Here’s irony at its finest: Netscape copying Digg. So much that when I first visited this morning, look at the top most story pictured above.

Over the last 12 hours, my aggregator is coughing up lots of fresh Netscape.com blood. If you haven’t completely forgotten about Netscape, then might want to stop over there and see what you think. Especially if you are a Digg fan. I suspect many Digg users have already been there, thanks to an already dugg story overnight. Be forewarned, the first day or two it’s probably going to be a completely lackluster user experience.

Brief history lesson
WeblogsInc leader Jason Calacanis has been part of a movement trying to make AOL and particularly its Netscape brand more relevant again. Jason’s challenge is that, like AOL, Netscape (browser) history has left a bitter aftertaste. I’m thinking back to the days Netscape was on top only to release a clunky, memory intense upgrade that opened the door for Microsoft to swoop in and claim browser share. For years Microsoft would stay atop the pile, only to be knocked down by a more frequently updated, nimble and agile Mozilla Firefox.

Fast forward to today when more people seem to hate AOL then love them. Particularly the challenges faced when trying to exit the company/service. Winamp, the ever so cool Winamp, where art thou Winamp? AIM remains a bloated fish, trying to suck in developers by exposing its innards to a more open API. AOL is trying to escape the days of being the lock ‘em and never leave ‘em company and join the ranks of the mix, share and monster mash culture. It’s a difficult transition. How do they become cool again?

The new master plan
Screw innovation, let’s see what’s hot, what’s cool right now and emulate … Digg. That appears to be the game plan and so far it’s way too early to tell if the Digg DNA cloning strategy will work. The real Digg users commenting overall don’t seem to be that impressed so far.

TechCrunch puts double quotes around the word “digg killer” in their headline, adding:

According to statistics provided by AOL, Netscape serves a whopping 811 million monthly page views - far more than Digg today.

Putting this kind of audience in front of a Digg like service could spell trouble for many sites that ultimately make it to the top of the site.

811 million monthly page views is big time and this can’t be ignored. This is considerably more traffic than the 5 million a month that Digg reports (source: Federated Media Profile).

Also as Arrington notes, this doesn’t work exactly like Digg, there are still editors that push stories to the homepage. It’s not entirely user-generated and promoted. This could help defeat spam, but it makes it more like a quasi-Slashdot/Digg clone.

This is a bold move that will get them a lot of press. Which I’m sure is what they were hoping. Heck, that’s what many are writing about already. Overnight they got some good action. It’s almost 6am PST and there is still good action flowing. Just wait until the rest of the West coast wakes up.

But let’s see what the buzz is like a week from now. That’s an eternity in the tech news cycles. Even the loss of Microsoft’s #1 blogger hasn’t survived a week of buzz. If we are still talking about Netscape in a week, then AOL/Netscape might really have something.

And first they have to figure out how to scale this technology. Oh man, they need to scale badly. With the traffic they have, they are in a different zone than Digg, so it is understandable some challenges await.

Technical problems
It’s a rough road trying to actually use/test/experience the new Netscape at the moment. Forget signing up, which isn’t working right at all as of this writing. At least not for me.

The registration is AJAX-powered and buggy. As of this writing they only have a mere 340 or so odd members (see AJAX-powered tracker) that have made it through the registration process. It didn’t like my email address (hint: a + is a valid character in the first part of the email, like new+netscape@blahblah). Valid zipcode 98375 returns “no zipcode database.”

The we’re unable to successfully register group
As reports continue to flow in, the list of others also unable to successfully register is growing: Danny Sullivan, Darren Rowse. Keep trying guys. It took me at least a dozen tries to finally get in.

Doesn’t seem to have taken my registration. I’ll keep trying throughout the morning and day.

Update 8:02am PST: I’m in! I was even able to change my profile picture. Seems to be moving a little quicker now, maybe the techs have arrived.

This post looks to be a work-in-progress. See if you have any better luck. I’ll update as I learn and and experience more. Update: added another screenshot of what I keep seeing while trying to login. I’m noticing only a couple new users being added every 30 seconds. This must be from people being added manually or something … ?

Check out what new Netscape member recently showed up on the tracker:

Seriously, the positive side of this new Netscape launch could be opening up a lot of traffic to other websites. I’m sure webmasters will be very interested in that proposition. I am.

Updates in progress
Unlike normal, I’m updating this post somewhat frequently at the moment, kind of like a live event blogging post. Where any original text has changed I’ll strike it and/or add an update timestamp like normal, but folks might want to bookmark and return later, just FYI.

Update 9:02am PST: Jason stopped by in the comments section to point out a killer feature: the top 20 stories will be covered under their regular news. Wow, this means even more traffic potentially.

Update 9:25am PST: A Netscape user by the name of “kevinrose” left some interesting comments in the AOL copies Digg thread (linked above). Is this the real Kevin Rose, president of Digg, or an imposter? Kevin has been sent an email to get clarification. Screenshot of message below.

The message reads:

Now listen kids, heres the idea… Just because Digg came up with a great idea, that people love, does not mean that other sites cannot use the concept. The idea of voting for what is hot and what is not has been around for a very long time and just because I turned it into a news based format does not mean that I had the idea first. So, just back right off all the Digg clones and accept the fact that people are able to use and visit more than one website on the internet at a time. I love you guys… You are my best fanboys!

If this is truly how the real Kevin Rose feels, it’s a refreshing perspective in the current sea of let’s get the lawyers involved reactions. Will wait for some official confirmation. It looks a bit on the fishy side currently. (Update: it is, this is not Kevin Rose).

(Another example of why it’s good to register your name for new sites/services quickly)

Update 6/17/2006 7:19am PST: The user mentioned above is not the real Kevin Rose. An imposter, according to the anchors at Netscape.

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