Netscape Netcenter to Offer LifeMinders Messaging

America Online subsidiary Netscape Communications Thursday said it has tapped online email and wireless marketer LifeMinders to deliver personalized opt-in content and messages to users of its Netcenter portal.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Under terms of the agreement, Netscape will use LifeMinders’ outsourced platform to send targeted email messages based on users’ preferences and profiles — such as reminders, local weather forecasts, and horoscopes — as well as promotional messaging.

“Our users want information that is relevant to their lives, and LifeMinders gives us that valuable resource,” said Netscape senior vice president and general manager Jim Martin.

“LifeMinders provides us with a personalization infrastructure, allowing us to streamline communication with our users through quick access to personalized information that is important to them,” he said.

LifeMinders has been busy extending the reach of its outsourced platform and content partners. Recently, the company has partnered with Discovery.com and The Weather Channel’s weather.com, adding the two sites to its roster of clients offering the service to visitors.

Earlier this year, the company announced that it would be the official distributor of email and wireless updates from this month’s 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

“Netscape chose LifeMinders because it has the ability to scale personalized, targeted messages to millions of people with the speed to market to allow Netscape to immediately begin delivering this enhanced service to their users,” said LifeMinders chairman and chief executive officer Stephen Chapin, Jr.

A LifeMinders spokesperson said the agreement could incorporate wireless messaging in addition to email — capabilities which the company gained in its recent acquisition of wireless messenging company smartRay — but as of yet has no plans to do so.