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To: Solid who wrote (19871)	2/28/2000 11:13:00 PM
From: Solid	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

@home burns while TJ fiddles- Article Jim Clark Invests in Site Aimed at Teenage Girls By ANN GRIMES Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Serial entrepreneur Jim Clark is venturing into new waters, teaming up with Tom Jermoluk, chairman of Excite At Home, and venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to sink $22 million into a Web site for teenage girls. The Web company, called Kibu.com (www.kibu.com), of Redwood City, Calif., will target girls aged 13 to 18 and offer a range of content, chat and products. It is something of a departure for Mr. Clark, a co-founder of Netscape Communications Corp., whose entrepreneurial ventures also include Healtheon/WebMD Corp., financial-consulting service MyCFO and Shutterfly.com Inc., a Web-based photo service. "They will build a loyal teen audience while creating an innovative new business model-online integrated marketing," said Mr. Clark, who will join Kibu as a member of the board. Messrs. Clark and Jermoluk contributed more than 50% of the funding through their investment arm, the Helix Fund. Several Web companies have sprung up to attract the attention of the 47% of teenagers estimated to be online, 12.5 million of whom are girls, according to Internet-research firm Jupiter Communications. Web sites such as Alloy.com, Bolt.com, MXG and gURL.com are targeting the teen consumer market, estimated at $153 billion last year, according to Teen Research Unlimited. What will distinguish Kibu.com is a reward-points program for its target audience, which statistically hops from Web site to Web site, as well as more than 20 personality-backed channels on subjects ranging from fashion to relationships to college. The site will also feature instant messaging and an interactive feature called "The Daily Dilemma," in which girls can discuss personal issues. "This is a very sophisticated generation, more so than in previous generations," said co-founder Molly Lynch, who worked with Mr. Jermoluk at Excite, also of Redwood City, Calif. "They're very savvy, they've grown up online and that's given them a certain confidence... . We have to approach them differently." To benefit from the rewards program, users will have to subscribe to the site, Ms. Lynch said, but the company will assure their privacy. "We will never sell their names," she said. "Data on how they participate will be of great interest, but who they are and where they live nobody needs to know." Write to Ann Grimes at ann.grimes@wsj.com