Two more Netscape content deals

Netscape Communications took two steps toward its goal of expanding its content offerings with the announcement of deals with Deja News and NEWS.COM publisher CNET: The Computer Network.

Under the terms of its deal, newsgroup cataloguing service Deja News will let its users search discussion forums from Netscape's DevEdge site for Web developers. DevEdge, in turn, will link to Deja News from the DevEdge site.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In the latest installment of its "Project 60" initiative to build out its Netcenter content aggregation site, Netscape inked a deal with CNET: The Computer Network.

As part of the deal, Netcenter will create a new Computing & Internet channel combining existing Netcenter content with CNET content from its COMPUTERS.COM, DOWNLOAD.COM, GAMECENTER.COM, BUILDER.COM, and NEWS.COM sites.

No money or stock will change hands in the two-year contract, according to Robin Wolaner, CNET's executive vice president of technology publishing.

"This is a branding deal for CNET," Wolaner said. "We're going to be the supplier of computing- and Internet-related content for a dominant resource for millions of Internet users."

Content from COMPUTERS.COM, GAMECENTER.COM, BUILDER.COM, and NEWS.COM will appear cobranded on Netcenter. DOWNLOAD.COM content will keep a CNET attribution, but the primary branding will be Netscape's.

BUILDER.COM currently maintains a content relationship, unrelated to the Netcenter deal, with Netscape's Open Studio site for developers.

Netcenter's Project 60 launched last month with the announcement that Netscape would partner with USA.net to offer free Web-based email on Netcenter. Subsequent additions to the two-month-long build-out include a deal with Excite to provide a Netscape-branded search engine and agreements to expand the site's job listings and its channel for small businesses.