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Technology Stocks : IATV-ACTV Digital Convergence Software-HyperTV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SBerglowe who wrote (8077)	11/29/1999 11:37:00 AM
From: SBerglowe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13157

Valuation of IATV vs OPTV: At the moment OPTV is in a momentum move. However, from the due dilly I've done, it would seem that IATV has the patents and is currently shipping. I am certainly not one of the most knowledgeable, and would appreciate hearing from others who have researched the two companies and can explain WHY OPTV is flying and we are not. Is it sponsorship or is it product?

To: SBerglowe who wrote (8077)	12/1/1999 11:11:00 AM
From: Mike Fredericks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13157

You wrote: Last night on 60 minutes The CEO of a data company suggested submitting false information as a way of circumventing the collection of information. Seems like a good way to go!! That's not exactly what he said. What he said was that 50% of people, when they saw forms requiring personal information (such as HyperTV's) just exited the site, deciding that it wasn't worth it to submit the information. 25% of the people submitted false information. The other 25% submitted real information. This is what I posted when the Atheist told me to "go away" because I "didn't get it" (I even cited 60 minutes in my post). My thinking is that if HyperTV turns away 1/2 of the prospective users because of the information, and of the 50% of the people who actually use the software, 1/2 of those lie (making the information near useless because half of it is bad info) then maybe HyperTV ought to rethink the way that it handles this issue. Someone else made a post that people don't have a problem posting personal info when they order something... so we could get personal info the same way Amazon does... when a person orders something, THEN we attach the info to their user account. To me, the only necessary info for HyperTV to gather is: Zip Code (not full address) Age Gender Preferences (the 'what do you like,' eg sports, news, books, whatever). Family Income I would make all but the zip code optional. I wouldn't even ASK for name/full address on the page. Who needs it? I think that they can target advertising based solely on the above. They also need zipcode to time your hypertv experience to your local pay-per-view since each company is on different schedules. But if I can tell you that your ad can target a 26 year old Male living in a middle-class suburb with a $x income who likes sports, then that's all the ad company cares about. They don't need to know that the male's name is John Smith and he lives at 123 Sesame street. At that point, HyperTV has crossed the line into getting personal, whereas the other information is pretty darn anonymous. Once a person orders a product via HyperTV, THEN they can get the name and address. At that point, they have a clear justification for doing so. Making this minor change to the registration process will make the users more comfortable and still give the advertisers enough info to target the ads, and thus give IATV as much revenue as possible. -Mike