AOL’s Netscape social news Digg-clone has made the switch from Netscape.com to the new branding of Propeller.com. We had reported on the planned change last week, and the launching of Propeller.com has taken place.
The old Netscape.com URL now points to a traditional news portal at netscape.aol.com and users actually have to type in ‘Propeller.com’ in order to view the social news sharing site.
Instead of making the switch instant, AOL should have served a choice for Netscape visitors to view the new Propeller.com or the traditional AOL powered news portal.
I’m also a bit disappointed that Propeller does not have a new design. It appears that the company simply switched out the logos, URL, and did a mass replacement edit to substitute the word Netscape with Propeller.
I could be wrong, but given the big party over at TechCrunch 40, AOL could have taken full advantage of the social news switch by giving us something somewhat new at Propeller.com… instead, it’s just the same old Netscape social news, without the PageRank.
Still, I amongst many will still give Propeller.com the chance it deserves, but hope that it does spruce up its design, editing and usability enough to escape the Netscape shadow, and make its own waves in the social media sea.
