Marshal Kirkpatrick writes on Read/Write about the launch of Propeller and the success of Netscape/Propeller’s social news model. It is a good read, check it out!

Quote from the article

“Perhaps then the Netscape team got a few things right after all. Digg’s turn towards social networking looks to me like a move toward a more standard model. If Propeller can successfully build a new system powered by personalization algorithms - they could become the innovation leaders in the social news space.”

The folks over at Digg launched a new set of features today that have all the digg lackeys drooling over. The sad part is that Netscape/Propeller had these features long ago.

Some of the new features seem far more oriented towards a myspace type site (personal photos, age info, etc). Either way here is a list of the main points from the video that Netscape/Propeller already has that seem like Digg is bragging over:

• Shouts - send stories to friends (Sounds a lot like the “share story”)
• Recent Activity with filters for comments, votes, etc (my activity page)
• Friends Activty (my friends activity page)

As an aside, even though I am logged in at Digg, I can’t vote on stories and the captcha image for posting comments doesn’t appear. Good job Digg.

Finally the blog states that more features will be coming later :

•  Digg Images: A dedicated images section (with thumbnails). Still on track to launch in late October. (why?)
• Revamped Comments: No more ajax loads, new clean and lightweight design (similar to the old comment system). (So they are reverting a feature and bragging about it?)
• Digg Alerts: Alerts will give you the ability to create customized email alerts - when a story becomes popular, summaries of popular stories on specific topics, and when your friends recommend stories. (Propeller/Netscape already have this for a long time - innovative)
• Story Suggest: Dozens of servers crunch the math to provide you with real-time recommendations (stories and friends) based on what you’ve dugg in the past. (Sounds like Netscape/Propeller’s Analytics).

Hmm. This begs the question, who is a clone of who?

Tom from Netscape has been informing us Netscape members for weeks now on the latest changes leading up to today’s launch.

Tom’s first post under the new brand Propeller was posted shortly ago. Check it out:

http://blog.netscape.com/2007/09/19/propeller-lives/

As of around 9:30 or so today, Netscape is now moved over to Propeller! Except for Propeller logo, the site looks and appears to function the same. This is an exciting first step for the social news network to shed some of the stigma associated with the Netscape brand.

In related news, netscape.com is now back to the old portal located at http://netscape.aol.com.

I was just checking out Netscape when I realized that the site’s header had been substituted with what I assume will be the header for the site’s new location. Within minues the logo was reverted back, so I assume this was a slip up. Either way, it is exciting to see the new logo in action - if only for a split second. Perhaps this was a teaser?

Welcome to Propeller Blades - your source for news, buzz, and the latest happenings over at the soon to be launched Propeller.com site (formerly Netscape). A bunch of us that loved the Netscape community are sad to see it go, but are anxious for Propeller! The Blogsphere is buzzing with banter about Propeller and we know a lot of the faithful Netscape users are  worried about the future of one of their favorite sites. Therefore, we started Propeller Blades to keep tabs on all the buzz and see if we can’t get info from the Netscape team to address some of our concerns (see the FAQ section).

Keep checking back and we’ll keep you updated!