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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Zia Sun(zsun) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: who cares? who wrote (8117)	6/3/2000 3:13:00 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 10354

"but speculated that it would register 100,000 sites "in the first few months." Web-based email, everywhere: The free email service ZiaSun announced a plan Monday to give even the puniest of Web sites the ability to offer their own email services. ZiaSun (ZSUN) hopes to make money off the service by selling banner ads that would go on the email pages. The company didn't say when the service would be launched, but speculated that it would register 100,000 sites "in the first few months." Reuters contributed to this report. wired.com

To: who cares? who wrote (8117)	6/3/2000 4:39:00 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 10354

They really said this!!->Pinmail seeks niche: Hotmail rival hopes to offer service next month. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hong Kong-based ZiaSun Technologies is making a play for a stronger North American presence by providing free e-mail service on every Web site. Pinmail.com, when it is launched next month, will provide "serious business people" with free e-mail similar to major portals such as Netscape and Yahoo!, according to the company. ZiaSun will make its money from banner ads on the e-mail pages, which will be hosted and controlled from the company's servers in San Diego. ZiaSun is betting that North American business people will want to shed their remote links to the office and access e-mail at the Web site. The company is hoping it can duplicate the success of one of its primary competitors, Microsoft's Hotmail, with the business world. The catch is corporate users have to download HTML code and paste it onto their Web pages, said Andrew Graham, a San Diego, Calif.-based ZiaSun Technologies representative. Though it will compete directly against Microsoft's wildly popular Hotmail service - which also supplies users with free Web site-based e-mail - Graham believes Pinmail can find a North American niche. "Hotmail is definitely the North American market leader," conceded Graham. "But all they do is provide free e-mail. We're trying to be something more." Pinmail promises to eliminate mass bulk e-mails, commonly known as spam, that inundates Hotmail users' accounts, Graham said. That will probably be the major difference, he said. But Asian companies generally have a tough time trying to establish a North American foothold, said Rob Enderle, a senior analyst with Giga Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif. "The APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) countries can usually be expected to not understand what North American consumers want," he said. That doesn't mean Pinmail won't fly. "It depends on how they implement the service," Enderle said. But it is important that Pinmail establishes a North American presence quickly be cause Microsoft will be targetting its Hotmail site at business people in the near future, he suggests. Brand awareness will be an uphill battle the company will have to fight, Graham conceded. But ZiaSun will try to counter the marketing weight of the world's predominant software power with cross-promotions from the company's other Internet products and services. ZiaSun also sports an online trading service ( www.swiftrade.com), an Asian financial service ( www.mfinance.com) and an Asian-based search engine ( www.searchdragon.com). Having Microsoft's name behind Hotmail doesn't mean the free Web site-based email game is a fait accompli for competitors such as Pinmail. Users don't necessarily link Hotmail to the Microsoft brand name the way they might with the Windows operating system, Enderle said. None of the above may make a difference. Graham hinted that ZiaSun may eventually look for a potential suitor for its Pinmail site. "If the Asian market continues to grow the way we hope it does, Pinmail could be an attractive takeover possibility for someone," he said. Graham said it will be necessary to establish a larger Asian beachhead before the company can concentrate on the North American market. "They want to become a bigger fish in a smaller pond first," he said. "They won't be really aggressive (in North America) until then." As part of its move into North America, ZiaSun purchased Online Investors Advantage Inc., a Westlake Village, Calif.-based company that specializes in online stock trading, education and training. The Pinmail service will be available to North American users at the end of the company's second quarter, according to the company. COPYRIGHT 1999 Plesman Publications Ltd. (Canada) COPYRIGHT 1999 Gale Group