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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: t2 who wrote (21522)	4/24/1999 6:33:00 PM
From: Bill Fischofer	Respond to of 74651

Re: IE as gateway A browser is just another commodity like a modem. IE is winning because MSFT has done a better job of providing an easy-to-use and free tool, but this gives MSFT no competitive advantage in the much-feared "battle for eyeballs". The whole "eyeball" theory of the net is a distortion borne of a generation of TV-trained advertising executives who insist on viewing the net as just a different conduit for funneling ads to a new class of cyber-couch-potato. This is a fundamentally incorrect worldview. Push-based intrusive advertising simply will not work on the net. Tools are readily available to strip out all of the silly banners and other ads that are at the center of all this froth. I personally use intermute.com and have been surfing ad-free for the better part of the past year. Try it once and you'll be hooked too. Ironically, the closest TV analog to what will work on the net is the infomercial. There is a great demand for product information which needs to be presented in an accessible and entertaining manner at the convenience and specific request of the user. This is something totally alien to most ad executives who are schooled in the force-feed model of advertising and they are still in denial while they try to make the old ad models work in the new world of cyberspace. On the net all product information is ultiamtely "pull-based". Cyberspace is an intimate medium. Would you accept a "free" pair of eyeglasses that put up ceaseless banner ads in your field of vision? Or a "free" hearing aid that whispered product jingles in your ear around the clock? This is the nightmare world that the "eyeball" crowd envisions as the path to riches on the net. They are doomed to disappointment.