Digg and Netscape.com are both popular internet news sites that base the content of their front pages primarily on electronic votes cast by users on stories that other users have submitted. Back in June 2006 when the newly designed Netscape.com launched there was a lot of controversy about the new site’s relationship to Digg. Was it a Digg clone? What were the moral implications of Netscape head Jason Calacanis offering to pay the top users on Digg to work for him on Netscape? Would the huge Netscape.com traffic numbers convert to the sort of participation that Digg was enjoying?
Now that the dust has settled nearly a year after the launch of both sites what do they both have to offer to potential users and which one is better? Read on for my perspective on the answers.
The first thing you notice about Digg and Netscape is that stories on the netscape front page generally have less total votes than those on the Digg front page. For example the top 5 stories on the Digg front page as I write this have vote totals ranging between about 1800 and 600 whereas the top 5 stories on the Netscape front page range between about 120 and about 40. Part of this is the way that Netscape promotes stories to the front page (more on this later) but the primary reason is that Netscape just isn’t as popular right now as Digg. What this means to you as a user is that there is a greater chance of poorer quality stories appearing on the Netscape front page because the popularity bar is set that much lower. The lowest voted story on the Digg front page at the moment has 118 votes. The lowest on the Netscape front page has just 6.
The second thing to note about Digg and Netscape is that Netscape tends to have a greater diversity of stories on the front page than Digg has. The Digg front page is exclusively technology stories whereas Netscape picks the top stories from each of the site categories as well as putting stories that their “anchors” recommend at the top of the page. Diggs roots are in technology and this is primarily what their user base will vote on so that is what you will see on their front page. Netscape is trying to grow a user base in many areas including politics so they seed their front page with items from other categories.
Now you have an idea of the general character of the two sites I’m going to drill down on one of the things that will really differentiate them: the User Interface (UI). If you, as a user, don’t find the UI intuitive and responsive then you are less likely to spend time using the site.
The Digg interface strikes me as being clean and functional. The pale yellow boxes with “Digg It” make it easy to see where to vote. Most of the time the thing you want to do is read the story at the original site so that is what the story title link does and the page opens in a new window so you don’t lose your place. The comments link at the bottom takes you to the comments page just like in a regular blog post. There are also blog it, email and bury links on each story. The links to different categories and subcategories are placed at the top of the page where they are easy to see. There is another tab you can select if you want to see stories that have not yet reached “popular” status such as stories just submitted. I generally browse through the popular stories and then go to the upcoming tab and vote for a few newly submitted stories.
The Netscape interface seems more cluttered to me but that could be my aesthetic sense. Below the number of votes there are vote and sink buttons, making it more likely that people will express positive and negative opinions. Digg tends to want you to have a good reason to bury a story. There are no blog or email links (score 1 point to Digg). The thing I find most annoying though is that the title link takes you to the discuss the story page and not to the story itself. I generally want to read the story before I discuss it so this seems bizarre to me. You have to remember to click the “View Story” link at the bottom. There is also a discuss link that also takes you to the discuss the story page - 2 links doing the same thing - not good in my book. When you click on the “View Story” link the story opens in the same browser window with a Netscape frame on the left hand side taking up screen real estate alongside the story. On this frame there are links to related stories and voting buttons as well as “Back to Netscape” and “Close This Frame” links. Bizarrely the back to Netscape link takes you to - you guessed it - the discuss the story page even if you had just come from the front page. To get back to the summary you then have to click “back” on your browser twice. On the Netscape front page there is no way to view upcoming stories and vote for them other than clicking through multiple pages of popular stories. The category navigation is in a box on the side.
So which site would I vote for? Digg. The Netscape site just doesn’t have the critical mass of users or stories at present and their interface is clunky and difficult to use whereas Digg does what it does and does it well.
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on Monday, May 28th, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under tech.
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Digg and Netscape.com are both popular internet news sites that base the content of their front pages primarily on electronic votes cast by users on stories that other users have submitted. Back in June 2006 when the newly designed Netscape.com launched there was a lot of controversy about the new site’s relationship to Digg. Was it a Digg clone? What were the moral implications of Netscape head Jason Calacanis offering to pay the top users on Digg to work for him on Netscape? Would the huge Netscape.com traffic numbers convert to the sort of participation that Digg was enjoying?
Now that the dust has settled nearly a year after the launch of both sites what do they both have to offer to potential users and which one is better? Read on for my perspective on the answers.
The first thing you notice about Digg and Netscape is that stories on the netscape front page generally have less total votes than those on the Digg front page. For example the top 5 stories on the Digg front page as I write this have vote totals ranging between about 1800 and 600 whereas the top 5 stories on the Netscape front page range between about 120 and about 40. Part of this is the way that Netscape promotes stories to the front page (more on this later) but the primary reason is that Netscape just isn’t as popular right now as Digg. What this means to you as a user is that there is a greater chance of poorer quality stories appearing on the Netscape front page because the popularity bar is set that much lower. The lowest voted story on the Digg front page at the moment has 118 votes. The lowest on the Netscape front page has just 6.
The second thing to note about Digg and Netscape is that Netscape tends to have a greater diversity of stories on the front page than Digg has. The Digg front page is exclusively technology stories whereas Netscape picks the top stories from each of the site categories as well as putting stories that their “anchors” recommend at the top of the page. Diggs roots are in technology and this is primarily what their user base will vote on so that is what you will see on their front page. Netscape is trying to grow a user base in many areas including politics so they seed their front page with items from other categories.
Now you have an idea of the general character of the two sites I’m going to drill down on one of the things that will really differentiate them: the User Interface (UI). If you, as a user, don’t find the UI intuitive and responsive then you are less likely to spend time using the site.
The Digg interface strikes me as being clean and functional. The pale yellow boxes with “Digg It” make it easy to see where to vote. Most of the time the thing you want to do is read the story at the original site so that is what the story title link does and the page opens in a new window so you don’t lose your place. The comments link at the bottom takes you to the comments page just like in a regular blog post. There are also blog it, email and bury links on each story. The links to different categories and subcategories are placed at the top of the page where they are easy to see. There is another tab you can select if you want to see stories that have not yet reached “popular” status such as stories just submitted. I generally browse through the popular stories and then go to the upcoming tab and vote for a few newly submitted stories.
The Netscape interface seems more cluttered to me but that could be my aesthetic sense. Below the number of votes there are vote and sink buttons, making it more likely that people will express positive and negative opinions. Digg tends to want you to have a good reason to bury a story. There are no blog or email links (score 1 point to Digg). The thing I find most annoying though is that the title link takes you to the discuss the story page and not to the story itself. I generally want to read the story before I discuss it so this seems bizarre to me. You have to remember to click the “View Story” link at the bottom. There is also a discuss link that also takes you to the discuss the story page - 2 links doing the same thing - not good in my book. When you click on the “View Story” link the story opens in the same browser window with a Netscape frame on the left hand side taking up screen real estate alongside the story. On this frame there are links to related stories and voting buttons as well as “Back to Netscape” and “Close This Frame” links. Bizarrely the back to Netscape link takes you to - you guessed it - the discuss the story page even if you had just come from the front page. To get back to the summary you then have to click “back” on your browser twice. On the Netscape front page there is no way to view upcoming stories and vote for them other than clicking through multiple pages of popular stories. The category navigation is in a box on the side.
So which site would I vote for? Digg. The Netscape site just doesn’t have the critical mass of users or stories at present and their interface is clunky and difficult to use whereas Digg does what it does and does it well.
This entry was posted
on Monday, May 28th, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under tech.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
