Greg Hartnett

The big news throughout the social networking crowd is the launch of what some are dubbing “AOL’s Digg-killer”. While I doubt that the launch of the new Netscape will spell the demise of Digg, it is indeed an impressive entry to the social arena.

I signed up for an account and have spent a couple of hours giving it a test run this afternoon. Here are 10 impressions that I have picked up from a cursory run. In an effort to show both sides, I have chosen 5 good things, and 5 things that need further work.

The Good:

1. Lots of categories. While Digg appeals to the geek crowd, Netscape promises more diversity of content with categories including Sex, Celebrities, Money, Sports, Videos, Technology, and many more.
2. Personalization. When you are signed in, the page displays the local information based upon the zip code you provide during the sign up process. Local information includes weather, and local news.
   
3. Pictures with Stories. It’s nice to see the picture to the right of each story that makes it to the front page. Used properly, a picture is worth a thousand words.
4. Usabiity. I like the simplistic colors, the navigation, and the use of the technology. Everything comes together nicely for a good overall experience. The “Related Stories” and Tag Cloud are both nice touches.
5. Anchors. Netscape’s version of an editor, the anchor serves to keep things moving along nicely, moving stories to the front page, helping with the conversation, and fostering the community. With Anchor Chat (soming soon) users will be able to “Chat live 24/7 with Netscape anchors on the day’s top stories!”

The Bad:

1. Owned by AOL. Even though the brass brought in 2.0 poster boy Jason Calacanis to run the show, the campy smell of AOL is hard to shake, and it permeates through here as well. Case in point - the cheesy avatars.
2. Limited Commenting. Current commenting does not allow for insertion of any HTML. Additionally, you can’t reply to other’s comments, making a coherent string of commenting nearly impossible.
3. Exiting to Story. It’s a bit cumbersome to get to the site that is being discussed. There is no access from the main page - you must navigate to the story’s individual page on Netscape, and then follow one of two little links. The more prominent option leads to a horrendous framed page. They definitely need to lose this.
4. Who’s Voting? There is no way to determine who is voting for any given story. you can see what stories a user has voted on by looking at the profile, but there is no way to see all the people who voted for a particular story.
5. Us and Them. Historically, most social networking sites tend to be very clique-ey, and Netscape’s offering doesn’t promise to break the mold. Already the flame wars begin, with a divisive attitude taking hold. Hopefully they will succedd here, while so many others have failed.

See what others are saying about the New Netscape:

Jeff Beckham The New Netscape - The New Journalism?
Steve Rubel First Look: Netscape’s Hybrid Journalism Site
Silicon Valley Sleuth AOL Takes a Shot at Social News
Search Engine Journal Netscape Relaunched as AOL Digg
Mashable Netscape’s Digg Clone - Good, but Needs More Ads