When Weblogs Inc. cofounder and AOL executive Jason Calacanis relaunched Netscape.com as a copy of social-news website Digg, he avidly courted controversy. And some called his plan to woo Digg's most active users by offering to pay them to bookmark interesting news articles "desperate."

But now the names of Netscape's new "Navigators" -- Calacanis's word for the site's paid bookmarkers -- have been revealed, and it's surprisingly uncontroversial: Most of them aren't even from Digg. "We hired a bunch of folks from Weblogs, Inc. (since we know and love them)," writes Calacanis on his personal blog. That certainly makes cutting checks easier, since they're already on the payroll, but it raises the question of why Calacanis thought he had to raid other websites for talent in the first place. Why all the fuss, Jason, if you just ended up giving your own people the jobs anyway?

Oddly enough, people on Digg greeted the news more enthusiastically than those on Netscape, who felt that loyal Netscape users should have gotten the gigs. The Netscape folks, however, seemed a bit bitter: "Hmmm... these people are getting paid to do what the rest of us have been doing for free," writes Netscape user Scott-O-Rama, while rtay150 says that "Netscape needs to turn their attention to the already registered users."

Here's a suggestion, guys: Why don't you post some interesting stories rather than just grousing in the comments section?