Nonsensor.

Jason's getting hammered today with comments from people who are apparently very unhappy about the new Netscape. My first random thought was that I'd hate to be Andy the designer right now, as it's a well known fact that the average person doesn't have a great vocabulary for design or functionality (why should they, it's not their job), so they tend to go after the design or look and feel randomly. Such as a commenter who feels that the site is "chaotic in presentation," but gives as an example the fact that links may go to unverified news sources. Obviously not Andy's fault. For what it's worth, he's a great designer who I feel did a great job. I think the site has a much more friendly and fun look to it, and the people who are complaining otherwise most likely feel there can't be anything friendly about the unfamilar (valid, in a way).

We are, after all, dealing with people who may or may not know the difference between the browser and the site, or that Netscape is not in control of the NY Times' online subscription requests. Not trying to be insulting-- but some folks have a difficult time with the concept of the internet in the first place (the esteemed Senator from Alaska), and now we're shoving web 2.0 down their throats? Some resistance should be expected. I wonder if this broadsided Jason and the Netscape team, what with trying to cool down the Digg crowd most of this time.

Of course you have to be sympathetic to the constituency. There were enough of them there to make Netscape look like a viable option for revitalization, thanks to decent traffic numbers. But even people who have kept the same musty home page on their browser for years unfortunately will probably have to face something important about the nature of the internet, namely that it's ever changing. And they'll probably have to deal with some things that are new to the internet:

• Social news is for real. It's a proven model (though yes, with critics who more often than not have excellent points we should all be thinking about), and I'm still in accordance with the idea of putting the anchors in there to supplement. Maybe that aspect should be stressed more: not only does it separate Netscape from Digg, it should ease some perceptions of how reliable the sources are.
• Those sources are not always going to be the MSM news sources people are used to.
  
• Conversation is a big part of the game these days. The Web seems to be the modern convergence point of internet technology, including conversation. To the news-lovers who read Netscape, it's probably kids' stuff. I cite the commenter who likened the experience to being "in a chatroom."

In short: not everyone follows the heartbeat of the internet. And not everyone shares Jason's (and my) idealism and enthusiasm about citizen journalism, bottom-up programming, and social networks. And so what some people on the bleeding edge may have thought was the bloated corpse of web 1.0 re-animating, Romero style, turns out to be a living, breathing entity that still has a good bit of life left in it.

[Update] Jason's even proposed reviving a "classic.netscape.com" or something of the like, for the people who really like their Lindsay Lohan news to be professionally created, and their portals heavy on the intrusively annoying 1997 DHTML. This has been met with more scorn from the highly vocal sector of the population we like to call "the minority" but may not be the case.

I'm reminded of a friend of mine who tried to start doing electronic and underground rock shows at a pool bar in my somewhat rough and tumble industrial (honky) neighborhood back in the 'burgh. The shows were great, the bar was cheap, and everyone who played or came to the shows loved it, but eventually we had to stop because the bands were getting beat up by the regulars. Will Jason/Netscape crack? Or is dissatisfying the older, "less savvy" portion of the internet par for the course with AOL's customer base?

Is give the New Netscape a chance. I recently created a user account, went through some stories, commented and voted on some, and got together a friends list of people I know (granted, they're developers and anchors). While it's still got kinks, the whole process was very smooth and I'd be incredibly proud if I were Alex or anyone involved.

But it's really discouraging, the number of beta users who are just there to make pro-Digg (or, more accurately, anti-Netscape) comments. There are numerous reasons why the ridiculously simplistic "Netscape is a Digg ripoff" argument is frustratingly tired already.

1. The target demographic has overlap, but is in large part very different. What's wrong with bringing the ideas behind the very nerdy (face it) Digg to the masses? I'm talking people with "@aol.com" at the end of their addresses. Or your dad. As Jason argued, consider it flattery because Digg innovated. Sure, many innovators in history never get their due, but I think Digg's already gotten theirs. The Sex Pistols didn't innovate much beyond what the Ramones did, but they did have their own take on it. They drove it to greater commercial success, but that hardly stopped people from writing about or listening to the Ramones. (pop music metaphors, it's all I got.)
2. The anchor thing. It's been pushed again and again, but people aren't hearing it. I think the reason for that is that anchors are still serving at their base minimum functionality. Pretty soon you're going to see a lot more stuff happening on the anchor side of things.
   

And to that end, I think the attacks from the extremes of the Digg camp (acting as if they were endorsed by Digg itself, or possibly Jesus) prove why the anchor idea is going to be at least useful, at best revolutionary in the social news space. Very few articulated responses or arguments have hit our doorstep, mostly it's just random cries of "ripoff" riddled infinite variations of spelling and grammar. I'm not saying that's everyone - in fact, there have been some great arguments that lead to decent discourse, but those seem to be the exception. What does that prove to me? It proves that people aren't thinking this out. They're following the hive mind effect. The same one that gets O'Reilley writers' Wikipedia pages loaded with slander. You can see it anywhere on the web with a large user base, from Slashdot's anti-Microsoft bias to a Something Awful thread where members step dangerously close to the wrong side of legality in the name of some kind of perceived retribution.

Again, I'm not saying that the Digg model is bad, but it does open the way for that sort of mob mentality, and right now Netscape - which, ironically, just may have one solution for the effect - is the Frankenstein's monster running from the torches.