Propeller.com
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Social news aggregation |
| Defunct | October 1, 2010 |
| Fate | Discontinued |
Key people | Brian Alvey (Chief Architect), Alex Rudloff (Principal Developer), Jason Calacanis (Maintenance CEO until Nov 2006), Tom Drapeau (Final Director) |
| Parent | AOL-Netscape |
Propeller functioned as a social news aggregation platform under the management of AOL-Netscape, bearing resemblance to Digg. Users could cast votes on articles to influence front-page placement and engage in discussions through comments. The service was discontinued on October 1, 2010.
The Chief Architect overseeing the site was Brian Alvey, with Alex Rudloff serving as the principal developer. Maintenance responsibilities were handled by Weblogs, Inc. CEO Jason Calacanis until his exit from AOL in November 2006. The final director before closure was Tom Drapeau. During this period, Netscape experienced a decline in market share lasting more than a year.
From June 2006 until September 2007, Propeller operated on the Netscape.com domain before being succeeded by the AOL Netscape portal.
The earlier iteration of Propeller elicited varied feedback; while some users valued the enhanced engagement opportunities, others criticized its less user-friendly navigation. Shortly following its relaunch, the most popular story was titled "Netscape's Blunder."
Anchors
Propeller included a group known as "anchors," headed by James Marcus, who selected featured stories displayed in the "anchor picks" section on the homepage. Unlike Digg’s model, which relied solely on user voting, Propeller's rankings were determined by a combination of user input and anchor curation. Alexia Prichard was also part of this team.
Scouts
A distinguished set of influential users called Scouts, overseen by Ryan Budke, comprised bloggers from Weblogs, Inc., key Propeller contributors, and public figures like Wil Wheaton. Originally named Navigators, the group was renamed after the relaunch of the Netscape Navigator browser to prevent confusion. Other prominent Scouts included Jeff Hoard, Angry Ken, Karina Longworth, Steve Head, Greg DeMaderios, Henry Wang, Digidave, TweekerChick, and Corey Spring.