Re: @d:tech World - The Experts' Secrets of Viral Success

From: Bill McCloskey <bill_at_richmediasig.com>
Date: Fri 17 Nov 2000 11:34:01 -0500

DONNA STRYK <donna.stryk_at_tenagra.com> WROTE:
> From the launch in August of 1998 through last
> Friday, Comet Cursor was downloaded by 50 million
> unique users. Not bad for a company who never spent a
> dime on advertising.

TO WHICH ROXANNE <2Roxy_at_autumnweb.com> REPLIED:
> But from what I was told, and what I remember reading
> about at some of the *warning* sites, for a long, long
> time (though probably not any more) the program was a
> kind of "spyware", it tracked the user's movements
> through the 'net, probably linked to some personal
> information about them, including an email address,
> and THAT was marketable (sellable) material.

This information is based on an erroneous and retracted
story that came out last Thanksgiving. In fact, the
Comet Cursor does not take any personal information
about the user: no name, email, nothing. At that time
it did assign each download a unique indentifier called
a GUID, which was used for billing purposes (i.e. Comet
could tell that unique download X saw a specific cursor
on a specific site). This data needed to be collected
since they were licencing the technology on a usage
basis at the time. Absolutely no information about what
site that unique id number came from or where it went
afterwards was, or could, be tracked and reported. At
any rate, even the information about what cursors where
seen was never stored but used for billing purposes
only. Since the report came out, Comet went even a step
further and made the GUID non-unique (and in the case
of its bundle with the Real Player - eliminated it
entirely). The fact is that Comet has one of the
cleanest bills of health when it comes to privacy than
any company out there. However, they have been damaged
(as we can see from this letter writer) by reporters
and other individuals who reported (and then retracted)
stories that should bave been further researched before
they went to print.

As for making money, Comet continues to develop a
strong bond with their 50 million users. Ways on which
that can be monetized can be found in my ClizkZ
article:
http://www.clickz.com/cgi-bin/gt/article.html?article=2774 .

Bill McCloskey
President and CEO
Emerging Interest, LLC
bill_at_emerginginterest.com
http://www.emerginginterest.com





Received on Fri Nov 17 2000 - 10:34:01 CST