WavePhore Announces Launch of Online Mall and New Electronic Commerce Channel
WaveTop Store Offers Vendors Merchandising Capabilities Beyond Those Of The Standard E-Commerce Web Site
PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 1, 1998-- WavePhore, Inc. (NASDAQ:WAVO - news), the leading new media content integrator and architect of digital delivery systems, today announced the launch of the WaveTop Store electronic commerce channel, and establishment of 9 initial merchants in this new ''broadcast mall''.
Consumers will now be able to take advantage of WaveTop's unique broadcast delivery of multimedia content to receive exciting offers and place orders for useful merchandise and services. Vendor's product offerings and catalog-like content will be delivered seamlessly to their desktop, without the hassle of going on line, and for free. Clearance of the actual transactions will be completed using the consumer's existing Web connection and the secure methods implemented by each of the respective vendors.
''The launch of the WaveTop Store extends our successful content offerings, which have been primarily information and entertainment content, to include services which enhance and ease our customer's day-to-day lives,'' said Thom Kozik, WavePhore WaveTop's Executive Vice-President and General Manager. ''The primary benefit is an improved online shopping experience,'' added Kozik. ''For our vendors, this channel represents a new way to merchandise their products without the limitations of slow connections or the costs of additional infrastructure.''
While catalog and retail vendors spend tens of millions annually to display their products effectively and make the presentation
attractive and enticing to prospective buyers, much of this traditional merchandising discipline is tossed aside in the rush towards web-based retailing. Due to typically slow connection speeds and infrastructure limitations, merchants are often forced to present only limited thumbnail images of their products, and generally cannot take advantage of the multimedia capabilities of the average home PC. With WaveTop's broadcast capability, vendors can now distribute rich, multimedia presentations of their product offerings directly to the consumer's PC with no limitations due to slow connections, servers or Internet traffic. As they develop these new media rich product presentations, merchants in the WaveTop Store will begin offering the consumer a better way to be introduced to their products and make more informed buying decisions.
''WaveTop's broadcast architecture provides us with a unique branding tool,'' said Diana Madrigal, Marketing Director at Fry Multimedia, a leading e-commerce interactive agency. ''Our clients, such as Godiva Chocolatier, will be able to reach ''early adopter'' consumers of rich media technology. With WaveTop, they can view an exciting multimedia message with video and sound elements that can help leverage Godiva's world-class brand and promote e-commerce on the web.
In addition to Godiva Chocolatier, other vendors involved in the launch of the WaveTop Store include the Wall Street Journal, Barnes and Noble, Audio Book Club, CompUSA, The Fragrance Counter, NextCard, Shop-at-Home, and VideoMaker magazine.
WaveTop's unique electronic commerce and advertising-supported service also provides multi-media programming, including news, investment advice and information, children's programming, weather, free software downloads and much more, all supplied by the Web's leading content providers. Distributed nationally via the unused portion of television signals from 264 PBS member stations around the country, WaveTop currently reaches more than 99 percent of U.S. households.
WavePhore is a leader in the industry bringing new programming and content to home viewers through the television medium. The company is a member of the IP Multicast Initiative (IPMI), an industry committee that drafts the specifications for IP Multicast, the data broadcasting standard adopted by the recently formed Advanced Television Enhancement Forum (ATVEF) for enhanced television programming. Enhanced television enables a variety of new information, entertainment and commerce opportunities using data broadcasting alone or in conjunction with video programming and set-top boxes.
HOW WAVETOP WORKS
WaveTop's PC data broadcast service works by embedding data streams into the unseen portion of existing broadcast television signals using the Vertical Blanking Interval (VBI). WaveTop has partnered with PBS National Datacast to broadcast data over the television signals of its 264 PBS member stations. Using a simple browser interface and a broadcast ready PC (a standard PC with a built-in TV tuner or equipped with an add-on TV tuner card), users will interact with automatically downloaded information, entertainment and software. Computers equipped with TV tuners and WaveTop software transparently receive, decode and cache content without the bottleneck of the Internet or tying up a phone line. WaveTop is compatible with Microsoft Windows 95 and is part of the Microsoft Windows 98 operating system.
RICH CONTENT
WaveTop content providers are among the world's leading media companies, including Time Inc. New Media, which includes the on-line versions of People, Time, Entertainment Weekly, Money, Fortune and Sports Illustrated for Kids and ZDNet News, on-line versions of ComputerLife, Family PC and Yahoo Internet Life. Also providing content are USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, CBS SportsLine, PBS ONLINE, Warner Bros. Online, Bloomberg L.P., The Weather Channel, N2K's Music Boulevard, BarnesandNoble.com, Universal Press Syndicate - Comics, Women's Wire and Prevention's Healthy Ideas, NECX, Astrology.Net, Dummies Daily and UltimateTV.
ADVERTISER-SUPPORTED
WaveTop is supported by leading consumer-brand charter advertisers. They include companies such as Atlanta Bank, EMI Records, Hewlett-Packard Co. [NYSE:HWP - news], Intel Corp. [Nasdaq:INTC - news], Kellogg Co., Lincoln-Mercury Inc., Mobil Corp. [NYSE:MOB - news], Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Salomon Smith Barney Holdings and Spiegel Inc [Nasdaq:SPGLA - news]. WaveTop's ability to deliver high-bandwidth applications to the home without the download delays
associated with modems allows advertisers to send more creative multimedia advertisements such as movie and video clips, games, software downloads and micro sites.
ABOUT WAVEPHORE
WavePhore, Inc. (NASDAQ: WAVO - news) is the leading new media content integrator and architect of digital delivery systems. It partners with the foremost providers of news, business data, Web-based content and multimedia programming to deliver selective intelligence and quality content to an information-dependent society. WavePhore (www.wavephore.com) enables people and enterprises to more efficiently receive, manage and productively use all types of urgent, insightful, or relevant information. The company's technologies and services aggregate, filter, customize and distribute digital content (text,
graphics, music, and video) using a wide range of reliable, low-cost broadcast (FM sideband, TV-VBI), satellite and Web-based delivery systems. It has technology sourcing and strategic alliances with Microsoft, Intel, Compaq, Sony, Gateway, STB, ADS and PBS National Datacast, in addition to information service agreements with some two hundred Fortune 1,000 companies worldwide. Additional information on WavePhore is available via the Internet at wavephore.com.
Information on its business units can be found at: wavetop.net, wavephore.net and
newscast.com.
Certain of the above statements regarding WavePhore constitute forward-looking statements, which may involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from such forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, technology changes, competitive developments, industry and market acceptance of new products and services, risk factors listed from time to time in WavePhore's SEC filings.
Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact:
Neale-May & Partners
Bernadette Callahan, 650/328-5555 ext. 120
(WaveTop Media Contact)
callahan@nealemay.com
or
WavePhore Inc.
Jennifer Schreier, 602-952-5500 ext. 239
(WaveTop Investor Relations Contact)
jschreier@wavephore.com
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