Netscape pulls plug on Digg clone
Netscape has announced it's doing away with its much criticized Digg clone; plans to focus on a more traditional portal site.
Jason Calacanis' personal project, Netscape's Digg clone, has officially closed up shop. When it was initially introduced, Netscape drew a lot of criticism for the site's similarities to Digg and for trying to bribe its top users to switch over to Netscape.
There have been rumors of Netscape closing down the site for a few weeks, but now it's official. On Netscape's blog, Tom Drapeau noted the reason for the shut down as being that, "...we specifically heard that our users do have a desire for a social news experience, but simply didn't expect to find it on Netscape.com." Going forward, Netscape will be focusing on a more traditional portal site, which can be found here, but will apparently also be releasing a new social news portion of its site.
So, goodbye, Netscape social news. It was a valiant attempt, but you just can't buy strong communities.
