Interview with Netscape Director, Tom Drapeau

Last week, Netscape Director Tom Drapeau responded to a post that suggested that the current social news voting version of Netscape was closing. I thought it would be interesting to learn more about Netscape so I asked Tom to chat with me about the current product and where it is headed. Tom accepted and our discussion is below. I tried to get the "secret sauce" out of him, even threatening him with bringing Calacanis back to Netscape (lol) but he wouldn't budge.

Allen: Tom, can we start with a brief bio?

Tom: Sure! I love solving problems, which is my career passion. I have been working on websites for a little over a decade, mostly as part of core engineering teams. I worked for Barnes & Noble during barnesandnoble.com's early days; Yahoo! HotJobs for a little under 3 years, doing mostly search engine integration, tuning, and performance; Ask Jeeves, where I worked on their Smiley Central products; and I joined AOL in March of 2006, where I was an engineer on the initial social news buildout, and transitioned into leadership at AOL/Netscape 6 months ago. I feel lucky to be part of Netscape, which is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating stories in internet history.

Allen: What is your position with Netscape?

Tom: I am the Director of Netscape, which encompasses all new Netscape activity. This includes Netscape.com, the social news site, My.Netscape, the start page, and the Netscape Navigator v9 browser line.

Allen: Can you provide an overview of what Netscape is today?

Tom: Netscape means different things to different people, as it has had a long and storied history. Today's Netscape is focused on helping people find the things they are looking for, which is a shared concept with the social news site, start page, and browser.

Allen: For someone new to Netscape, how does the voting mechanism work? How does a story reach the front page?

Tom: On Netscape, voting for a story means that you have read the story and agree that it is an interesting piece of social news, worth showing to others. The front page algorithm takes into account the number of votes on the story, along with other factors such as the number of members commenting on the story, and the story's age. Netscape is also a moderated site, and as such, we take into account member reports on stories to make sure that accuracy is maintained, links are correct, etc. Mix this together, add some special sauce :), and there you have it!

Allen: What's the team like at Netscape?

Tom: The Netscape team is a pleasure to work with. The talent, dedication, and energy they bring to the product is refreshing. We have writers, reporters, engineers, and designers on staff, all of whom work remotely (we have staff in New York and Orlando, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and all parts in between). The ideas that come out of this group are truly amazing, and their execution is tremendous. The team brings great joy to building fun products, which makes my job pretty simple.

Allen: What is the reporting relationship of Netscape to AOL?

Tom: Netscape exists in the AOL Products division, specifically under Messaging & Social Media.

Allen: What categories are the strongest/weakest on Netscape?

Tom: Politics and News are the clear winners on Netscape.com, as far as posting stories and comment participation go. There are a few categories out there that get less postings, which we are looking to combine in upcoming releases to increase interest.

Allen: Who is your average user (age, sex, etc.)?

Tom: Netscape.com has a great demographic diversity. The crowd that participates regularly on the site tends to be older than on other social news sites, which I personally think improves the quality of discussions in most cases.

Allen: Do you pay users to submit stories or comments?

Tom: We have a group of members under contract that make up our Scout program. They are paid for several activities, including posting stories, engaging in thoughtful conversations in comment threads, and keeping an eye out for spam. The Scouts have suggested more than a few features that we have eventually implemented on the site, and the program has also earned lots of positive reactions from the press. You can always identify the Scouts by the badge that appears next to their names on the site.

Allen: I see you offer some APIs - got any stories to share of great integrations?

Tom: I don't have any particular story to highlight, but there have been several fun integrations I've seen in my time. We love these, and encourage them. We will be releasing newer and better APIs to allow more such integrations in the coming weeks and months.

Allen: How do you respond to people when they ask you if you are a Digg clone?

Tom: I have a lot of good things to say about Digg. However, Netscape has a very different community of folks contributing to the site, and the Netscape model differs from Digg in our editorial approach. I would say that Digg inspired aspects of Netscape.com, but I would say that it isn't fair to label Netscape a clone. I feel that as long as Netscape maintains a growing, thriving community, and adds to social news, it has fulfilled its purpose and should be allowed to stand on its own.

Allen: What does the future (1 year) hold for Netscape?

Tom: A lot! We have a massive new Netscape.com release that the engineers have been working feverishly on, which will implement a lot of the feedback we have received from Netscape members over the last year. We will be expanding the social news site into different international markets as well, which should be exciting. I am curious to see up close how different countries use social news sites.

Allen: Last question, what RSS feeds are you reading these days?

Tom: I still read Slashdot, to satisfy the inner geek. :) Beyond that, I read a bunch of blogs to keep up with other social releases (see what the Joneses are doing), a little gossip on Valleywag (a guilty pleasure, I know), and lately, I've been having a great time reading Marc Andreeson's blog, which is fantastic. My own blogging activities have been centered largely on pictures of my newborn son David, and amusing things he does at 7 weeks old.

Thanks for spending time with me today Tom!