Slightly bizarre press release re: paymybills.com, courtesy of the Yahoo thread (BTW, paymybills.com has been advertising like CRAZY on buses and subway billboards around midtown in NYC, FWIW). Based on the somewhat bizarre style of this "release," their Yahoo-bashing, etc., I wouldn't say they comprise a signficant threat...<g> (I've taken the liberty of highlighting interesting passages):
biz.yahoo.com
Bill payment, home pages are latest from idealab!
By Scott Hillis
PASADENA, Calif., Nov 18 (Reuters) - Idealab!, the Internet ``incubator' that created such online stars as eToys Inc. and Goto.com, has hatched two more firms to erase the hassle of paying bills and help make personal Web pages the biggest thing since e-mail.
PayMyBills.com and HomePage.com left the comfort of the idealab! nest in Pasadena, Calif., last month flex their wings and try to soar in the increasingly crowded skies of cyberspace.
Launched by two friends after a lengthy visit to Guatemala resulted in many costly late fees, PayMyBills.com aims to relieve busy folk of the cumbersome task of writing out reams of checks every month.
``We thought it was ridiculous that we could be online, in touch with all our friends, find out Frank Sinatra died, but that their was no solution to this problem,' PayMyBills Chief Executive John Tedesco said in a recent interview.
To use the service, which costs $8.95 a month for up to 25 bill payments, customers have their bills sent to the company's office on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., where they are scanned into computers so users can view them online. Payments are made automatically.
Early adopters are on-the-move business types, but Tedesco said he sees growth potential in harried homemakers and an elderly ``retired-and-wired' class who take extended vacations.
``Nobody likes paying bills, it's a tremendous chore. The average house spends about two hours a month paying bills, and we're convinced that if we can get the word out, people will love it,' Tedesco said.
The company has deals with Internet service providers NetZero Inc. (NasdaqNM:NZRO - news), another idealab! company, and EarthLink Network Inc. (NasdaqNM:ELNK - news).
Its few competitors include a less fancy service by Yahoo! Inc. (NasdaqNM:YHOO - news), and a Santa Clara, Calif., start-up called Cyberbills.com.
HomePage.com faces a fiercer market, with millions of Netizens already staking out territory on personal Web page services such as Yahoo's GeoCities and Lycos Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:LCOS - news) Tripod community.
But that's a good thing, company executives say.
``One of the benefits of starting a company in a category that's pretty mature is that we get to learn from our competition and hopefully we get it right the first time,' HomePage President Mary Lou Fulton said.
Shunning the standard ``community' moniker for home page companies, Fulton says her company will stress individuality.
``We aren't creating a cyber-community, we're creating easy and fast publishing tools for people to express themselves,' Fulton said. Home pages with 10 megabytes of storage are free, though banner advertisements are displayed at all times.
``Business cards will have e-mail and home pages. That will be your presence on the Web,' Fulton said.
More than 500,000 users have already signed up, Fulton said, calling demand ``pretty amazing.'
But the bread and butter will be in business-to-business deals in which HomePage will help other companies set up Web page services for their customers.
HomePage and PayMyBills say initial public offerings of stock are possible.
``Idealab! companies are designed to IPO, but it's an art deciding when to do that,' said Tim Cahill, HomePage's chief operating officer.
While there are no sure bets for success in cyberspace, the companies pointed to idealab's track record, which includes search engine Goto.com Inc. (NasdaqNM:GOTO - news), online toy retailer eToys Inc. (NasdaqNM:ETYS - news), pet supply store PetSmart Inc. (NasdaqNM:PETM - news) and entertainment guide CitySearch, now part of Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch Inc. (NasdaqNM:TMCS - news).
``When you bring an idea to the 'Lab, it's like putting it on steroids. Everything happens much faster, much bigger and much better,' PayMyBills' Tedesco said. |
