The Boston Globe -- Thursday, July 13, 1995
Business Section
by Aaron Zitner, Globe Staff
George Murray came to sell diamonds. Tore Jakobsen came to see weather data. "I'm here. Please come talk to me," pleaded Hilary Thomas, who came to sell a security product.
It was "Let's Make a Deal" time for the businessmen and women of the online world; and scores of would-be cybersalesmen and information highway-builders were looking for business partners and new alliances.
Deal-making was a prominent feature yesterday at the 10th annual conference of the Interactive Services Association, a trade group of online services, interactive television companies and related businesses. The conference runs through Friday at the Marriott Copley Place Hotel, but a registration fee of more than $545 per day is required.
For many of the 700 conferees, this is their year.
Representatives of a variety of companies were looking for new ways to sell their wares online or to help others build an electronic presence.
But at the same time, some speakers tempered their enthusiasm for the wired world.
The research firm Interactive Media Associates, for example, released parts of a survey of 2,145 adults that showed a muted interest in interactive television. Several telephone and cable companies have started trials of newfangled interactive TV systems, which allow viewers to watch movies and programs of their choice at the time of their choice and to use their televisions for shopping.
Len Muscarella of Interactive Media said 64 percent of people surveyed expressed an interest in movies-on-demand, but only 25 percent would buy them at the price that maximized revenue for media companies, about $3.80 per movie. If movies-on-demand were available nationwide today, he said, they would be a $3 billion market -- only a third of the size of the video rental demand.
That is less of a threat to the video rental business, at least to start, than many people expected. And defying other preconceptions, Muscarella said, people in the survey showed little interest in shopping or scanning classified ads over their televisions. That could be good news for newspapers, which earn substantial revenue from classified ads.
Moreover, Muscarella said, there was little overlap in the survey between newspaper readers and people interested in interactive TV. That means newspapers can market their content on television without cannibalizing newspaper subscription sales, he said.
Most people at the conference were bullish on the future and were looking to place their products on online services or the Internet's World Wide Web. More than 25 percent of them made 90-second presentations at a packed "Deal-Making Event," a sort-of beauty pageant for aspiring online content providers, sponsored by The Marx Group of Wellesley.
Jakobsen, for example, argued that weather data from New York-based Weather Concepts Inc. would enhance any online service or Web site, drawing more viewers. Similarly, the company that publishes Hoover's Company Profiles -- already available on America Online, eWorld and CompuServe -- was looking for new outlets.
Murray, of Sterling, Inc., the nation's second-largest retail jeweler, said a site on the Web would be an excellent way to promote a key product: diamonds. Buying a diamond engagement ring is a high-stress event for the typical man in his 20s, "and we want the ability to offer information in a friendly, at-ease format as opposed to a pressure situation," he said.
Murray said he was at the conference to find high-tech enhancements to his company's planned Web site. One possibility: a way to connect someone viewing the Sterling Web site with the closest Sterling store, perhaps by telephone. Murray said he was also intrigued by a company that creates games and contests for Web sites.
"This meeting is very important in terms of introductions and initial contacts," said industry consultant Peter Marx of The Marx Group. "How often do you get 500 to 1,000 people -- and they're relatively senior people -- like this in one place?"
