DCTI NEWS!!!
Digital Courier's WeatherLabs to Launch Full Scale Weather Portal
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.
CO: Digital Courier Technologies, Inc.; WeatherLabs, Inc.
ST: Utah
IN: CPR MLM ADV
SU: PDT
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