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To: Danny who wrote (84679)	11/19/1999 9:54:00 PM
From: FESHBACH_DISCIPLE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

pathfinder.com Enjoy oblivion

To: Danny who wrote (84679)	11/20/1999 11:01:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Bertelsmann sweetens European e-commerce platform (adds news conference) BERLIN, Nov 19 (Reuters) - German media giant Bertelsmann AG <BTGGga.F> said on Friday it had beefed up its European electronic commerce platform BOL with compact disc sales, free downloads of popular music tracks and an online radio station. The added features, timed to cash in on the lucrative holiday shopping season, are the next step in the group's aggressive campaign to take on rivals like market leader Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O>. Amazon.com started selling music on its German and British websites last month. BOL said that it had introduced music sales in the Netherlands and Germany, accompanied by free music single downloads from Whitney Houston, Kenny G., Grateful Dead and Garbage, which can be saved on hard disks for a limited time. The feature has the added bonus for the company of promoting three artists who are backed by Bertelsmann music labels or labels with which the group cooperates. A BOL spokesman said that the company would expand music sales to its British and French sites in the next two to three weeks and to Switzerland and Spain in spring 2000. The site also features BOL Radio, which allows Internet shoppers to listen to a Bertelsmann radio programme and order music they hear featured. Klaus Eierhoff, head of Bertelsmann's multimedia activities, said that BOL would launch home video sales early next year but said the group would stop short of creating an all-purpose shopping site. "We are not planning on creating a department store (out of BOL)," Eierhoff said. "We will remain a media shop." Amazon.com expanded into new markets this month by launching online "stores" for home improvement, software, video games and gift ideas and in September came out with zShops linking consumers to a broad array of online merchants. Bertelsmann is active in the U.S. e-commerce market with a 40 percent stake in Barnesandnoble.com <BNBN.O>. BOL, its wholly owned European platform, now has sites based in six countries. Eierhoff said that that BOL will expand to Japan, South Korea, China and Latin America by the end of 2000. BOL Managing Director Heinz Wermelinger told the news conference that the company had surpassed the development forecasts set at its launch in February with growth of 15 to 20 percent per month. Wermelinger said that BOL now sells up to 6,000 books daily, about 3,000 of which in Germany. The company forecast 45 million marks in turnover for 1999. REUTERS Rtr 12:26 11-19-99