Netscape Closes Digg Clone Social News Site

It's been expected for weeks, and now its finally happened.

Netscape director Tom Drapeau confirmed late Thursday night that AOL will be closing down its Netscape social news portal. Adario at Epicenter has more details. The site, which launched last year amid the controversy that Netscape head Jason Calacanis was going to pay the site's top submitters, long played second fiddle to the much more popular (and, most would say, relevant) Digg.

So is this evidence that the paid-submission social news model doesn't work? Not really. It's more likely evidence that AOL is radically restructuring its news business in the wake of some serious management shake-ups. It's even launched a new news portal at netscape.aol.com.

AOL's Drapeau has some details about the site's future:

We look forward to unveiling a new social news site as soon as possible. The ability to post, comment, rate and share the news that's most relevant to you is as important to us as it is to you. We will be maintaining an open dialogue with you, our users, so that you'll be the first to know as soon as we're ready to pull back the curtains.

So, don't count Netscape out just yet. The site may never be the next Digg, but it could very well become the next something. Meanwhile, Calacanis is looking to be the next Google. His people powered search start-up, Mahalo, is in active development. He has yet to comment on the Netscape shutdown.