Update: Netscape's GM, Jason Calacanis, responds to the report Netscape's traffic has plummeted saying
my headline is misleading and that he had anticipated bad raw numbers. "The web traffic after you take that out is actually up, and being up in August is a good thing because this is the slowest month of the year."
The new Netscape is yesterday's news.
In three months, and since the debut of Netscape's venture into presenting news channels influenced by visitors' recommendations, its popularity has plummeted, according to analysis by Alexa.com.
Three months ago, Netscape,com was the 238th most visited site. This week Alexa calculated it was in 438th place. It's been downhill for Netscape since late 2004, despite numerous efforts at reformatting and re-launching.
According to Alexa, as many as 15% of visitors may not even be aware of all the changes. They come to the site to do e-mail; 6% use search, and 4% come because it was the default home page on their Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) computers. That site, hp.netscape.com, by the way, is an AOL.com page "presented by HP."
As for the 30 new "channels" of news, not much action there, either. "Tech" is the most popular, drawing visits from 2% of the users, ahead of the 1% that goes to "Celebrities." None of the other channels registers much more than a blip.
Netscape's (TWX) general manager has heard criticism like this before. In response, Jason Calacanis has faulted Alexa for its methodology and that its statistics gathering tools are not compatible with all browsers. So far, though, he's not responded to this latest swipe - which surfaced at Digg.com. Usually he's quick off the line.
Disclaimer: I own shares of Time Warner.
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