Yahoo Inc has won the right to design, produce and operate a navigation service that’ll replace Netscape Communications Corp’s popular Destinations button on its Navigator and Communicator desktops. The Netscape Guide by Yahoo! will provide more than four million visitors a day to the Netscape site with a service showcasing the best of the web in place of the guide Netscape currently operates itself. According to Yahoo, the deal is a perfect match because Netscape wants to create a more compelling website for its many visitors, and website content is Yahoo’s specialty. Financially speaking, Yahoo will sell advertising on the site and will give a percentage back to Netscape. Neither company would reveal the percentages but a source at Yahoo said that Yahoo would get the majority. It is unclear whether Yahoo paid a fee to take over the service but it must be considered likely after Netscape recently sold off four search-engine buttons to four companies, including Yahoo, for a total of $20m. The Yahoo-based button will be included with new versions of the Netscape browser from the second quarter of 1997. Users with previous versions of the Navigator browser will be able to access the service by clicking on the Destinations button. On a day when most technology stocks were faltering, Wall Street cheered the news as Yahoo shares closed up 9% at $24.75, with Netscape closing up 5% at $27.75.
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