First off, a big thank you to all of the Netscape members that have submitted great feedback on the new My.Netscape site. We are evolving by leaps and bounds, and you are a big part of that evolution. Thanks!

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback that we have received thus far is that we should look into allowing people to log in using their AOL accounts that are currently used for Netscape/AOL mail, were once used for the previous My.Netscape site, and are used throughout the AOL network.

You sent this feedback, and we have been listening. In conjunction with AOL announcing its role as an OpenID provider, and spurred by the rapid pace by which OpenID is being adopted on the Web, on Monday, March 26th, Netscape will not only support signing in with your current AOL screen name, but also OpenID as a way of accessing Netscape.com and My.Netscape.

How does this all work?

In order to log in using your AOL screen name (or other OpenID), you will need to establish an account on Netscape.com. You can use an account already created, and associate an AOL screen name/OpenID with it, or create a new account, already associated with an AOL screen name/OpenID.

Figure 1 - New signup page, you will see options for signing up just to Netscape.com aka "Start from Scratch", signing up via AOL screen name, and signing up via OpenID.




You will notice that in introducing AOL Screen Name/OpenID sign in, that the registration form for Netscape accounts has been dramatically simplified. This simplification was a result from feedback gathered over the lifetime of the new Netscape.com site.

Why did I need to do all this, it seems just as complicated as before to sign up?

The usefulness of these new updates really comes into play after signup, when a member needs to log into Netscape.com or My.Netscape. This process is made even easier if you are already logged into the AOL network / OpenID provider. Take a look:

Figure 2 - Logging in via AOL Screen Name, not currently logged into the AOL network





Figure 3 - Logging in via AOL Screen Name while logged into the AOL network. If you are already logged into the AOL network, you can sign in just by entering your screen name!



Choosing to trust the AOL Screen Name / OpenID provider, indicated by "Remember this site" or "Trust this site" checkboxes/buttons on participating sites, can make login quite painless, even virtually automatic.

We at Netscape hope that these new changes help to ease the registering for new accounts, and also help give more sign in options to members. We are, as always, gathering feedback on making Netscape.com and My.Netscape better services, and hope that this contributes positively towards that goal.

At long last, the Netscape team is proud to release a Beta of the next generation My.Netscape, at: http://my.netscape.com

This site will be live tomorrow (Tuesday 3/6).

My.Netscape will retain its identity as a personalized homepage, with a minimum of ad clutter. The initial release will in fact have no ads at all! Our programming staff has worked hard to create a framework that allows for scalability and UI elegance.

We invite any and all feedback on bugs in the product and suggestions for how to better it. We will have a link to a feedback form to help in communicating your thoughts back to the development team, prominently featured at the top of the My Netscape page. We have a long list of extra features that we will add to the My Netscape experience as the weeks go by, but please do let us know how we are doing. We appreciate it!

We are also hard at work at finishing a migration feature that allows previous users of My.Netscape to import their stock portfolio and favorite bookmark preferences. We hope to have that available soon, keep an eye out.

In Figure 1 below, you will see the left side of the My.Netscape screen, including a configured Weather module. The modules can be dragged and dropped to enable easy configuration of your layout. Logging into the site with your existing Netscape.com username and password will allow you to save your module layouts and settings to view them from anywhere.

Figure 1:



In Figure 2, you will see the Add Content layer, which will allow you to easily add modules to your My.Netscape screen. We have just under 100 modules that can be added already, from the mainstream to the off beat, from niche categories to generic widgets. For those who have favorite RSS feeds that aren't listed, you can use our generic RSS feed reader. In most cases, it's as easy as clicking Add!

We hope that all of the folks who patiently waited for this release will enjoy using the new product. There's even a module for a game that many of you requested we resurrect when we launched the new Netscape.com last summer. :-)

Figure 2:

We've updated the Friends' Activity Sidebar Firefox extension to include the option to be notified of your friends' votes (in addition to their stories and comments). To use this new feature, install version 1.1 of the extension from Mozilla Addons, and after restarting your browser, open the FAS options dialog via Tools > Add-ons > Netscape Friends' Activity Sidebar > Options. Check the "Notify me of new votes by my friends." box and click OK.

