Marketing to the Non Geek
While I think, as well as most online observers, that the Netscape.com change is a good one, gradual change is commonly regarded as a good thing when it comes to changing a longstanding web brand like Netscape.
If you haven’t heard the web design story everyone is buzzing about:
release of the new Digg-style community news site Netscape.com, because there is a lot of
backlash within the Netscape community about it. A story called Netscape’s
Blunder!!! was number 1 on Netscape.com for a while and the latest post on the
homepage is entitled
A Request by the Netscape Community to Bring Back Our Netscape.com. There’s another
Netscape story currently on the homepage called Netscape
Reborn: Why? Why? Why?.
Netscapes Users
They aren’t geeks, but they are loyal. Through the AOL merger, the people who have kept the Netscape portal as their homepage are loyal. They assumed Netscape would remiain the same type of portal. When they arrived, with little or no warning, to find a new portal design, I’m sure they felt like they were being slapped.
Now, while this is a much more harsh reaction than most radical site design follies go, most experts suggest making web design changes slowly and with lots of warning.
Of course, hindsight is 20/20, so I can’t claim I would have done better, but gradual change does tend to work better when you are working with web design.
Tags: 2006, adi, aol, brand, buzz, community, digg, HP, hr, im, IT, marketing, news, online, readwriteweb, target, tech, tracking, trends, XP