WebProNews

Netscape is back baby and in a big way.

CNET reports America Online, lead by the team behind its recent Weblogs Inc. acquisition, has launched a brand new version of the venerable Netscape.com. The site is a hybrid. It pulls together a mix of citizen-powered news - where users recommend and rank their top choices for news stories - and traditional editor-selected stories.

Netscape is going far and wide with this launch. The new site covers everything from art and design to religion to sex, sports and more. Each vertical has a paid anchor who basically serve as community managers. They provide further context and even host 24/7 chats with users! Each vertical carries RSS, a real-time view of submitted news, and tags too, making it easier for readers to find relevant content.

The new Netscape.com is a winner. It brings together the best of the old world and the new to create a new media model for the 21st century. Whether it succeeds or fails in pulling in users from other sites like digg is irrelevant. AOL will put massive marketing dollars behind this to attract users not to mention advertisers. It is also extremely refreshing to see AOL breath new life into the Netscape brand in such a meaningful way. Kudos to Jason Calacanis and team on this new endeavor. When you look at this site, Blogging Stocks, AIM's new social networking community, AOL Video and the new My AOL, the grand daddy of the Internet is back and in a big way.

Some screens from the new site...

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Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.