Update: Apparently official communications were such that Scouts were in fact told of the upcoming changes.
Some sad (or happy, depending on your point of view) news coming out of AOL this morning: they plan to scuttle Jason Calacanis’s social legacy by moving the “social” version of netscape (read: “you can vote on stories … like Digg”) off to a sub domain and have the original domain serving up an old fashion portal, circa 1999.
Wait — that’s not entirely fair … Yahoo.com also serves up a portal, as does MSN.com, and its 2007.
Why am I *not* skewering these URL’s (and their parent companies), but critical of Netscape?
Why am I *not* relishing in this apparent giant vote of non-confidence of AOL in this apparent, but tarnished, clone of Digg? (if paying people to moderate is tarnishing, that is). Something that many, about a year ago, clamoured *would* fail?
Only because unlike its other two towering bretheren, until quite recently — actually, until last year, when the new “social” version of Netscape debut’d — Netscape.com’s own traffic was in a tailspin. It only flattened out when it changed its focus to a “Digg clone”.
So yes, it looks like the higher ups at AOL aren’t quite happy enough with “bringing things out a fatal nosedive”, and want to stick with a strategy that a) everyone else is already doing and b) something that was in place *while* Netscape *was* in a nosedive.
Its what’s called a “safe” bet, I suppose, doing what everyone else is doing — but sadly, its a defensive measure that won’t, I predict, win any great strides amongst every day net users(no matter what their data shows), nor, of course, any “leet” early adopters.
[As a post script, I do realize that the "social" netscape will be moved to another subdomain (or its own domain), and that we've been "tantalized" with new features (according to the blog post). On the other hand, it seems like keeping one's own employees is de rigeur this week. The navigators that I've spoken to (and there aren't that many that I know) seemed to have been kept in the dark as to these changes. Which, perhaps, tells you how confident they are in these changes and the social netscape. Or, perhaps, that they're merely lousy at internal communications].
3 Comments
Tony, if someone told you this, then someone told you this, there’s nothing I can do about that, but if you’re merely assuming the Scouts (no longer the Navigators) are kept in the dark, or are going on extremely outdated information, you may want to consider an update or disclaimer. Because of their status as “not full time” employees, there are unfortunate times when they don’t get the full disclosure that AOL employees who’ve undergone the required Standards and Practices training, but that does not mean they’re not an integral part of the team, who I keep up to date as technologically possible. Your article paints it as if every employee on the team has been kept purposely in the dark.
Again, if this is what someone told you, that’s what you were told, but I have internal documents showing that the Scouts were made aware of the situation in Mid-August. So, you’re either sitting on outdated information, or someone doesn’t read their email. Both unfortunate, but both nothing I can control outside of yelling in someone’s face.
Hey Ryan
Thanks for clearing that up — publicly. :)
I do write a great many things on this Blog, including conjecture, hypothesis, rumors, speculation and sometimes even fact. But I’ll always say which is which.
I’ll be happy to make a correction later.
Having said that, I did look for you this morning to get the official word on things :)
Just more stuff on the side.
I ran into Jason calacanis the day after the big announcement about upcoming changes. While he wouldn’t let me quote him directly — he did have a mouthful to say.
Link
As for being informed: My personal experience as a Navigator (Scout) — Ryan has done a good job at keeping us up to date. At times, I imagine that is hard — because there are so many of us — and we are technically just part-time contractors — but we do keep in touch pretty regularly.
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[...] yndlingseksempel er Netscape.com, som godt nok bliver lukket om ikke så længe, for at genopstå på et andet domæne. Her er det faktisk lykkedes rimeligt [...]
[...] yndlingseksempel er Netscape.com, som godt nok bliver lukket om ikke så længe, for at genopstå på et andet domæne. Her er det faktisk lykkedes rimeligt [...]