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Technology Stocks : DoubleClick Inc (DCLK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Troy Nolan who wrote (2534)	7/30/1999 8:49:00 AM
From: Sanjay Varma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2902

Troy: thanks for the links. The Alladvantage idea seems very innovative. It recalls the free-PC movement in which free computers were given away with the caveat that users were spammed by ads stored on the hard drive whenever they used the computer. But free-PCs are different because the user gets a tangible asset, and has no control over restricting the ads. Alladvantage will probably experience a high churn rate. I suspect that their revenue model will never reach the scale necessary to make a profit. Just my opinion. The free-PC movement has forced box makers and ISP's to respond by joining the purchase of a PC with a long term service contract. It is not clear whether this strategy will pay off in the long run since, as has been pointed out in numerous articles, dial-up service at 56K is not worth $30/month now, and will be less valuable three years from now when broadband is pervasive. But it is interesting to note that box makers like Gateway, and ISP's like AOL did not copy the free-PC philosophy exactly. They did not link free PC's with advertising, but offered a long term ISP contract instead. While Alladvantage's "taskbar" might appeal to DCLK's advertisers, it would certainly upset DCLK's website clients since users would no longer need to visit their web sites to view the ads. If DCLK is influenced by Alladvantage strategy, I suspect they will transform it in some way so as to not rile their customers. -Sanjay