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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems

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To: QwikSand who wrote (41027)	2/7/2001 2:34:20 AM
From: JC Jaros	of 64865

First of all, sex pic BBSs aside, not many SysOps ever made a dime on their BBS and networked boards were paying 25 cents a minute to Ma Bell outta pocket to transfer the network traffic everyday. It wasn't profit motive that built and sustained those networks; those communities. It was really an offshoot of Ham radio like that. Except it was a lot more work and you had to pay Ma Bell every month. Even GEnie wasn't really in it for big bucks. GE just had some idle data pipes that they basically sold at cost during off peak use. So, the concept of making money running a community is a little nutty. It's my impression that SI instituted the charge not to pay the light bill but to weed out the riff raff (although I got grandfathered in through the cracks <g>). SI wanted to sell their captive affluent yuppie demographic like some super Arbitron for advertizers. Apparently, they weren't able to execute that. The value in SI to say an entity like CNBC isn't as a direct revenue producing thing, but as a value add to a media brand and a huge interactive enhancement to their website. Sure makes sense to me. Yahoo is Yahoo largely because of the software. Theirs sucks and promotes graffiti type posts. There as well, isn't any kind of management there in place to promote meaningful community and participation. Whomever set the lighthanded backstage management approach at SI really knew what they were doing. They really got that, along with the software, 'right'. They just didn't have a winning business model for it. There may not *be a winning entreprenurial business model for SI. To me it's going to find its place in the hands of a much larger entity/brand who's business model can be augmented by the community service as it were. -JCJ

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