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Technology Stocks : Zapata (ZAP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Invest2Ride who wrote (230)	7/17/1998 9:30:00 PM
From: RJC2006	Respond to of 1206

<<<Show of hands - how many have actually visited Bianca's? It's a very popular site, for lurkers and participants. At least it's upfront about its content. I used to be an AOL subscriber and I can tell you that many of the youth chat rooms there were smuttier than Bianca's Smut Shack! Many of the rooms have regulars who are quite witty with their double entendre. Frankly, I enjoy wit over pure raging hormones any day.>>> Sigh...where to begin with this one. Anyone who has browsed the news groups knows that few sights can match those groups for downright smutiness. Nevertheless the purchase of Bianca's throws me for a complete loop. Up until now I have had two things on my mind. #1. It's difficult to buy sites that make money. #2. Sex sells. However, it also stirs controversy and now ZAP will be tying itself to the most controversial issue on the 'net namely pornography. No matter how you cut it Bianca's is a porn site. They don't peddle it on their site but only a fool believes that it is there for anything else. Sure they have a myriad of non-sex related rooms etc. but check out the traffic and then see if you disagree. I am REALLY on the fence with this one. By buying the Smut Shack, Zapata is legitimizing the content. I don't know if that is such a good buy or not. Now, by any stretch of the imagination I am no prude but let's face reality. There is a lot of doublespeak* that goes on concerning pornography and the web. The Congress tries to outlaw it, the Supreme Court legalizes it and the President probably indulges in it. But nevertheless, it stirs up emotions and causes a lot of conflicts. Would like to know what others think about this. I've been to Bianca's. I know what it's about. What I can't imagine is what would happen in a Zapata board meeting should Avi log on to it and access a few of the member homepages that I've seen. I will not post any of them here but if you care for a sample I will send you an URL by private mail ONLY if you stipulate that you are over 18 and not offended by explicit sexual material!(Starting to get my drift now?) Now there is one thing about Bianca's that I still wonder about. At one time Radio Shack was hedging toward taking Bianca to court for trademark infringement based simply on the fact that they used the word "Shack" in their name. This was at least a year ago so I figure RS couldn't win in court and their claims were ridiculous (this is the option I would pick) or some settlement was derived but I don't know for sure. I can tell you that this controversy was posted on the Bianca site so none of it was secret or hidden from the user population. And at some point it seems to have just slipped away. As anyone who has read postings by me in the past can attest to, I am invested long in ZAP ergo I have a reason to say good things. Unfortunately, I have to say that I don't think Bianca's will be a big money maker for ZAP at least not the way they have been doing business. It is common knowledge in the Bay Area that Bianca's barely gets by and the owners had some serious misgivings as to what course to take had Radio Shack sought judicial action. However, as you have stated there is not much doubt about the its popularity and if eyeballs are what ZAP is after they will get them from there...glazed over as they may be! LMAO! *doublespeak-Term used in George Orwell's book 1984 to denote a manner of speaking in which two contradictory phrases can be used almost simultaneously and accepting both of them.