Spotlight: AOL, Excite Sign Exclusive Agreement

The stock of Excite Inc. soared more than 60% after America Online Inc. said it would use Excite’s Internet search service exclusively. The firms also said Mountain View-based Excite will acquire AOL’s Webcrawler search service for 2 million shares, or nearly $20 million. The deal gives the online service a 20% stake in Excite, which makes software for searching the Web, up from 10%. Excite shares jumped $3.75 to $9.88 on Nasdaq; AOL rose $1.63 to $32.75 on the NYSE.