While somewhat unrelated, it is interesting to examine news today from Netscape and Six Apart. Netscape, the early darling of Web 1.0, is apparently trying to re-invent itself as a social-networking site like Digg. The new and improved (??) entity will be headed by the notorious Jason Calacanis, who is likely looking for a new gig after selling Weblogs Inc. to AOL last year. While I wish Jason lots of luck, this assignment strikes me as a huge challenge even with AOL's financial and marketing muscle. Without first or even second mover advantage, Netscape is wading into crowded, competitive waters with the baggage of being the browser that was swamped by Internet Explorer and overtaken by Firefox.
   A far more interesting story is Six Apart, a leading Web 2.0 company, that has raised another $12-million of private equity to drive development of a new, feature-rich service called Comet. Six Apart is a far more exciting story than Netscape because it's smack in the middle of the blogging revolution (evolution?) and, unlike too many Web 2.0 players, it actually has a business plan and revenue. From a strategic perspective, I'm intrigued by what Six Apart could do next aside from Comet. It could do an IPO but that doesn't seem to be the way the game is played these days. Another option may be making some acquisitions to expand its blogging tools portfolio. What about a deal with Technorati or the purchase of a blog analytics company such as Blogbeat, which seems to be leading takeover candidate now that MeasureMap and Urchin have been snapped up by Google.

Update: Mip's Scan has a post on Six Apart buying SplashBlog, which lets you publish photos from a smart phone to an online album.

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