Deja What?
Well something certainly happened to DejaNews. This afternoon I visited the site and everything seemed normal. Now, this evening I go back and everything is different. No longer is it DejaNews - it's just Deja.com - an overnight transformation into . . . a portal? No, surely not.
"To better reflect all the features that the site now offers, we've changed our name to the simpler Deja.com, which is how many people referred to us already. Building on our traditional base of discussion forums, we've added new features to extend and enhance the people-driven elements of the site, and improved the navigation. And, democratic ideals aside, we've made it more fun and easier to use. We hope you like the results, and appreciate your continued support."So, by dropping the 'news' from their name I guess they're hoping to move away from that old Usenet image into something more along the lines of Geocities with their community building etc. So what else is new?
"Member Photos - Ever wondered what the other people in your Community look like? Click View Member Photos on the Our Members list to see!"Yes? And?
"Pick and Choose Colors - Now you can customize the colors in your Community by simply pointing and clicking! Edit your Community's Header/Footer today to try it out."Ok, I can see how that will be invaluable, but the real point of this revamp is obviously:
"Deja Shopper - To help you find the best deals on the Web for products and services, we've introduced Deja Shopper, a feature that explores the Web to find online merchants offering the product you are interested in buying. "When will these people learn that we don't want identikit portal sites trying to be all things to all people. Now will someone please tell me how I can view a list of newsgroups and find something in the news.admin.* hierarchy? Sigh . . .