Internet & Interactive

A New Cubicle For Dilbert On The Net. After UPN put Dilbert on an indefinite hiatus starting March 14, the producers of the cartoon series announced it would broadcast an episode of the show along with rare outtakes on the Net. The 22-minute previously aired episode entitled "The Merger" aired commercial-free on the Web from February 17 - 29, 2000. Columbia/TriStar, who produces the show, became only the second major studio to enter into the Netcasting arena. In November of 1999, Warner Bros. simulcast parts of an episode of The Drew Carey Show on television and the Internet, one of the first such moves by a top primetime show. The Dilbert event marked the first time that a primetime network show has been legally streamed in its entirety on the Web. Never-been-aired Dilbert outtakes and footage selected by series creator Scott Adams also played, with community discussion groups and interactive offerings built around the broadcast. The show streamed exclusively using the Windows Media player; encoding was provided by Sonic Foundry and Level 3. The broadcast was marketed around the February 22, 2000 airing of a new Dilbert episode, "The Return," on UPN, featuring guest voice Jerry Seinfeld. Upon the success of early on-line broadcasts, Columbia TriStar currently has plans in the works to air TV pilots that never made it to the small screen and other content from its Sony parent library.

Fans can find the Mouse’s merchandise on eBay. © Disney.

eBay To Auction Mickey's Merchandise. Disney's Go Network has inked a 4-year agreement with eBay making it the exclusive on-line auction site for Walt Disney's Web properties. Under terms of the deal, eBay and the Go Network will create two co-branded auction sites -- one to provide person to person transactions, the other merchant to consumer sales, featuring goods from Disney's properties and ESPN, among others. Disney will market the two sites through its Go Network, a portfolio of Web sites that includes Disney.com, ABC.com and ESPN.com, as well as its off-line properties, like the ABC Network, Disney Channel and its theme parks. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. "This agreement is critical to Go.com's new strategy of focusing our portal on entertainment, recreation and leisure activities," said Steve Bornstein, chairman of Go.com. "The combination of exclusive merchandise from across the Disney company, terrific distribution from the Go.com family of Websites, Disney's unparalleled promotional capabilities, and eBay's vibrant on-line community should create a world-class on-line trading environment." The Go.com auction site with UBid, which launched four months ago, will continue through the duration of the eBay deal. Go.com's auctions will now be incorporated into the new sites, with www.ebay.go.com expected to bow in the second quarter. The company auctions will coincide with Disney.com's celebration of the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney's birth, followed by auctions highlighting Disneyland's 45th anniversary. The Disney agreement resembles deals that eBay finalized last year with America On-line, under which co-branded auction sites were created for AOL.com, CompuServe and the Internet service provider's other on-line brands. As part of that deal, eBay is paying AOL US$75 million but is not sharing any transaction fees from the co-branded auctions. With the new Disney deal, eBay for the first time will launch separate merchant to consumer auction sites.

PlayStation 2 Jumps Off Shelves In Japan. In its first weekend on the market in Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.’s PlayStation 2 reached 980,000 units sold. This initial sales milestone blows away the original PlayStation’s three-day mark in 1994 by nearly 10 times. A total of 26,400 retailers in Japan, including 18,500 convenience stores, approximately 7,900 retail stores, current PlayStation retailers, as well as PlayStation.com (Japan) Inc., began selling the PlayStation 2 units on March 4. More than 600,000 units were shipped to and sold through Japanese retailers and 380,000 units were sold on-line through PlayStation.com (Japan). Due to a shortage of 8MB Memory Cards that are included in the PlayStation 2 hardware package, the company is experiencing about a 10-day lag in production. Work is currently under way to expand the manufacturing capacity for the 8MB Memory Cards, and total hardware shipments are scheduled to reach one million by March 15, and 1.4 million by the end of the month. Because of the current lack of these Memory Cards, separate sales of these units are scheduled to resume during the later part of the month. With more than 10 new titles, PlayStation 2 software shipments exceeded 1.3 million units for the weekend. In addition, DVD-video software sales increased between 2-to-4 times for DVD-video software retailers, and totaled 10 percent of software sales on PlayStation.com (Japan).

Microsoft Gets Into Gaming Ring. Microsoft announced on Friday, March 10, 2000, that it will create its own video-game unit entitled X-Box. The high-end console will be in direct competition with Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Sega’s Dreamcast. "We want X-Box to be the platform of choice for the best and most creative game developers in the world," said Microsoft chairman Bill Gate at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose. Intended to be a hybrid of the personal computer and traditional gaming console, the new system is expected to hit stores sometime in 2001. The X-Box will be powered by a 600-megahertz Intel processor and graphics chip created by nVidia Corp. that can produce 3D images. The system will also contain an 8-gigabyte hard drive and a DVD player. Each X-Box will have an Ethernet port that can be used to connect to broad band Internet lines for on-line multiplayer games. Thus far, Electronic Arts, Konami, Acclaim and Edios Interactive have said they are willing to develop content for the new platform. No retail price has been announced, however the Dreamcast currently sells for US$199 and the PlayStation 2 has an expected retail price of $370 once it hits the U.S.