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Technology Stocks : WAVX Anyone? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mammon who wrote (4558)	11/10/1998 2:04:00 PM
From: Paul Schmidt	Respond to of 11417

I think any developments in technology that would bring choice of content and therefore pay per view concepts such as video on demand, closer to mass market reality, is good for wave. The worst scenario for wave is a dumbed downed population prepared to watch the mass broadcasts like so many sheep, and not actively looking for new,interesting content. As broadband emerges the internet would be able to offer that diversity. I can easily envisage some garage operation working away for months producing one high quality video in a year. Putting it out on the Web, and getting revenues on a pay per view basis, they have direct access to the customer without censorship of a broadcaster, who first and foremostly considers whether enough viewers will watch a program before actually screening it. Typically thresholds in the millions of viewers are required before it is viable. As an example, I'm a white water canoeist. I would be very interested in an expert video showing the technical aspects of Welsh rivers, and there are at least a potential market of 10 000 WW canoeists in the UK who would be interested in that topic. An enterprising individual charging £2-4/viewing could stand to make a neat profit on a couple of weeks good fun on the river. It is very difficult to get that sort of product screened on national TV at present, and mostly end up being sold out of specialty shops. With the introduction of digital TV with 200 channels +, the economics are going to change, with the potential viewing public split amongst the channels. Either the cost of production is kept down by endless repetitiion of old programs (so boring, bound to push more people to start surfing), or revenue is increased by pay per view. There is no other way. Advertising revenue? - what will advertisers be prepared to pay for reaching smaller audiences? Less, I presume. Digital TV arrived here in the UK on October the 1st, and already these scenarios are starting to unfold. As recent announcements of Wave shows, the intent is that the EMBASSY concept can be implemented in as many different devices as possible, not just PCs. Just at the same time as the concept of what constitutes a "TV" and a "PC" becomes blurred, the good old PC is set to diversify into different devices, especially more mobile solutions. The important thing is that access to rich and diverse content will be controlled, metered and paid for by our little WaveMeter. Just my wheeze, Paul

To: Mammon who wrote (4558)	11/10/1998 3:21:00 PM
From: andrew peterson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11417

My read on it is that it's a "big picture" thing. The connection might not be there yet, but the Broadcom chip will hasten the convergence and Embassy WILL find it's way into set-top boxes and cable-modems. In fact, I'd be willing to place a small bet that within a couple of years we'll see devices for sale that contain both chips. The more wide-spread the PC/TV convergence becomes, the greater the need for and usefulness of WAVX's products will become. For just one example, think of all those late night informercials hawking some get-rich quick scheme to buy foreclosed real estate or whatever. What they're selling is a set of books and videos. Say you're watching that through this sort of "converged" system. What the producers would be able to do is to use your set-top box to let you open a window to their web page and use your Wave account to download the text of the book or view the video right then. If I were a marketer, I'd love this. It's kind of like Amazon's "one-click" service in the way it could capitalize on our lack of impulse control. (And if I were in the porn business, I'd really go nuts for it...but I'll leave it to Marty to explicate the possibilities there.) Anyway, that's what I see being of interest in this news. It's down the line, but not really that far.