Netscape offers cash to steal Diggers

Cory Bergman July 19th, 2006

You remember how Netscape relaunched a couple months ago with a site that’s nearly a direct copy of Digg? Now Netscape chief Jason Calcanis says he’ll pay $1,000 a month to Digg’s top contributors if they switch to his site. Why? Because Netscape’s user-created content is dragging. And much of Digg’s content, Calcanis explains, is posted by a small group of Digg fans. So he wants to steal up to a dozen of them, as well as top posters on sites like Newsvine. While the money is certainly attractive, Netscape is missing the point. Digg succeeds because it has built a community of loyal early adopters who thrive on Digg’s innovation, coolness and the Kevin Rose/Alex Albrecht effect (former TechTV hosts with a following, and now their Diggnation podcast is more watched than many cable TV shows.) So to succeed, Netscape should stop stealing and start innovating.