When we see a press release announcing the availability of high speed access to Charters customers with Go2Net as the portal, we will see the beginning of a new era in Go2Net's growth.
Hmm. I would see that as a rather minor aspect of the partnership, since portal pages aren't very sticky and become even less important with broadband connections for reasons that I'll get to in a moment.
What will be very important to GNET is the way its content is used on the Vulcan cable systems as part of their interactive TV features. The hints dropped so far suggest that Allen's companies will focus on that part of the equation. It sounds like they will come up with some unique ideas that lead the cable pack and it sounds like GNET will be an integral part of those offerings.
The problem with a portal on broadband is that it becomes even less sticky that such a thing is with dial-up connections. On both, it's simple to change the home page to something else. The people most likely to do that are the more sophisticated users willing to pay a premium for broadband connections.
The real problem, though, is that portals could become less visited because of broadband. Cable-modem (and DSL) connections are, except in a few cases, always-on. Your computer is connected to the internet when it's turned on and stays connected. Users of Microsoft's browser on Windows will find that their browser acts a bit differently in such a situation. It's more like a TV screen. When you turn off your computer with browser windows open, those same windows will reopen to the same page(s) (like a TV returning to the last-viewed channel when it's turned on).
The advantage on broadband will go to content sites like SI that get and keep eyeballs for extended periods.
...and the rest of the leadership group need to have the same DESIRE, drive, focus, and ability to work the long hours that Bill Gates had when he was building Microsoft.
In all fairness, one should name both of the founding partners there. Microsoft would not be what it is today if it hadn't been for both Paul Allen and Bill Gates. I agree with the point you make, but simply note that -- although the Gates drive would have probably have led him to become important in some aspect of the computer industry no matter what, there would have been no Microsoft as we know it without both Gates and Allen. |
