Netscape Navigator: Rest in Peace

NETSCAPE Navigator, the once ubiquitous web browser that fired the starter’s gun on the dotcom boom in the 1990’s, has passed away quietly, apparently unlamented.

Online giant AOL, which acquired Netscape Communications in 1999, announced it will no longer support the Netscape Navigator – having left both the brand and the browser to wither so long it was beyond revival.

In a short tumultuous life, Netscape rose from obscurity to become a house hold name and the darling of the share markets, before attracting an inevitable corporate suitor in AOL, which abandoned the still immature Navigator.

It was just 13 years old.

The Netscape story is a cautionary tale. It began at the University of Illinois where student programmer Marc Andreessen developed the Mosaic browser, the web pioneer.

Andreesen then co-founded Netscape Communications and the first version of the Netscape browser went live in 1994.

In 1995, Netscape listed on the NASDAQ exchange, announcing to the world the internet had arrived – and you’d better get on board fast. It was listed at US$7 and closed the first day’s trading at US$29, making it the biggest IPO in history – and even 13 years later

The rest is history. Microsoft licenced Mosaic source code from Spyglass (after freaking out), a Uni of Illinois commercialisation unit and constructed the Internet Explorer – which it then used to belt the hell out of Netscape marketshare.

When Microsoft bundled IE with Windows 95 as a free browser, it was all over bar the lawsuits. The move led to the unprecedented and ongoing antitrust actions against Microsoft. But it was the beginning of the end for Netscape, which was eventually sold to AOL for more than US$4 billion in 1999.

One good thing came out of the AOL years, and it is not small. At the time of the acquisition, the Netscape team had begun working on converting their flagship product – the Netscape Communicator web suite – into open source software, under a new name: Mozilla.

That open source effort has delivered Firefox.

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AOL in advertising acquisition play

MASS market internet services pioneer AOL is to acquire New York-based online advertising specialist Quigo, the latest online giant to make an equity play in the ad market.

AOL competitors Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft has all spent billions this year buying online advertising companies, most notably Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick – which is still to be approved by federal antitrust regulators – and Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive.

The deal gives AOL contextual advertising capabilities, allowing it to match advertising to the content of Web pages. The companies did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The company has more than 500 premium publisher relationships, including a recently finalized deal with Time, and has a broad network of roughly 3,000 advertisers.

Quigo's AdSonar technology lets advertisers purchase ads on websites based on specific pages, sections, topics or keywords. Quigo offers a variety of pricing models including text, display and video ads bought on a cost-per-click, cost per impression, or cost per time basis.

“We will be able to offer advertisers and publishers the most advanced set of tools, including contextual and behavioural targeting, superior analytics, and access to the largest display network in the marketplace.” said AOL chairman and chief executive Randy Falco.

“And by offering advertisers the ability to target ads based on the content of Web pages using Quigo's AdSonar technology, we will be able to maximise the value of publishers' ad inventory,” he said.

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