Netscape is now pitching a “classic” version of its former portal site, which appears to be a way to woo back some of those who dislike the Digg-style social news site that Netscape was transformed into back in June 2006. But Netscape also says that despite the “alternative” experience, the social news version will continue.

Those arriving at Netscape.com will now see an ad, shown below, pitching a “companion experience and leading to this version of the Netscape portal.

So is the Netscape social news site dying? TechCrunch took that angle, but Netscape’s Tom Drapeau, commented, saying this is not the case:

Umm…. who are all of these sources? I run the Netscape.com social news site now, and I wrote the text that you quoted in your article.

The cobrand launch this week was simply an effort to give a place to go for those who desire a Netscape portal experience instead of a social news experience.

The Netscape.com social news team is alive and well, despite your “rumors”, and have extensive plans for 2007 and 2008 which are already in progress. We may exist in a different AOL division than the AOL.com team, but that doesn’t make this a turf war.

I am speaking to the editorial team right now, and as they knew this portal was launching weeks in advance… they aren’t “completely freaked out”.

Danny and others have some comments on all of this at Sphinn, our social news site.

Also check out Neil Patel’s Netscape Compared To Digg, A Marketer’s Perspective from his Let’s Get Social column.

Related Topics: Search Engines: Social Search Engines

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz