Gawker: valleywag, propeller

AOL's Digg competitor gets a redesign

Jordan Golson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:00:29 EDT

Mahalo.com developer Chris Finke blew up a bad screenshot of ~~Jason Calacanis~~ AOL's ~~Netscape~~ Propeller redesign. But we need more pixels to make sure something's actually changed. (Photo by dvanvliet)

Wil Wheaton sees AOL's Propeller — and spins better than before

Jordan Golson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:00:11 EST

Nerd idol Wil Wheaton claims to have seen the next version of Digg clone Propeller.com — and it's even clonier than before! "Holy crap are they awesome. I can't wait for it to go live," Wheaton Twitters. Propeller, formerly Netscape.com, was bulldog aficionado Jason Calacanis's attempt at building a better Digg by supplementing the wisdom of crowds with the snobbery of human editors. Interesting that AOL is still pumping money into the site. Maybe Propeller isn't sinking quite as fast as we'd thought?

The new "old" Netscape, AOL's clone of My...

Tim Faulkner — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:20:01 EDT

The new "old" Netscape, AOL's clone of My Yahoo, is rumored to go live at the classic netscape.com domain tomorrow, September 19th. The old "new" Netscape, Jason Calacanis's clone of Digg, is already accessible at propeller.com.

AOL spins its Propeller

Tim Faulkner — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:44:25 EDT

AOL's Digg clone, formerly branded as Netscape and already pronounced dead, will be rebranded as Propeller. The announcement came from Tom Drapeau, the head of AOL's Netscape division since Jason Calacanis's brief tenure. Muhammed Saleem, a Propeller editor né Netscape Scout, thinks technology sites should be eating their hats for the grave predictions. Maybe the site would have had a chance at life and competed with Digg, the social news site, if it had launched with original branding instead of misusing the name of the already-dead Netscape. But AOL angered and turned off a loyal community when, under Calacanis, it killed the original Netscape and, after Calacanis's jealous pursuit of Kevin Rose, its own Digg clone — even if the sites ignominiously remain on life support and AOL refuses to accept that its time to pull the plug.