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Propeller: Netscape’s New Social Home
Tom Drapeau, Netscape Director has announced the new name for the old social news site located at Netscape.com. It’s now called "Propeller". From Tom’s blog entry:
The Netscape social news experience that you are currently using today will be migrated and revealed soon at http://www.propeller.com/. We’re working hard behind the scenes to ensure a smooth transition before we officially launch at this new destination.
It is important to us that you feel empowered to choose how you want to consume your news and participate in the community. As we mentioned in a recent post, the Netscape.com site will soon be redirected to the new Netscape portal, a more traditional and editorially-driven news experience. It’s already live, so you can check it out now if you haven’t already. You’ll notice some elements of our social news site there in short order, so that it will be easy for you to go back and forth and engage in each if you like.
Interesting name. Tip comes from Muhammad who notes, "my first thoughts on the brand name and the logo are both great. here’s what ‘propeller’ means to me. by definition, to propel means to motivate, actuate, move, prompt, incite, impel, or to give incentive for action and cause to move forward with force. that said, what will we (at propeller, previously netscape social news) be propelling?"
And he is right. I think it’s a good name and could lend to a feeling of forward movement which is important for AOL/Netscape/Propeller.
Update: They better have a damn good redirect script for the netscape submit buttons - otherwise it will be bad… Britney VMA bad.
Wow Allen - you beat TechCrunch and Mashable and ReadWirteWeb - way to kick butt!
I like the name & URL…a lot. But I still predict in one year’s time this site will have less than 25% of the traffic that it had via the Netscape home page.
What’s your prediction Allen? Over/under 25%?
Robert - moving domain names is very hard - it’s even harder when you can’t easily 301 redirect the traffic. I guess they "could" do this on the story pages but it would be a lot of work.
Moving domains could provide Netscape with a new life if handled correctly. My advice: start over, and innovate. Don’t create a "better Digg" create a "new Propeller". I would love to be part of the propeller team as they work on what’s part of the new system. There are so many new possibilities even in the last year.
It’s hard for me to give you an over/under Robert - I will hold judgment until I see what they offer :)
I like the concept of “propeller” as well. Not only does it inspire visions of Netscape “propelling” things forward on the Web, but it fits the concept of the Netscape brand (going all the way back to the beginnings of Netscape Navigator and the ship’s steering wheel emblem).
The success of the site will truly depend on how Netscape/AOL tackles the situation. If they simply try to “move” the current Netscape Web site to a new domain, they will fail miserably. However, if they really reinvent themselves and offer something unique that you can’t find anywhere else, then they will succeed.