NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> WB '97#6: We are Just Like AOL and Yahoo
ONLINE-ADS>> WB '97#6: We are Just Like AOL and Yahoo
rhoy_at_tenagra.com
Sun, 15 Jun 1997 13:25:30 -0500 (CDT)
This is the sixth in a series of 10 reports from Richard Hoy
covering the Web Broadcasting '97 conference. You will receive
these reports in addition to your normal Online Ads posts/digests.
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Web Broadcasting '97 coverage
June 14, 1997 / Issue 6
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keynote address, Day 2:
PointCast - The Future of Internet Broadcasting
speaker:
Chris Hassett, CEO, PointCast
If you are confused about what Pointcast is all
about and where it is heading, be confused no
more. Chris Hassett says Pointcast is a service
company.
What does that mean, exactly? It means that
Hassett perceives his competition not to be the
likes of BackWeb, Intermind or Marimba, but
content aggregators like AOL and Yahoo.
Pointcast is moving towards being a source of
information for both consumers and business, or
"Compelling delivery of content to people" as
Hassett put it. By making the information he
pushes through a piece of Pointcast software
attractive enough, he builds large audiences.
It is the ad space in front of these audiences
that Hassett plans to sell.
To be successful in this, Hassett said push
clients need to be "thin, lean and mean."
Hassett conceded that Pointcast 1.0 really didn't
possess those qualities, particularly regarding
bandwidth usage. But he promises that
Pointcast 2.0 will practice "smart broadcasting."
Such methods include compression of the
information and putting up more geographically
dispersed Pointcast servers on the Internet.
The new software version also gives corporate
system administrators tools for managing
Pointcast. I-Server is a free product that
sits behind your firewall and serves the
Pointcast data feed. It lets administrators
filter advertising so competitors' ads don't
pop up on the company computer screens. And it
lets you split the data feeds so departments
in a company can be limited to specific
information.
One of the more exciting Pointcast efforts is
Pointcast College Network. It is Pointcast, but
with content geared towards college students.
Pointcast is also providing support to help
universities set up there own networks for
pushing information internally.
Pointcast is on record as claiming 1.5 million
users. To give this number credibility, Pointcast
hired ABVS Interactive (the interactive auditing
unit of the Audit Bureau of Circulations)
to audit its data. I asked Hassett what data,
exactly, was ABVS using to count users. He said
that they count only ACTIVE users of the system.
This of course begs the question of if Pointcast
can resolve down to a unique user. So, of course,
I asked. Hassett confirmed this, saying that
Pointcast could indeed resolve down to the
individual user.
If this is true, then Pointcast could open up
some serious possibilities for one-to-one
marketing. However, when I mentioned Hassett's
statement about this to someone who had
bought advertising on Pointcast, the person
didn't believe it. I guess we will soon find out
because if Pointcast expects to prosper selling
advertising priced many thousands of dollars, it
will be forced to provide detailed reporting.
Otherwise no one will take them seriously for
very long.
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