For anyone tracking the continued devaluation of “news anchors” in American public life, this morning marks a milestone of sorts — or is it a millstone?
Today, AOL launched a preview of its newly reconfigured version of Netscape.com. The one-time search engine will now serve as a news aggregator overseen by a team of bloggers given the hefty titles of (forgive us, Walter Cronkite) news “anchors.”
“In attempt to revive an aging but still well-known Internet brand, AOL is turning its Netscape.com site into a collection of links to news articles, submitted by users and expanded upon by a staff of bloggers,” reported the New York Times today.
“The new Netscape site, which is scheduled to be introduced in a preview version today, will also invite users to nominate and vote on articles,” added the Times. “And it will have 30 categories, including technology, politics, music, science, religion and one called ‘Do no evil,’ which will deal with stories about heroes and villains.”
Sound familiar? Aggregate some news items and then comment on them?
Right off the bat, myriad bloggers pounced on the preview site, denouncing it as a hackneyed rip-off of the technology-focused Web site Digg.com.
“So AOL/Netscape put out their Digg clone (and you really can’t call it anything but a ‘clone’),” writes Basement.org. “One observation about Netscape going this route: to the rest of the world — the legions of Internet users that are not 2.0-savvy, this very well will be perceived as a new, neat invention.”
Perhaps in an effort to stave off that possibility, this morning readers voted a story to the top of the Netscape site with the headline “AOL Copies Digg.”
“AOL/Netscape launched a beta version of its new news portal today where they basically just rip off Digg.com’s idea,” writes BlogNYC. “It’s already backfiring. The number one story voted on by users today is how AOL stole the idea from Digg.”
Others have sized up the imitation as a form of flattery.
“You know when somebody’s onto a good thing when it gets cloned by one of the ‘big boys,'” writes Wad Blog. “Although the ‘imitation being flattery’ analogy probably irritates the Digg crew.”
Others saw the redesign as a significant new investment in the fading Netscape brand.
“The fact that AOL is launching the new service under the Netscape brand instead of building out a new property says how serious they are about the space,” notes Tech Crunch.
Other bloggers apparently feel that in the Internet age imitation is inevitable.
“Comparisons have already been made to Newsvine and Digg by media outlets like Red Herring and InformationWeek, but I’m not going to call them copycats as many others will,” writes Mike Davidson. “Everything’s been done before in one fashion or another and to accuse a new player of just ripping off an existing idea is to discount any and all creativity they may bring to the table.”
And finally, we found one blogger who is excited by the new site.
“The new Netscape.com is a winner,” writes Micro Persuasion. “It brings together the best of the old world and the new to create a new media model for the 21st century. Whether it succeeds or fails in pulling in users from other sites like Digg is irrelevant.”
“AOL will put massive marketing dollars behind this to attract users not to mention advertisers,” adds Micro Persuasion. “It is also extremely refreshing to see AOL breathe new life into the Netscape brand in such a meaningful way.”
Felix Gillette writes about the media for The New York Observer.