Netscape
Communications Corp.
Wednesday purchased the NewHoo! Community
Directory Project as part of its initiative to launch an Internet
directory search service on its Netcenter portal.
Netscape said its new service, Netscape Open Directory, will be the first
Internet directory that uses more than 4,500 volunteer editors. The service
will be marketed using the tagline “NewHoo: HUMANS do it better.”
NewHoo! mimics Netscape rival Yahoo!.
Netscape said automated search engines are not comprehensive enough
and that search companies’ editorial staffs cannot keep up with the
ever-inceasing number of new Internet links and weeding out outdated links.
The NewHoo! directory, founded earlier this year, features more than
100,000 Web sites, segmented into 24,000 categories.
The Open Directory can also be used to offer recommended sites for Netscape
Smart Browsing service users, available via the Netscape
Communicator browser. Open Directory will be incorporated with current
Netscape Netcenter services and will be available through mozilla.org.
Netscape will offer Open Directory as a standalone directory, and plans to
integrate it with other Netcenter channels and services, including Smart
Browsing, Community Forums, My Netscape, Custom Netcenter and International
Netcenter.
“With the Internet growing rapidly and more services and content coming
online each day, the open community directory model pioneered by NewHoo!
offers the only solution to the problem of how to scale and organize the
Web,” said Mike Homer, executive vice president and general manager of
Netscape’s Netcenter division.
“Since its inception, and further evidenced through the
creation of mozilla.org, Netscape has been committed to fostering the
creative energies of the Internet community. The new Netscape Open
Directory furthers that commitment and we welcome NewHoo! and the thousands
of volunteer editors to the Netscape team as we create the most
comprehensive and interesting Web directory in the world,” Homer said.
“We started out with the vision and the model to build the largest and
highest quality, human-edited directory of the Internet,” said Rich Skrenta,
chief executive officer and co-founder of NewHoo! “We believe Netscape’s
spirit of open development, as demonstrated by mozilla.org, combined with the
portal strength of Netscape Netcenter will enable us to build the most
comprehensive and up-to-date Internet directory search service in the world.”
