DCTI news 2/1/99 Digital Courier's WeatherLabs to Launch Full Scale Weather Portal
PR Newswire, Monday, February 01, 1999 at 13:19
WeatherLabs to Create a Significant Revenue Stream from the Booming
Advertising Revenue Opportunities on the Internet
PARK CITY, Utah and SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- WeatherLabs,
Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Digital Courier Technologies, Inc.
(NASDAQ:DCTI), announced today that it will launch a comprehensive
destination Internet weather portal later this month. WeatherLabs currently
provides weather information and products to major portals such as Excite,
Netscape, Snap! and @Home. WeatherLabs will combine its current weather
products and services with its newest offerings for consumers to see first at
www.weatherlabs.com. The company's new weather portal will also generate
powerful targeted advertising and sponsorship opportunities for a wide range
of companies looking for immediate exposure on the Internet.
The company's previous weather portal generated over 15 million page views
per month before being re-purposed for its corporate clients. The company
expects the new site to easily exceed that traffic, making it attractive to
high-profile advertisers. WeatherLabs has begun recruiting sponsorship in the
travel, sports, entertainment, and broadcasting industries from all around the
world. "This is a multi-million dollar revenue opportunity for WeatherLabs,
and we expect it to be the largest single stream of revenue for the company to
date," stated R.J. Pittman, CEO of Digital Courier.
In January of this year, a study conducted by the Pew Research Center
concluded that weather is now the number one news attraction on the Web. It
has grown from a 47% market share of consumers accessing news in October of
1996, to a commanding 64% of market share in October of 1998. WeatherLabs
intends to capitalize on the explosive growth in the weather and advertising
revenue markets by leveraging its brand name to attract the millions of users
seeking weather information on the Internet. @Home, Excite, Netscape, AOL,
Snap!, and Star Media, have all helped to establish WeatherLabs as a market
leader by exclusively selecting the company for premier weather content on
their web sites.
"Weather has emerged as one of the most popular discussion topics across
all geographic, economic, cultural, and social boundaries in the world.
Launching an online weather service that can provide detailed weather
information for virtually any location in the world is an unprecedented feat,
that will dramatically increase the value of weather for consumers and
businesses alike," stated Pittman. "It will also be the feat that sets us
far, far apart from our competitors in the weather industry," he added.
WeatherLabs' proprietary numerical analysis and weather forecasting
algorithms will debut reliable and unique weather forecasts for nearly 1
million locations and points of interest around the world exclusively on
www.weatherlabs.com later this month. In future versions of the service,
WeatherLabs plans to expand its software-driven weather forecasts to cover
nearly every city on the planet along with several million locations, street
addresses, outdoor sporting and entertainment venues, and other points of
interests.
"We will build long term loyalty and habitual usage of WeatherLabs online
services by developing a one-of-a-kind weather community that provides highly
personalized daily weather experiences for consumers and businesses in every
corner of the globe," stated Brendan Lane Larson, Senior Vice President,
Digital Courier and President of the WeatherLabs division. "And it is this
loyalty that leads to sustained increases in web site traffic and increased
advertising revenue opportunities for our company," he added.
Digital Courier Technologies Inc. supplies businesses and major web
portals with sophisticated e-commerce, payment processing and content delivery
software. The software is based on a powerful matrix of server-side Java
software components. Its netClearing division offers sophisticated and secure
credit card and payments processing services and technology on the Internet.
Its current content offerings, which utilize the powerful e-commerce and
content delivery software, include: WeatherLabs, a premier online weather
information service (www.weatherlabs.com), VideosNow, (www.videosnow.com), and
BooksNow (www.booksnow.com). Among Digital Courier's strategic partners
utilizing the Company's software and/or services are major Internet companies
such as America Online, Excite, Netscape, @Home and Preview Travel.
SOURCE Digital Courier Technologies, Inc.
-0- 02/01/99
/CONTACT: Brendan Lane Larson of WeatherLabs, Inc., 415-243-9669, or
fax, 415-243-9679, blarson@weatherlabs.com; or Eileen Iguchi, Investor
Relations of Digital Courier Technologies, Inc., 435-655-3617, or fax,
435-655-3648, eiguchi@dcourier.com/
/Web site: booksnow.com
/Web site: videosnow.com
/Web site: weatherlabs.com
/Web site: gate.dcourier.com
Companies or Securities discussed in this article:
Symbol Name
NASDAQ:DCTI
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