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Technology Stocks : WAVX Anyone? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wildman262 who wrote (8980)	9/10/1999 5:48:00 PM
From: cm	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11417

The Whole "To-Free" Movement Has WAVX Written All Over It... I just can't fathom the business model for sustainable revenues with all these Free Cans (the cans are but conduits for digital content) without "the money chip." Yes, I know about advertising revenues... that's sort of my thing. You gather the profiles and/or you serve up the ads in exchange for folks accepting the Free Can... whether it's an Internet appliance and/or set-top box or, heck, a real Free TV. But, there's a problem with that model. Welcome to what Michael Goldhaber calls "the attention economy." Goldhaber wrote up this particular thesis in a series of, I think, five articles in Wired some several YEARS back. But, only now is it hitting the mainstream. I bombard the Free Can crowd with all sorts of Vegas Strip-style messages and interstitials. And I endeavor to be clever and make them ever more intrusive. And what will I get--sure as mist in Seattle--are a bunch of white-eyed zombies who don't click on a darned thing. I can't BUY their attention with Free Cans... 'cause they have become inured to all my tricks. I thought My Free Can was buying their attention, when, in reality, My Free Can was ensuring their inattention. So, how does my Free Can become a business model supporting sustainable revenues? Take refuge in the Embassy. Place your bets on the money chip. Do I grant the distributor of My Free Can my permission to study my click-stream through cyberland... thus giving them invaluable marketing intelligence that they can forward to any number of purveyors? Does My Free Can become a ticket to all manner of new entertainment and game venues and offerings for my pay-per-view, pay-as-I-go, rent-to-own pleasure? Are there My Free Can entertainment exclusives? Is My Free Can distributed by membership organizations like AARP... sort of like my membership card? Or does My Free Can become My Rent-A-Can that lets me pay a low monthly fee... and shuts me down if I don't pay my bills? Just some wild speculatin' on a Friday afternoon. (And, yes, Loe, maybe I will be making a similar SEEK-like post in the near future.) My Best Regards, c m