Netscape Trying to Buy Off the Big Diggers
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Written By Reprise Media | July 19, 2006 | Share This
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Saying “Everyone’s gotta eat,” Jason Calacanis wrote on his blog yesterday that AOL’s Netscape, recently relaunched as a community-tagged news site, is ready to shell out 1,000 clams a month for the “’social bookmarking’ rights” of the “top 50 users on any of the major social news/bookmarking sites.” That would come to a sizable second income of $12,000 a year for any of the elite users of “DIGG/REDDIT/Flickr/Newsvine” who are ready to sell out to The Man.
That’s how the debate is largely being framed, anyway: community vs. mercenary, soul vs. greed (er, ‘not money’ vs. ‘money’). Whichever way you slice it, Netscape’s ploy is a touchy subject. While it might seem that collectively-run sites like Digg (where anyone can submit links for perusal) are anathema to the idea of individual persuasion, Michael Arrington points out that many of Digg’s most popular stories come from a relative handful of users. For whatever reason, those folks have a talent for, well, bookmarking that most others lack.
But here comes Jason Calacanis with promises to line pockets in exchange for putting in “at least 150 stories a month,” and more than a few people smell a rat. Arrington calls it desperation from AOL, which has taken its lumps online with successive offerings (not just the new Netscape) that are Johnny-come-lately reproductions of successful existing sites. The brand new attempts have been greeted with a collective shrug, and Netscape (which had maintained a large following in its previous permutation) almost seemed to be facing a revolt from users who neither cared for nor understood the whole tagging thing.
Calacanis responds to TechCrunch criticism (including the oft-repeated notion from the comments section that he just doesn’t “get” why people Digg) by saying that the monetization idea had been “in the plan since day one,” and to give the new look Netscape “six months” to find its footing. Now, we can’t predict what will happen to AOL and its various holdings, Netscape included. We only know that things aren’t looking so hot right now. Nevertheless, the idea of paying good money to the ‘net’s top social newsmakers strikes us as a ‘why not?’ proposition. Calacanis reminds us in his post that people doubted blogs-for-bucks three years ago. Even if this new idea isn’t one whose time has come, we’re interested to see it tried out.
Topics: Social Media |