Big news for GNET. Here is a portion of the news released taken from MSNBC News Alert. Go2Net.Com mentioned on Allen's plans.
ALLEN'S BIG PLANS
The idea for Mercata arose last summer, after Van Horn made a presentation to Allen about his old Vulcan-backed software firm. Allen pulled him aside and said, “How'd you like to build the biggest e-commerce company in the world?”
“Sure. What would you like to sell?” Van Horn asked. “Everything,” was the answer he received, which is why he ran out and registered the domain everything.com — long before the co-op idea materialized. Mercata's real mission is much broader than the bulk discount gimmick; Allen's looking for a way to sell products across his “wired world” family of Vulcan Venture properties, like Ticketmaster, Go2Net.com or Charter Communications cable company.
“The Vulcan model is to find an idea that's working and invest in it,” said Bill Savoy, CEO of Vulcan Ventures. “We rarely start an idea. In this case, we said, ‘Tom, are there any other models that could be really big?' Here we are on the precipice about to find out if this will work.”
For now, Mercata is all about cyber co-op buying, but the everything.com vision remains — in fact, Allen recently turned down a near million-dollar offer for the domain.
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