AOL diggs deeper with Netscape

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AOL are preparing to relaunch internet dinosaur Netscape.com with a new social portal. Yep, it's really just another portal-site-with-a-beta-tag that are fast becoming a web design cliche. But what made me smile was what features as today's top "Hot Story!": http://www.beta.netscape.com/

 

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I thought NetScape was a ™ of MS now?

AOL bought the company behind Netscape a couple of years ago. Netscape (the browser) has changed quite a bit over the years and is now developed by AOL, using various bits and pieces of technology from the Mozilla codebase etc.

Netscape.com is an AOL product.

 

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I don't care. What is there, like 7 people who still use Netscape?

Depends what you're talking about. Netscape.com != Netcape Browser. Netscape.com's share of traffic is fairly significant, with Alexa placing it in the top 100 English-language sites on the Web (86th) and around the 50th most popular in the US. Which is certainly more than 7 people .

Having said that, it's reach appears to have dropped quite considerably in recent months - which probably accounts for the relaunch.

As for the Netscape browser, well yes it's probably a dead weight for AOL. It (including all versions) shares a <1% marketshare across the board... incidentally just like Opera does.

 

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!Mega-old-thread-bumping-action!

Go visit The Register, and read the article "Netscape versus Digg". Can't link directly to it, but suffice to say some of Netscape.com's front-end coders will be having a talking to today .