Netscape vs Digg

Wed, 26 July 2006

A little while ago Netscape revamped their website to include service similar to that of Digg, where users will contribute stories and then vote/digg them so that most popular stuff comes to the screen near you. Those that are not so popular will slowly get burried (un-scaped?) and disappear into the deep waters of internet.
Netscape has been  accused of plagiarism, taking others’ ideas to build own business and what not. But now, there is another twist. Netscape’s boss Jason Calacanis invites top Digg  submitters to ‘work’ for Netscape, promising to pay the $1,000 a month if they digg… submit 150 stories in that month.

Kevin Rose, da Digg-man, got upset and reacted publicly to Jason’s actions. Jason didn’t wait too long before blasting Kevin’s coments in public arena as well. Leo Laporte comes into the picture with his comments as well, I can’t wait to hear the next edition of This Week in Tech.

But what will really happen?  I makes me think back 20 years, when I was growing up in eastern Europe.

We used to play a really good basketball and we loved it. Here and there we would give the Yanks run for their money but we were no real match for their ’stars’.  Then they started buying our best players, one by one they went over the big pond but rarely one made it into the stars over there.

Meanwhile, we had an endless supply, new players came to the scene and no matter how many Yanks bought, we could ‘produce’ more. Yanks never realised why European players were so good on one side of the ocean and so ordinary on the other. They never realised that we play as a team, while they play as individuals, or as stars as they like to call themselves.

Eventually their dollar for player couldn’t match our love for the game. What we have now are the coutnries of the size of Iowa and population of Philadelphia that have no fear of “The Dream Team”

So, once the top-fifty contributors are off to Netscape, another fifty will come. Seeing this as opportunity to make a buck at Netscape they’ll do a pretty good job at Digg. They will be replaced with yet another fifty and another fifty and so on.

But what happens to those who come to Netscape ? When you digg for glory you digg a good stuff. When you submit for money, you’ll put any junk in just to meet the target.

Stumble it!

• MS Explorer chrashes, Outlook not good
• Busted your iPod earbuds? Get them replaced for free
• DiggUpdate 1.0
• Leopard Dock with black triangle
• Happy Birthday !

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Posted in Technology