An announcement from the founders of NewHoo

We have some really exciting news to announce -- NewHoo has joined Netscape, and will be moving to http://directory.mozilla.org/

NewHoo started with an idea and a goal -- to produce the most comprehensive directory of the web, by relying on a vast army of volunteer editors. Seeing NewHoo go from an idea to one of the largest human edited directories on the web has been really exciting.

We're happy to say that Netscape shares our vision of an open, community-built web directory.

NewHoo was approached by several web portals who discussed possible partnerships or acquisitions. But we had the best feeling about Netscape -- they were very enthusiastic about our vision to build the biggest directory on the web, and NewHoo's community-editing approach fits well with their pioneering efforts to support the free software movement through Mozilla.org.

The details:

• NewHoo.com will move (largely unchanged) to http://directory.mozilla.org/ as the Netscape Open Directory.

• The directory will be more open than before. In the spirit of open development, and fitting with the Mozilla ideals, we are creating a free use license to allow individuals and organizations to take advantage of and use copies of the directory that they can crawl, archive and reuse on their machines. The ability to do this was one of the key reasons for us to go with Netscape.

• Netscape will make use of Open Directory data in their Netcenter web portal, but directory.mozilla.org will remain a separate site.

• The additional resources of Netscape will allow us to better address bugs, support and new features.

• With Netscape's backing, NewHoo will advance to being a premier web directory and search destination, visited by millions of users worldwide.

NewHoo has been struggling against the titans of the search engine space, but, thanks to the editors, has achieved great success despite very modest resources. We recently crossed 100,000 sites in the directory. It is our goal to expand the Open Directory to be the best and largest human-edited web directory, and we firmly believe that the open editorial model is the only indexing method which can possibly scale to the size of the web.

We strongly believe this is a positive move for NewHoo, the editors, and the site. Partnering with a company with the stature of Netscape means increased stability, traffic and recognition. We will have the time and resources to properly address support, performance and new feature issues.

More about this can be read in the Netscape press release.

Thanks,

Rich Skrenta & Bob Truel
NewHoo