Traffic on AOL’s Netscape portal has plummeted since the site dumped its social news voting model and reverted to a new portal, at least according to Alexa.
Unfortunately the comScore figures for Netscape aren’t yet available for September so we can’t confirm the traffic crash, but despite Alexa’s argued issues the crash in traffic as shown by Alexa is unlikely to be an Alexa only quirk.
Tony Hung, who first picked up on the traffic crash notes that “[the traffic crash] validates Jason Calacanis — and indeed all the hard work Netscape folks have done over the past year or so to cultivate a community in Digg’s shadow — that so many of the people at Netscape were genuine fans *of* social news.” He’s right.
If Alexa is to be believed, Netscape’s traffic is now at its lowest level ever and ranks at a miserly 2,200th, a far cry from the days where Netscape was in the top 10 destinations online or even in the Top 600 during its time as a Digg clone. Some one at AOL may have some explaining to do given that the decision destroyed the traffic (and value) of Netscape by over 50%.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Netscape Was Better As A Digg Clone: Viewers
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Digg Gets A Major Makeover
Changes to the Digg template and feature set discussed by Kevin Rose August 22 are now live.
The biggest change with the new look Digg is the inclusion of video on the front page. Other changes include tweaks to page and story summary layouts, streamlined navigation, and more customization options.
Stories are now able to be buried in one click as opposed to the previous two click procedure. Story submission has also been streamlined.
First impressions: I’m not sure yet. Drop down menus have replaced the previous tree style content directory at the top of the page, and the overall look feels a little more feminine; the strong colors used in the old Digg template have been replaced by lighter, nearly pastel colors at places. The inclusion of videos on the front page seemingly interrupts the flow of Digg stories as you scroll down the page.
Digg’s Daniel Burka writes that the changes have been made following consultation with Digg users, so perhaps the new look will be well received and I’m being a little bit too picky. Comments on a number of Digg threads covering the changes seem to be running at around 50/50 for and against.
Update: a tip from Aidan Henry via Skype: the story pages have more advertising, with the previous Leaderboard now having a 300×250 rectangle ad below right of it above the fold. Both spots were showing animated ads when I was viewing them, which suffice to say is rather annoying from a user perspective.
Digg Gets A Major Makeover
Changes to the Digg template and feature set discussed by Kevin Rose August 22 are now live.
The biggest change with the new look Digg is the inclusion of video on the front page. Other changes include tweaks to page and story summary layouts, streamlined navigation, and more customization options.
Stories are now able to be buried in one click as opposed to the previous two click procedure. Story submission has also been streamlined.
First impressions: I’m not sure yet. Drop down menus have replaced the previous tree style content directory at the top of the page, and the overall look feels a little more feminine; the strong colors used in the old Digg template have been replaced by lighter, nearly pastel colors at places. The inclusion of videos on the front page seemingly interrupts the flow of Digg stories as you scroll down the page.
Digg’s Daniel Burka writes that the changes have been made following consultation with Digg users, so perhaps the new look will be well received and I’m being a little bit too picky. Comments on a number of Digg threads covering the changes seem to be running at around 50/50 for and against.
Update: a tip from Aidan Henry via Skype: the story pages have more advertising, with the previous Leaderboard now having a 300×250 rectangle ad below right of it above the fold. Both spots were showing animated ads when I was viewing them, which suffice to say is rather annoying from a user perspective.
Monday, August 13, 2007
The King Is Long Gone But His Brand Has A Life of Its Own
By Melinda Newman Thursday marks the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, but in many ways the keepers of his estate are only starting to take care of business.
Biggest Elvis fan in the Southland? You be the judge
Memories of Elvis
http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn
Thursday, August 9, 2007
GigaOm Gets A COO
Walborsky, who has both operational and deal experience, was most recently a managing director at Hercules Technology Growth Capital. He’s also held senior positions at Lehman Brothers, ING Barings and Swiss Bank Corp.
Walborsky says he will manage the non-editorial aspects of the business - sales, operations, events, etc., and Malik will oversee all editorial for the various properties (in addition to writing full time). The non-writing staff includes just two others at this point - Joanne Wan in business development and Mike Sly, the VP of Sales. The company will be hiring more people in sales and marketing in the near future, he says.
I’m not surprised at all by this move, since I went through it myself. When Om wrote about our hire of Heather Harde as CEO he mentioned how difficult it was to balance what he called “editorial tasks with chief janitorial duties.” It looks like he’s found the right guy to take over those “janitorial duties” for his business, too. Congratulations to the whole team.
In a phone call with Walborsky today, he said the company was planning on raising a new round of financing in the next 3-4 months to add to few hundred thousand they raised a year ago. Walborsky says they may do an internal round just with True Ventures, or bring in a new outside investor. No word on how much they’re going to raise, though.
