WAVO's first ad revenue driven product
I don't believe WavePhore has had experience with Ad Driven free services such as WaveTop. In the past they've benefitted from generous engineering fees for their satellite programming work, and regular cash flow subscriptions for their coorporate services. It remains to be seen if this new business model is one they are capable of handling. It took AOL several years to get a handle on it, and even they make more revenue now from the exclusively offered products and services on their system, then from general Ad revenue. It's been mentioned that WAVO may end up charging for premium content once their platform gains acceptance. So I would have to change my opinion that Ad revenue showing up in the July reporting quarter may be no real indication of WAVO's success, especially since it's likely to be weak. I'd say the most important indicator of WAVO's success as an investor would be the acceptance of this new medium as an expected standard to consumers. I'll be happiest when we start seeing Gateway2000 ads touting TV-Inputs as a standard so you can enjoy the new WebTV for Windows. That will be an early symptom that resellers have embraced this feature as a new gimmick to help sell their boxes. I hope contributors here who notice marketing using this angle will post these "early symptom" observations here. Once more consumers see and embrace WebTV for Windows, the better it will be for WAVO. You see, consumers already know other WebTV customers pay something for the service(even though the set top box fee was for ISP access). They will less likely be resistant to paying for premium content on WaveTop, as an element of WebTV for Windows, then say a consumer would want to pay for anything on the unknown WaveTop alone. In that regard, the potential for gaining user fees from WaveTop is greatly enhanced by it's incorporation into WebTV for Windows. It will be facinating, and hopefully profitable for us to see how things develop over the coming months.
Joe V., IMHO this forum is for us to exchange news, opinions, good and bad suspisions, congrat's on great days, and a shoulder on lousey ones, so other investors like us can make a more educated and well rounded decision regarding their investments. Sorry if I'm not relax'ed enough for people who limit themselves to little more than glib unfounded one line predictions. We used to get great "insider" comments from you in the past, so what happened? were they all just hype? I certainly hope not, cause if so, may I suggest a chat line or a better forum for you; it's called Motley Fools. |
