July 17, 2006 Interactive Netscape Site Gets Some Sour Responses By MARIA ASPAN NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/technology/17netscape.html?pagewanted=print Netscape may be known now for losing the so-called browser war to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. But Netscape.com, the default home page for users of the fading browser, continues to have its following so much so that when its owner, AOL, tried to update it last month, it received some surprisingly angry feedback. AOL, part of Time Warner, formally introduced a redesigned version of Netscape.com on June 29, after offering a preview version for two weeks. The new site, modeled after Digg.com, was a news site where users essentially help editors create the home page by submitting and voting on the articles and other links posted there. The new format seemed aimed at attracting and engaging visitors in the increasingly interactive style of social news, or blog aggregator Web sites. But instead of embracing the new format, some of the sites longtime fans used those interactive features to vehemently protest the change. One dismayed user posted an item titled Netscapes blunder!!! on Netscape.com a few hours after the redesigned site was online. It elicited more than 300 comments, including pleas to please bring the old Netscape.com back. A petition soon followed. On July 1, Bert Lao, a U.C.L.A. graduate student who said he began visiting the Netscape.com portal site years ago as a teenager, posted an item on the new Web site about his petition requesting that the company bring back our Netscape.com. Mr. Lao, who used the Internet alias Ernie Jenkins, said the petition received more than 1,000 electronic signatures before Netscape removed his entry from the top stories page and closed all comments. That signified to me that Netscape had no interest in hearing the opinions of those who wanted the old Netscape.com back, he said. The petition now has more than 1,300 signatures. A spokesman for AOL, Andrew Weinstein, said that the signers were a very small percentage of Netscapes users and that early feedback had been largely favorable. We want all of our users to be happy, Mr. Weinstein said. But he acknowledged that almost any change is likely to cause some concern in a subgroup of users. ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
