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Technology Stocks : InfoSpace (INSP): Where GNET went! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillCh who wrote (4696)	4/25/1999 12:55:00 AM
From: Josef Svejk	Respond to of 28311

Humble thanks, Bill, very interesting. Here is the live link: playsite.lycos.com Cheers, Svejk proofsheet.com P.S. Vaclav Havel visits Midwest tomorrow for a Kosovo relief benefit, and stays until Monday. See you all some time after that. (A Czech perspective: ctknews.com )

To: BillCh who wrote (4696)	4/28/1999 9:55:00 PM
From: BillCh	Respond to of 28311

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is returning to the internet sector he so recently spurned to launch a new media investment vehicle backed with $US300 million ($464 million) in equity capital. The new venture, to be called e-partners and based in London, will be run by the former Foxtel chief executive, Mr Mark Booth, who is to leave his present job as head of News Corp's 40 per cent-owned UK pay-TV company BSkyB. Mr Murdoch is understood to have poached Mr Booth for e-partners to prevent him leaving Britain to take up a $US25 million offer from Microsoft to run its internet operations in America. The News Corp-owned Times reported yesterday that Mr Booth will hold 10 per cent of the new media venture, which plans to buy minority stakes in the internet, interactive television and wireless communications companies. One strategy of e-partners will be to try to link up with American new media companies that have yet to expand outside the US and handle their international operations, The Times said. The announcement came as Mr Murdoch finally gained a foothold in the continental European pay-TV market with a deal to buy 35 per cent of Stream, Italy's loss-making second digital television operator, from Telecom Italia. Earlier this year talks between News Corp and Telecom Italia that would have delivered News Corp 80 per cent of Stream broke down after Italian Government intervention. Mr Booth's departure from BSkyB comes less than two years after he was chosen as a successor to Sam Chisholm and only six months after the company's successful launch of its digital service. BSkyB insisted on Tuesday, however, that his exit had nothing to do with the failure of the company to gain British Government approval for its audacious 623 million ($1.5 billion) takeover bid for leading football club Manchester United. The broadcaster also said it would be seeking a replacement for Mr Booth from outside BSkyB, thus ruling out speculation that Mr Murdoch's daughter, Elizabeth ~ currently managing director of Sky Networks ~ would assume the top job. Mr Murdoch's decision to launch a start-up new media business is being heralded as News Corp's most significant move to date in the internet and e-commerce sectors. Up until now, News Corp's electronic investments have been largely defensive and designed to protect existing mass media products. But it also is a turnaround for Mr Murdoch, who recently said he was happy with the extent of his involvement in the sector and comments that he believed internet stocks were overvalued. Mr Murdoch, however, was quoted yesterday as saying: "We see enormous opportunity for playing an even greater role in the new media industry and with e-partners we think we have created a unique entrepreneurial investment structure best able to exploit those opportunities." Mr Booth will have offices in London and San Francisco. E-partners will operate separately from News America Publishing, News Corp's US internet operation.