UPDATE TO THIS THREAD...........
Four of the header's hyperlinks are not presently functioning. The SI webmistress/master have been contacted in order to correct this. In the meanwhile, below are the articles from Internet.com which currently are missing.
1) LINK #1 UNDER BUSINESS OBJECTIVES:
Enhanced Services Launches New Web
Ad Unit
[December 31, 1998] Enhanced Services Company Inc. and its
subsidiary, ad network and rep firm Zulu-tek Inc. said they have
formed a new Web advertising unit to support ad revenue growth
and expansion of its e- commerce business with the recent
acquisition of BrandsForLess.com.
The new unit will be called Group Omni-net.com.
"With the formation of Group Omni-net.com, we are now
positioned to become a dominant Web advertising and
e-commerce force," said Rob Chmiel, chief operating officer of
Enhanced. "We have made a significant commitment by increasing
our online ad budget to $25 million for 1999 to facilitate greater
market penetration for BrandsForLess.com and our other
e-commerce ventures. The immediate impact of the recent ad
campaign has clearly demonstrated the positive synergy created
with the Enhanced-BrandsForLess combination."
Chmiel added that a CEO for Omni-net is being sought and the
new Web site for Omni-net is expected to go live in January.
BrandsForLess.com is an e-commerce mall that allows shoppers
to find, select and purchase products across multiple categories.
The operation currently offers more than 1,500 brands and over
500,000 products.
Enhanced said it already has rolled out an initial online ad
campaign for BrandsForLess.com on DejaNews.com,
CNN.com, WarnerBros., SportsLine, Webcrawler, Excite,
Geocities and the Zulu network, and has experienced substantial
increases in traffic as a result.
2) LINK #2 UNDER BRANDSFORLESS.COM SUBSIDIARIES:
Enhanced Services Buys
'BrandsForLess.com' for $35 Million
[December 23, 1998] Enhanced Services Company Inc. in Los
Angeles said that it has acquired privately held e-commerce firm
BrandsForLess.com for $35 million.
BrandsForLess.com operates an online department store
featuring about 60 departments that it calls "e-partments," selling
name brand goods at a discount. The company also develops and
administers various e-commerce stores appearing under the
brand names of various portal and destination sites.
"BrandsForLess.com has forged numerous strategic relationships
with some of the most popular names on the Internet to position
itself as a leading e- commerce solution for online shopping. Their
success is largely the result of addressing what consumer studies
have indicated to be missing within the online shopping
environment--convenience, simplicity and reliability at a discount,"
said Rob Chmiel, COO of Enhanced Services.
"This acquisition is a logical extension of our strategy to acquire
companies that have a proven track record and expertise of
driving revenue through the Internet," he said.
"We believe that the opportunity to join forces with the Enhanced
team represents an ideal situation for both entities," said George
Russell, BrandsForLess president and CEO. ". . .Enhanced
Services brings to the table rapid access to thousands of potential
distributors of BrandsForLess.com's e- commerce package."
BrandsForLess.com currently offers more than 1,500 brands,
and over 500,000 products on its site. It also develops and
administers various "virtual" department stores licensed under the
names of major portal and destination sites such as
DejaNews.Com and CNN.com.
Enhanced Services said the combination of the brands site with its
ad network Zulu-tek and its pending acquisitions, "represent the
convergence under one umbrella of diverse services focused
specifically on the Internet as a communications and transaction
medium creating a new specialty in the e-commerce arena."
3) LINK #3 UNDER BRANDSFORLESS.COM SUBSIDIARIES:
Survey Finds Holiday-Related Ads
Surged Near Christmas
[January 4, 1999] Web measurement firm NetRatings said
holiday advertising online jumped from 20 percent of total Web
advertising during the week of Dec. 6, 1998 to 36 percent for the
week of Dec. 20, 1998.
Also, NetRatings said the top 10 holiday advertisers for the
weeks of Dec 13 and Dec 20, 1998, were:
Dec. 20, 1998
1.CatalogLink
2.LowestFare
3.MSN Shopping
4.eBay
5.1800 Flowers
6.Barnes and Noble
7.Garden.com
8.Egghead
9.Brandsforless.com
10.CD Now
4) LINK #6 UNDER ECHOMEDIA SUBSIDIARIES:
EchoMedia Offers Solution for TV-Quality
Interstitial Commercials
[September 24] Newport, RI-based interactive ad services company
echoMedia reports it has delivered a new technology called Sesame-Ad that
allows advertisers to run interstitial, television-quality commercials on the Web
with all of the live-action, animation, drama and sound associated with regular
TV commercials.
Sesame-Ad handles the scheduling automatically and also captures detailed
end-user demographics and advertising impressions on a "real-time" basis,
generating a customized online report for the advertiser, the company said.
Pricing was not disclosed.
"Sesame-Ad handles automatically the pre-determined scheduling of the
advertiser's commercials so they reach the Web users of primary interest--the
millions of potential customers identified as prime targets for the advertised
product or service," said Thomas J. Burgess, co-founder and chief executive
officer of echoMedia. "Sesame-Ad activates the advertiser's commercial when a
Web user initiates the download of a graphic field or document, and the
commercial appears on the user's screen without any noticeable interference with
the download."
The company said the technology is already in use by clients such as MapQuest,
the Christian Science Monitor and TravelFacts. Advertisers include Honda,
BMW, and Sandals Resorts.
The Sesame-Ad technology is capable of converting an advertiser's television
creative into a Web-capable software file regardless of the creative or graphic
tool used by the advertiser's agency to produce the commercial, the company
said.
Commercials also may run virtually any size, from full screen to half-screen or
quarter-screen or smaller, and any length, from a branding ad with a fixed run
time to a longer interactive spot.
And to avoid the annoying problem of "advertising overload," the advertiser can
determine how frequently a Web commercial is allowed to appear on a user's
screen (e.g., every fifth page view, or third key word search).
EchoMedia is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Netmaster Group Inc.
[NOTE: Netmaster Group changed its name to Zulu-tek in December of 1997] |
