NOWSOURCING

Last month, I reported a response to TechCrunch’s uncited source that Netscape social news was going away. When a valid source could not be reported, many of us dismissed it.

I was wrong. Digg, you win.

Sadly to say, looks like Michael Arrington was right. The official Netscape blog has reported that the current Netscape site will be taken down. From the blog:

Visitors to Netscape.com will see a more traditional news experience very soon. Don’t worry, the social news site isn’t going away! We will keep you updated on where you will be able to find the social news site as we get closer to making the switch.

Netscape participants are up in arms. The current top story on Netscape.com is about this closure / move. So far, here are some reports from the Netscape anchors within the story comments:

More details will be forthcoming over the next couple of weeks, but the point to stress now is that the social news site is not disappearing. Yes, we will be moving to a new URL, and we will have a new name. But the accumulation of stories, tags, and comment threads will follow us to the new location. And of course we hope that many of our members will do the same. In the end it’s not the name that matters–it’s the community that makes or breaks a social news site.

User accounts, stories, and the like are said to remain preserved. Yes, it’s true that the current reports say that Netscape isn’t going away, and that it is only moving domains. Still, I think that it will take some time to recreate the community and many will leave.

Perhaps TechCrunch is correct this time. TechCrunch reports that Netscape may be moving over to the wow.com domain, of Compuserver former glory.

Only time will tell.