In the spirit of holiday generosity, we give you this:

The Netscape Digg Tracker

Based on our own Friends' Activity Sidebar and by using the public Digg API, this extension allows you to monitor your friends' activities on Digg!

Netscape's Digg Tracker extension helps you keep tabs on what stories your Digg friends are submitting, commenting on, and digging. A new toolbar button (shown below) features the Digg mascot. When there is new activity by your friends (i.e., a new comment or a new story submission), the button will be activated and the digger will be shown with his shovel. Clicking on the activated button will open a list of your friends' activity in the sidebar, allowing you to easily browse the stories in which they're being active.


Figure 1: The two main states of the toolbar button.

Each time you view your friends' activity, you will only be shown activity that is new since the last time you opened the sidebar. In addition, the top 5 stories from Netscape.com will be shown below your friends' activity. At any time, you can click the toolbar button to view these links, even if there is no new activity to display. The extension defaults to showing you the submissions of the friends of Kevin Rose, Digg's founder and chief architect. You can have it alert you to your own friends' activities by entering your username in the options dialog.

Note: The sidebar limits activity to five stories/comments for each friend. To view more of a friend's recent activity, click on their avatar or username to be sent to that friend's profile.


Figure 2: Netscape's Digg Tracker Sidebar

Netscape's Digg Tracker is compatible with Firefox 1.5 through 2.0.0.* as well as the latest release of Flock and can be downloaded from Mozilla Addons.

Happy Holidays from Team Netscape to Team Digg!

Today we released two Firefox extensions that hook into Netscape.com: the Sitemail Notifier extension and the Friends' Activity Sidebar. We hope that these extensions will allow you to get even more value out of Netscape. Both extensions are compatible with Firefox 1.5 through 2.0.0.* as well as the latest release of Flock.

Sitemail Notifier

The Sitemail Notifier extension adds a button (shown below) to your toolbar that indicates when you have new sitemail messages at Netscape.com. Clicking the button will bring you to your messages page.


Figure 1: The two main states of the sitemail button.

Friends' Activity Sidebar

The Friends' Activity Sidebar (FAS) extension helps you keep tabs on what stories your Netscape friends are submitting and commenting on. A new toolbar button (shown below) features Chad, the older, more mature brother of AOL's little yellow chat mascot. When there is new activity by your friends (i.e., a new comment or a new story submission), the button will be activated and Chad will send a friendly wave your way. Clicking on the activated button will open a list of your friends' activity in the sidebar, allowing you to easily browse their stories and comments. Each time you view your friends' activity, you will only be shown activity that is new since the last time you opened the sidebar.


Figure 2: The two main states of the FAS button.

Note: The sidebar limits activity to five stories/comments for each friend. To view more of a friend's recent activity, click on their avatar or username to be sent to that friend's profile.


Figure 3: The Friends' Activity Sidebar

Suggestions for future extensions or improvements on these extensions are most definitely welcome.

We rolled out two major changes to the Netscape video player today:

1. You can now syndicate videos in a cleaner, more minimalistic video player:



As you can see, the title bar is hidden, as are most of the icons on the splash screen. To use this player on your site, simply replace the "embed" in the syndication code with "embed-c":

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.netscape.com/embed-c/480/HZLODVUCOSGKKVGKGWYR"></script>

The "c" stands for "cause you're worth it!"

2. Netscape Video now supports all video aspect ratios!

You can now upload videos to Netscape in any aspect ratio (standard 4:3, 16:9 widescreen, anamorphic widescreen, etc.), and the player will resize to fit, keeping the title bar and the controls a constant height:



The iPod-compatible version of the video will be presented using the original dimensions as well. For those of you keeping score at home, that makes Netscape the only major video sharing service to offer this kind of aspect-ratio-indifference. Happy uploading!

The Netscape development team is happy to announce documentation on our existing APIs, located at: http://www.netscape.com/api

Details on our RSS feeds, syndicated voting, FeedBurner feedflares, Video Syndication, Podcasts and Story submission bookmarklet can all be found on this page, with more great APIs to come. This page will become our API Central, where developers/integrators can come back often to see notes on improved and new APIs.

Comments and questions are welcome here, or you can always bug our resident api nerd, Chris Finke. :)