively.

Netscape on the other hand will reap the benefits of increased traffic, activity and hopefully to follow revenue!

PS: Wonderful analogy there!

[Drew Olanoff]

The interesting point raised by all of this is simply this:

"If a group is making money from a website that a community has basically fueled, should that community be rewarded (or certain key people in that community)"

I think the answer is Yes. You can only get something for nothing for so long. Prizes, pay, whatever it is, you can't say "Wow digg is huge and great" without thanking the "little guys" who happen to make the site what it is.

[webreakdigg]

We are going to break digg, so checkout out our blog if you are interested.