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Technology Stocks : Preview Travel (PTVL) ---- Via...Excite & AOL -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William Vu who wrote (197)	4/7/1998 4:32:00 PM
From: Tom Hua	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 728

MSNBC on the Internet Launches New Weekly Travel Section Will Include an Interactive Travel Toolkit Produced with Microsoft Expedia Easing Travel Decisions to Help Research, Book and Buy Travel NEW YORK, April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- MSNBC on the Internet ( www.msnbc.com ) has launched a new Travel section, redesigned to help make travel planning easy. The new Travel section, produced with Microsoft Expedia.com, helps take the guesswork out of traveling. MSNBC Travel delivers online tools for researching and planning business and leisure trips -- you can even purchase your tickets online. The new site, sponsored by Continental Airlines, is located in the Living*Travel section and is refreshed each Tuesday morning. Business travelers will find MSNBC Travel an especially useful resource: By using the interactive Travel Toolkit, users will be able to make reservations, access travel news updates and weather, as well as explore background information on destinations. MSNBC travel stories fully leverage the power of the Internet, including audio, video, interactive quizzes and wizards for booking travel. The new section also includes destination audio reports and video clips, a travel bulletin board, travel chats, consumer travel tips, and a weekly report compiled for the frequent business traveler. In addition, NBC's ''Today'' show Travel Editor Peter Greenberg contributes his weekly ''Travel Detective'' column. ''This new Travel section is a great asset for business travelers who make their own arrangements,'' said Merrill Brown, editor in chief, MSNBC on the Internet. ''The information and resources provide one-stop-shopping, as well as additional information helping with the decision-making process when booking a trip.'' Reports include ''Wired Hotels,'' a look at the best wired hotels in America; ''Spring Travel Planner,'' a comprehensive package to help plan springtime trips to Manhattan, the Southwest and Europe that includes stories, quizzes and slideshows; ''News Story: El Nino, Drought and the Big Island of Hawaii: What Does it Mean for the Traveler?'' and ''Stupid Pet Trips.'' MSNBC Travel plans to showcase destinations such as Florida, Alaska, New Zealand, Indonesia and Hawaii. MSNBC is a partnership between NBC (NYSE: GE - news), a leading provider of news and information, and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news), the leader in personal computer software and a major provider of Internet online services. Built on the worldwide resources of NBC News, MSNBC is a 24-hour cable news network and an Internet news service at www.msnbc.com. CONTACT: Debby Fry Wilson, MSNBC on the Internet, or debbyfry.wilson@msnbc.com, 425-703-7059; or Lloyd Trufelman, lloydt@tryloncommunications.com, or Loren Pomerantz, lorenp@tryloncommunications.com of Trylon Communications, 212-818-9151, for MSNBC on the Internet

To: William Vu who wrote (197)	4/12/1998 10:20:00 PM
From: Tom Hua	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 728

Can PTVL beat this new airline tickets concept? Firm lets users name their price By Reuters Special to CNET NEWS.COM April 6, 1998, 11:00 a.m. PT HARTFORD, Connecticut--A Connecticut entrepreneur today launched an Internet commerce system he hopes will revolutionize the way people shop for airline tickets, and eventually other products. Stamford, Connecticut-based Priceline.com allows consumers to name the price they are willing to pay for airline tickets. The buyer-driven system is aimed at leisure rather than business travelers, and a dozen major U.S. and international airlines are cooperating with the venture, Priceline.com chairman Jay Walker said. The 100-employee Priceline.com initially will focus on airline tickets, but soon will expand into new cars, home mortgages, credit cards, and personal computers, Walker said. Walker, 42, raised $25 million in private capital to launch the service, and he aims to take the company public next year. "We are expecting conservatively to sell somewhere on the order of 1,000 tickets a week, as our initial objective," Walker said. Analysts said Priceline.com is coming online as Internet commerce is beginning to take off. "1998 will be a breakthrough year for Internet commerce," said Nicole Vanderbilt, director of digital commerce at Jupiter Communications. "We expect consumers to spend about $5.8 billion shopping online." Walker concedes that few, if any, companies have as yet harnessed the Internet into huge profits, but he is convinced he has hit upon a compelling idea. There are about 500,000 airline seats that fly empty every day, and the airlines would just as soon fill them with leisure travelers at bargain prices, he said. Customers can go to Priceline.com's Web site, insert their dates and destinations as well as the price they can afford, and Priceline.com will respond within an hour, Walker said. If a customer offers $300 to fly from New York to Los Angeles, Priceline.com will try to buy a seat for $280, and keep the difference as profit, Walker said. The service is not for business travelers. "When you use Priceline, you must agree to let the airlines pick the flight and the routing," Walker said. "You can't change the tickets, and there are no frequent flyer miles." The service is initially restricted to flights originating in the U.S., but Walker expects to expand overseas soon. Priceline.com also offers a toll-free phone number for consumers who are not Internet-savvy, Walker said. Priceline.com will launch a $10 million national advertising campaign this week. The radio, newspaper, and billboard campaign, featuring actor William Shatner, was created by Boston agency Heater Advertising.