AOL Time Warner is close to announcing a series of deals that will turn its Netscape.com Web site into a portal for content from its far-flung media empire.
It will offer an online venue for editorial and entertainment content, such as Time magazine, according to sources familiar with the plans.
Netscape.com "will be a hub for Time Warner content. It's been touted around internally," a Netscape source who requested anonymity said.
The deals, which could come as soon as this week, will attempt to settle two nagging questions for the newly forged company: how to prop up its sagging Netscape subsidiary and what to do with Time Warner's offline properties on the Web.
The Netscape site already features reports from CNN.com on its home page under a deal that followed America Online's proposed buyout of Time Warner last year.
In February, then-AOL President Bob Pittman first discussed turning Netscape into a content hub, saying it could become a "platform for all of Time Warner's products."
Now AOL Time Warner is preparing to do just that, according to sources familiar with the plans. They said Netscape will inherit the task of showcasing the media titan's online editorial content, such as Time, Entertainment Weekly and People, as well as Web content from Warner Bros. Online.
