Jason Calacanis has the news that Netscape launched a new portal homepage, and it looks a lot like Digg. Apparently others think so too, as the top story is all about AOL copying Digg. It's not completely user generated - there are editors that decide what gets to the top of the homepage. Still, the fact that it looks strikingly similar to Digg is getting it a lot of press.

Now, Here's a difference. Netscape gets 800,000,000+ page views a month, and Digg is only at around 5,000,000. Could this be an actual?Digg killer? It has the potential, but this is the Internet, and being first in a space usually means you win. On the other hand, if there ever was a company that knows something about being first in a market and still losing, it's Netscape! And of course, Netscape has more mass appeal, so the stories won't be all tech all the time like Digg is.

Now, since I first visited the site, The "AOL copies Digg" story has been at the top, but here's the succession of vote counts for it that I've noticed: 59, 99, 103, 88, 103. I know it's beta, so most likely, it's just a bug. Having experience with web apps, my gut says it's a caching issue, and I'm sure they'll work it out. But it does seem a bit suspicious that a story critical of AOL drops in vote counts. Why do I think it's a bug though? It never really got close to dropping from the number one spot.

Oh yeah. If you're using IE 7, it doesn't quite look right. I know. It's hard to fault AOL for their beta site not looking good in other beta software, but supposedly, IE 7 is pretty good standards-wise, and I haven't seen these issue other places.

Anyway, this is a wierd way for AOL to say happy 1st birthday to Diggnation, Digg's founders' podcast!

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