June 7, 1999 10:00 PM PDT

Netcenter to get a new leader

America Online tomorrow will move to plug a significant hole in the administration of its Web business by naming a general manager of Netscape Netcenter.

AOL will name Jim Martin to the post of senior vice president and general manager of its newly acquired Netcenter portal, according to sources close to the company. The post was vacated last month by Mike Homer, currently on sabbatical. Homer resigned from Netcenter despite his stated intention of returning to AOL.

Martin, who will report to Barry Schuler, president of AOL Interactive Services, previously led International Data Group units including Computerworld, InfoWorld Media Group, and Macworld Communications.

Martin will be in charge of Netcenter's content programming, product and service development, operations, and sales and marketing. He is expected to pick up where Homer left off in building Netcenter's audience, which attracted AOL because it peaks during the day. Traffic to AOL's proprietary service peaks in the evening.

Since Homer's sabbatical and resignation as head of Netcenter, Netscape's portal has kept a relatively low profile as Virginia-based Schuler governed it from afar. Observers now will look to Martin to see what kind of game plan AOL has to broaden its audience, as well as how much emphasis the portal will put on integration with Netscape's Communicator browser.

Communicator has suffered setbacks in market share in recent months. But Netcenter has grown by 60 percent over the last six months, according to AOL, suggesting that Netcenter may be able to weather further Communicator market share erosion.

 

Join the conversation

Add your comment

The posting of advertisements, profanity, or personal attacks is prohibited. Click here to review our Terms of Use.

Inside CNET News

1-2 of 12

Scroll Left Scroll Right

What's Hot

Discussions

Shared

RSS Feeds

Add headlines from CNET News to your homepage or feedreader.

Markets

Market news, charts, SEC filings, and more

Related quotes

Dow Jones Industrials (-0.38%) -49.23 12,824.81
S&P 500 (-0.68%) -9.22 1,342.55
NASDAQ (-0.61%) -17.88 2,913.51
CNET TECH (-0.68%) -13.95 2,035.19
  Symbol Lookup