AOL’s Digital City to Help Localize Netcenter

America Online’s Digital City Inc. and Netscape Communications Corp. today announced a two-year strategic agreement to make Digital City the exclusive content provider for the local channel of Netscape’s Netcenter site.

Under terms of the agreement, Digital City will provide local content and
community guides for the 50 top U.S. metropolitan markets on the Netcenter
Local Channel.

The channel will feature local perspectives and information on headline news, weather, sports, entertainment listings, movie listings, dining guides, event
guides, auto guides and relocation guides, as well as message boards and
real-time chat. Financial details were not disclosed.

Netscape will oversee national advertising for the service and Digital City will handle the sale of local advertising. The companies will reportedly share in the revenues generated.

According to the companies, the new service is expected to be available in
the next 60 days. Netscape will promote Netcenter’s Local Channel with a local button on its home page and links throughout other areas of its service.

This partnership follows a series of recent deals made by Netscape in an effort to round out its Netcenter “portal” offerings.

“The agreement with AOL marks another step in our aggressive efforts to
build out content for the millions of users who visit Netscape Netcenter each day,” said Jim Barksdale, president and CEO of Netscape. “By partnering with the nation’s No. 1 provider of local content–AOL’s Digital City–we are furthering our strategy of providing our members with best-of-breed content. We are pleased to expand our existing relationship with America Online by offering Digital City’s unmatched local content and community guides.”

Netscape Netcenter 2.0 currently includes seventeen content channels,
including new services such as Netscape-branded Search, SmartUpdate,
Software Download, WebMail and Member Directory.