AOL's Calacanis offers "truce" to enraged Netscape.com fans

OUTSPOKEN ENTREPRENEUR turned AOL exec Jason Calacanis is offering a "truce" to Netscape.com portal visitors who voiced their displeasure about Jason's new "social news" pet project which destroyed the old Netscape.com web portal they learned to love in the process.

In his blog, Calacanis asks for a "truce" saying: "What if we created a view of the site that was programmed by our Anchors. In other words, we had a view just for you guys which was professionally produced?". Interestingly, this was the kind of portal that Netscape.com was before Calacanis' "vision" kicked in. He continues "It might be really interesting to switch views between the user voted listed and a list that is professional pulled together and that doesn't have votes and comments. What do you old-schoolers think?". This is exactly what I wrote yesterday in my article about the sad and impending shutdown of Netscape Webmail in about a month, that Calacanis' new "social news" project did not necessarily had to mean the destruction of the old and well working portal.

Some responses and comments in Calacanis' blog have been harsh: "I find AOL's comments in the press that the revamped Netscape.com product is being well received to be extremely suspect. The very audience they are trying to court -- the Web 2.0 and "social web/interactive" audience -- are the ones posting negative feedback in the thousands", says one visitor, who ends with "What am I missing, Jason?. Bring back the old Netscape.com, as it was, as your users apparently want it to be, and put a peaceful end to an unwelcome and poorly executed product".

Other visitors apparently didn't took the "truce" offer too seriously: ""Jason, you're down 86-0 and as the clock winds down you call for a tie?" asks a visitor. Another comment asks an intelligent question, that I have asked myself: ""If a traditional portal is "Old School" and this is the future, why doesn't AOL.com take this design and revert Netscape.com back to it's "Old School" format? After all, doesn't AOL want to win in the portal business and be on the cutting edge of the future?".

Visitors are punching Mr. Calacanis, and it should be noted that apparently he is not censoring such negative comments on his blog. "You wanted to finally know what the users thought and what they wanted. It's pretty obvious. Don't re-invent the wheel and don't fix something that "ain't broke". Just recognize an error when you've made one, learn your lesson and put things back the way they were. THEN, if you want to establish a link for the social, blog and voting features, make THAT a link. There's lose-win-win for you. I'd think anything less would be irresponsible" concludes another.

Some observers and critics of Calacanis seem to have -or claim to have- some knowledge about the AOL management scenario, for instance, in the comments for an article comparing the "New Netscape" portal to the "New Coke" fiasco, a reader writes: "The wants and needs of the Netscape user base was not taken into consideration. The previous change to the Netscape portal was not well received and was promptly turned off. That's how Mr. Calacanis ended up with it, Miller and (Ted) Leonsis needed something to crush his spirit since they had just purchased Weblogs. There's no better way to get rid of an exec than giving them Netscape to change. There's plenty of info on the Netscape user base and everyone knew they were happy with what they had. Truly, it doesn't matter to Jason if you or anyone else likes the new Netscape".

The "apparent insider" concludes that "He's been given budget to run Netscape (into the ground) for a year and that what he'll do. He doesn't care if you like it, he's already got his. And there's will always be enough hanger-ons telling him it's great, that's he'll never pay attention to the unwashed masses that aren't Web 2.0 compliant".

This scribbler admits in shame that other than being a subscriber during a brief period of time to the "Silicon Alley" print magazine he started in the mid-90s, I had not heard much about this man Jason Calacanis before the "new Netscape" move, but I surely find him an interesting character. He seems to be loved or hated in cyberspace, and he is surely outspoken. For instance, he said he didn't fear AOL's involvement in the weblogs space would "screw it up", saying in an interview "in the worst-case scenario, whatever, no reason to cry for me. I could start a company tomorrow".

Calacanis also seems to think that the Redmond giant is now "playing nice" to competitors, despite the company's track record of trying to destroy AOL for years. I'm sure Microsoft would love to have Calacanis on its defense team for the company's current woes with Adobe, the European Union antitrust watchdog, and South Korea among others, by saying "Microsoft is playing nice in the ecosystem", contrary to the opinions of almost anyone who tried to do business against the software behemoth's bundled products subsidized by the Office and Windows preloads cash cows. This is strange for someone working at a company which has been in the cross hair of the Redmond juggernaut for years.

Will Jason Calacanis succeed in lowering criticism of his new online venture by users dissatisfied with the Netscape.com portal change?. Will the surfers who want an "old school portal" get it back? Will Calacanis deliver the "truce" he promised?. Only time will tell. And of course, if he wants to comment on this whole debate to INQ readers in an e-mail interview, this scribbler is open to such opportunity to voice his side of the story. µ

See Also
Users petition to 'save the old Netscape.com'
Netscape.com "community backlash after site redesign" (July 1, 2006)
Old Netscape coots invade Jason Calacanis' blog
AOL's Calacanis on the 're-launch of Netscape.com' as Digg clone
AOL copies Digg
New Netscape.com did not catch on, claim
Interactive Netscape site gets some sour responses (NY Times)