AOL News has undergone a redesign to be more "bloggy" (according to Reuters). Part of this update is that now they're featuring the top stories at Netscape.com under the "User Submitted News" in the left-hand sidebar.

I wouldn't mind that section being a little higher up on the page though, maybe replacing any of the nine (yes, nine) links to stories about Paris Hilton being released from prison...

C.K. Sample III describes the last two years of working in various start-up environments inside and outside of AOL. I found this part especially interesting:

Aside: I must take a moment here to implore everyone at AOL: release the new Netscape Browser. I’ve played with early versions of it and it’s great. The best browser out there. You will reap great rewards and good faith from the Internet community if you would simply release the bugger. The people who used to be my team worked hard on that thing and they deserve to see it released. It’s Firefox, but better.

Amen.

Netscape's OpenID support is live. This release also greatly simplifies the signup process by removing the captcha and the request for other information that was previously required for registration.

The announcement just went public that, starting on Monday, Netscape.com and My.Netscape will support signup/signin via OpenID, and consequently, AOL screennames (AOL hosts an OpenID for each registered screenname). I've used the OpenID registration/signin process in our QA environment, and it is slick. Kudos to Blaine and Trey on this awesome new feature.

P.S. I know I'm biased, but I love it when a service delivers new features rather than just promising to get around to them.