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Technology Stocks : Paul Allen's Wired World -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike McFarland who wrote (39)	7/3/1999 6:15:00 PM
From: mike.com	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 361

I love "TeeVee." But, you're right, I tire of the douche and beer ads too. Imagine getting ads that fit your interests, and having a choice of which ones you see. Impossible you say? Well. it will happen. You see, the "TeeVee" is about to change. Paul Allen is aware of the possibilities. He's a visionary. He has been gaining interest in the interactive ability of television in the digital world. Right now the internet is very interactive and "teevee" is mostly passive (except when the remote is in the hands of a skilled channel surfer). However, with the next generation of set top boxes, that's about to change. The convergence of the TV and PC is inevitable. Now there are many companies offering so called "interactive television" but I believe the one that will dominate will be IATV. I see my friend Carolyn on this thread and I believe she will agree with me. Unfortunately, Allen doesn't own a piece of IATV - YET. John Malone's Liberty Media has a stake with options to increase it to a 25% ownership. Allen has to be aware of the company and their patent portfolio. Please don't consider this reply spam or hype. Do some research and look at where Allen's investments and strategy are headed and then if you can honestly tell me that IATV will not be a part of that broadband digital world I won't mention it here again. IMO Allen should take a stake but I think a couple other billionaires (John Malone and Rupert Murdoch) might object.

To: Mike McFarland who wrote (39)	7/3/1999 8:49:00 PM
From: tonydc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361

Right now the WWW is a Wild, Wild West of unrelated web sites, some good, some not so good and Web surfing is a sometimes enjoyable, often frustrating and unproductive experience. I see Paul Allen as Will Smith, lassoing these unruly web sites into an orderly package. It seems inevitable that just as mom and pop hardware stores were overtaken by Home Depot and family doctors have been replaced with HMO's the Internet will be aggregated into Networks. Speaking both as an investor as well as a consumer this is good for the Net. Yes, advertising will be targeted to consumers but so will content. Companies like Net Perceptions (NETP, 22 1/4) (which is a part of Paul Allen's "Wired World") provide the software that allows the customization of a surfer's Web experience. When I go to Amazon.com to buy a book I get a list of suggestions for books I might be interested in buying. This is good for Amazon, but its also good for me, pointing me to books I might not otherwise have thought of buying. When I go to the personalized Go2Net (GNET, 89 1/4) home page I get only information I might be interested in. Sure, Mr. Allen's world shares some of the characteristics of TV, but instead of having 50 channels it will have thousands or millions, one for each individual viewer.