So, I don’t cover Netscape a whole lot, but as the Anti-Digg, I figure this piece of news needs to get its due. It looks like CK Sample, the Director of Netscape has, as of earlier this afternoon, handed in his publicly announced his resignation from Netscape.
Although he’ll be carrying on in a more limited role, it looks as though he’ll be heading for greener pastures.
My own contacts within Netscape tell me that the reasons are NOT because of any rivalry issues with Digg, NOR any of the recent hubaloo around the issue of “sinking” (the equivalent of burying on Digg, except it doesn’t actually remove an article from the main circulation), or the recent “gang” activity and TOS violations at Netscape either, or even money.
(Word is they offered him a private jet, a house in the hamptons, a mountain of gold buillon and a bag of iPhones to stay — but that’s a piece that I have yet to verify).
Rather, it may have had to do with CK’s own wishes for a different lifestyle, and perhaps his own disconnect from being a part of corporate culture. CK’s own blog mentions his attachment to the halls of academia:
I’ve been entrenched in Academia for all of my adult life. I’m currently reading for and writing my dissertation in English at Fordham University. My areas of concentration are twentieth century prose, critical theory, film studies, and biblical studies. I received my Masters in English from Illinois State University in 1998, after passing my Comprehensive Exams with Distinction and writing a thesis on E.E. Cummings’ currently out-of-print travelogue of Russia, EIMI. I double-majored in English and Art at Mississippi College, where I received a full academic scholarship, graduating in 1995.
He also describes himself as an educator:
I have taught a total of 18 college-level English courses, the most recent at Iona College in New Rochelle, where I was an Adjunct Professor of English during the 2004-05 school year. In the past, I have taught at both Fordham University and Illinois State University. I also worked full-time for Fordham University in the Department of Instructional Technology and Academic Computing as the Instructional Technologist in charge of the Faculty Technology Centers up until January 2006. In this capacity, I worked with professors to help facilitate the use of technology in an educational setting.
And if he’s that entrenched in the culture of academia, being part of Big Business (as AOL clearly is), such as the dealings with different levels of bureaucracy, the need to “answer to the shareholders”, and the behind the scene politics … well, it probably didn’t jive with what made made the man who he was.
With the turnover at Netscape churning like a vortex, what with Jason Calacanis, and now his successor,CK, vacating their positions at the venerable domain, one wonders what’s in store for Netscape.com.
While they recently surpassed the 100k registered member and their community looks strong and vibrant, it looks like it needs a strong direction for the future, and a leadership that will steer it away from the shoals of uncertainty.
And hopefully that will mean that CK’s successor(s), whomever they might be, stays on for the duration of that transformation.
After all, if Alexa is any indication (and it might be a poor one at that), Netscape’s traffic hemorrhage seems to have been stemmed for now (its flattening out, rather than continuing to decline if you view it over the course of 1 year). But I’m sure AOL’s senior bosses (and shareholders) are looking for renewed growth and one-day leadership in the social bookmarking arena.
2007 looks to be an interesting year for Netscape.
Let’s hope CK’s successor keeps it “interesting” … but, in a good way.
PS CK, if you want to set the record straight, you’re always welcome here at DJI for an exit interview, or you can email me at anthony{dot}hung{at}gmail.com
January 14th, 2007 at 6:15 am | Permalink
I notice that the author mentions Alexa ranks, which are a joke to many because people game these, espcailly Webmasters. They only gauge use of Internet Explorer and *GASP* here we are talking about… _Netscape_. Let’s look at the more accurate Netcraft figures, shall we?
Digg: 659th.
Netscape: 330th (and still rising).
The shock! Netscape has a lot more traffic than Digg. And the numbers are going up.
January 14th, 2007 at 7:04 am | Permalink
Actually it was last Monday, it’s in the second sentence of his blog post.
January 14th, 2007 at 10:19 am | Permalink
Hey Roy,
Funny you should mention Alexa. Jason Calacanis, the former director of Netscape tried to “prove” Alexa was game-able precisely because valleywag also trawled up this data.
Well, it didn’t quite work.
http://www.deepjiveinterests.com/2006/11/30/wait-does-this-mean-alexas-not-wrong-or-jason-calacanis-has-no-friends/
I don’t think his “experiment” proved much, except perhaps, that its not as easy to change Alexa rankings as you think. Secondly, people who use netscape.com these days are unlikely to use netscape the browser any more than other folk — the domain and the broswer are totally different.
Third of all, it seems Netcraft isn’t perfect themselves … this was covered at slashdot over 3 years ago
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/27/0044205
In fact, there’s no explanation over how it “ranks” its domains at all, as far as I can see. In fact, it ranks its own “toolbar.netcraft.com” as the #20th most trafficked site on the net. That’s ABOVE a *sub* domain of MSN. http://toolbar.netcraft.com/stats/topsites
Fourthly, take a competitor to public stats at Snapshot.compete.com, which uses a combination of a poll AND other logged stats:
http://snapshot.compete.com/netscape.com+digg.com+
And it reveals a similar trend.
Bottom line is that I don’t think anyone disputes that Netscape.com’s traffic has fallen while Digg’s is on the rise. Even Jason Calacanis. The degree is how much and how its changing.
January 14th, 2007 at 10:22 am | Permalink
CW, I stand corrected. He *publicly announced* it yesterday. ;)
Cheers
t
January 15th, 2007 at 9:22 am | Permalink
Really is an interesting one over at netscape, I’ve dabble a bit over there and its certainly more mainstream in appeal than digg, and certainly less flame wars, might be a more mature audience.
Though this much change can’t help