This post continues from my previous post Netscape Does a Digg.
HATE IT!!!!! HATE IT!!!! HATE IT!!!!
Goes an existing Netscape user "fivepip". It seems that Netscape's users are not interested to have Digg Styled -- User Powered News -- on a daily basis.
Esentially what users are complaining about is the disregard Netscape has shown in differentiating between a Portal's Home Page and User Generated/Powered Content/News. In a Tech world where apparently Google or Web 2.0 tend to be projected as the two "sexy" words that are sure to grab media/blogoshpere attention -- Netscape may have committed a serious error in ignoring its user base. It forgot that Google (GOOG) is also desperately trying to get the look and traffic that Portalized Yahoo! Inc (YHOO) has.
Users prefer to log onto a home page where they get access to their mail, other online services, and an aggregation of daily news updates from well-regarded Media sources. This very Web 1.0 need is going to stay! As two articulate and irritated users of Netscape state:
1) The old Home page was a summarization of everything on one page...The old home page saved me tremendous time in the morning and throughout the day, kept me up to date on what is going on in the world as a quick review in whatever, I selected to read, with this being said, Not everybody wants to read the same thing running down a long list of activities.
Now...I lost interest by losing precious time in trying to find wherever everything is located and as to what's going on in the world by trying to use your site. Please go back to the old format soon before, I and everybody else decides to go searching for or switch onto your competitor.
2) I don't like this new format. I want a home page which gives me a quick look at the news and other important information when I log on. This isn't it. This may appeal more to children and therefore be a good move from a commercial vewpoint, but I'm looking elsewhere.
When Yahoo! Inc (YHOO) changed its Home Page -- it made the change with a lot of care. There was (and is) a way to get the "old" Yahoo Home Page Look. Imagine being the first page that 400 million users log into every day and being changed drastically without their permission!
I hope that Netscape takes a cue from its disgruntled users and fixes their woes. Digg is not a home page -- its a user driven news site. Digg should feel flattered by the copying Netscape did of it -- not worried about some new competition. Digg lacks very little of what Netscape has to offer. On the other hand Netscape just managed to piss of its own user-base and possibly sent them to its competitor -- Yahoo!
