Netscape has announced that it plans to revert back to its old self with AOL powered news stories and send the Netscape Social News Community packing, to a location to be disclosed later.
TechCrunch first mentioned the rumored move, and I also covered it with my thoughts on the Netscape project and how AOL would be making a mistake by not keeping it going.
Why ditch the Netscape social news project and move back to the old Netscape?
Netscape’s Tom Drapeau explains :
Many of you may remember that Netscape.com used to be much different than it is today. In fact, it used to contain more mainstream news before we shifted to the social news site you see now.
We received some feedback that people really do associate the Netscape brand with providing mainstream news that is editorially controlled. In fact, we specifically heard that our users do have a desire for a social news experience, but simply didn’t expect to find it on Netscape.com.
The decision to redirect the current Netscape.com site is based on that feedback and our desire to better serve our community.
Other reasons for the change could be new opportunities in advertising revenue, especially from search, which could not be reached via the social news site and/or a loss of loyal Netscape users who were not used to reading stories on Viagra, Making Money from AdSense, or Bollywood on a daily basis.
What will happen to the Netscape Social News project? Seems that AOL plans to rebrand it and house it on a separate domain.
We, as a company, remain committed to delivering a compelling social news experience for our users. This move is an effort to make both the former portal experience and the social news experience accessible so that you can decide which you prefer–or, even better, that you want to participate in both.
We look forward to unveiling a new social news site as soon as possible. The ability to post, comment, rate and share the news that’s most relevant to you is as important to us as it is to you. We will be maintaining an open dialogue with you, our users, so that you’ll be the first to know as soon as we’re ready to pull back the curtains.
Do you think the new Social News portal will be housed on an AOL.com subdomain? A Netscape subdomain? An existing Weblogs Inc. site. Or an entirely different site?
Whereever they send Netscape, let’s hope that AOL beefs up the editorial moderating and delivers the same link love that they do now.
