Subject: INVITATION: Please join Clickshare's "virtual launch" (fwd) From: Bill Densmore Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 02:39:50 -0400 (EDT)
How the Web Was Won
Subject: INVITATION: Please join Clickshare's "virtual launch" (fwd) From: Bill Densmore Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 02:39:50 -0400 (EDT)
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Greetings!

This message is going to a small group of personal friends, relatives, and
investors, as well as some key business or journalistic contacts. You've
all been watching Clickshare. This is an invitation to a "virtual" private
party -- complete with a door prize worth up to $10.

The party is to celebrate the launch of the Clickshare Service. It's had a
pretty long gestation period -- getting close to two years. But now that
we're real, we'd like to invite some confidants to try Clickshare out and
help us show the service in action. (We'd like you to get an early view and
maybe catch some of the rough edges for us.) This letter is going to you
shortly before we announce Clickshare to the media.

Clickshare: Someday you will look back and say you were among the first
people to try the world's first multi-site charge-per-click service. As a
career journalist, I don't appreciate hyperbole. But I believe that's an
accurate description of what we're creating.

As you know, most Web sites offer information free. But major ones, like
The Wall Street Journal, are beginning to charge for their valuable
information to justify their Internet investment and protect their
print-world publications. Some plan to erect "moats" around their sites,
allowing only subscribers to enter. That contradicts the Web's linking
structure, and is a major opportunity lost. It virtually eliminates
single-copy sales, and freezes out people who might from time to time
happily pay 10, 25 or 50 cents for information they need.

The solution is the Clickshare Service. Among the first organizations using
it are The Christian Science Monitor and Newshare Corp. After we've shown
what we can do, we hope to enlist many more publishers and service
providers to benefit from what will be a new revenue stream for them.

HOW IT WORKS FOR USERS

You register and -- once only -- provide credit-card information.
Thereafter, if you want to buy information at affiliated Clickshare
publishing members -- such as The Monitor -- you can do so with no extra
logins, no need to re-enter your credit-card number, no need to wait for a
credit check. You just click on the information you want and get it.

As more information providers, credit-card issuers, cable or telephony
companies become Clickshare enabled, you will be able to choose a home-base
relationship with any Clickshare Service Provider you prefer, who will send
you one bill for all your Clickshare purchases. To start, your
"most-trusted publisher" is going to be Newshare Corp., but you will be
able to change this later at your option.

THE $10 OFFER

We hope you'll be inclined to help us out as charter users of the
Clickshare Service. As an advance thank you, we'd like to provide you up to
a $10 rebate on the first information you purchase on the Web through
Clickshare.

So purchase $10 worth of information across the Clickshare System between
now and Sept. 30, 1996. Then fax or mail us a photocopy of your credit-card
statement showing any charges from Newshare Corp. We will send you a rebate
check for the first $10 of those charges. (At this stage, items will not be
priced higher than $1.00.)

Your information purchases are logged in real-time as they happen and
Clickshare will send a report -- in this case via Newshare -- to your Email
box within 24 hours of your Clickshare session, reminding you what you have
purchased. (You can see an example of this and other reports at:
http://www.clickshare.com/reports.)

We don't want to misrepresent where we are. At the moment, there is limited
information available for purchase. You may buy some archived news stories
at The Christian Science Monitor site. You can also buy today's issue and
archives of Studio Briefing, the Hollywood intelligencer, and the American
Reporter, the world's first all-digital Internet general news daily. Now
that Clickshare is operational, we're focusing on signing up information
providers eager to build a revenue stream.

OFFER VALID ONLY FOR THOSE WHO SIGN UP WITHIN A WEEK

While we would be delighted to have you try Clickshare anytime, this
rebate offer will be valid only if you sign up before Sept. 21. So please
register now. We'll apply a one-time signup fee of $1 charged to your
credit card. Thereafter your credit card will be charged only for the cost
of individual information items you purchase (aggregated into a monthly
bill).


Use your World Wide Web browser to connect to . . .

http://www.clickshare.com/tryit.html

. . . and follow the instructions (to most efficiently understand the
system, be sure to open the "step-by-step" page as well). It will take you
less than five minutes to register.

Be sure to include your credit card number. If you are uncomfortable
sending the number over the 'net, call me or Lynn Duncan at 1-888-630-6212
(TOLL FREE) and we'll say hello and take it from you over the phone. 

To begin subsequent Web-browsing sessions to Clickshare sites, activating
your Clickshare digital calling card , "bookmark" and click on the
following "express login" address (which will be repeated at the end of the
signup process) . . .

http://www.newshare.com/cs/welcome.html?TVS=login

. . . or just find the link at the bottom of the www.clickshare.com or
www.newshare.com home pages. Here you will be prompted for your Clickshare
ID and password.


WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Clickshare is a new service, and there are bound to be glitches. Please
tell us about them. How can we improve instructions and documentation? How
do you react to the experience of "buying by the click?" Do you encounter
any technical delays or other problems? Would you recommend this service to
a colleague or friend as more information becomes available for sale? What
sort of information would you like to be able to purchase? Send comments to
our marketing director, felix@clickshare.com (Felix Kramer) or directly to
me.

If you reach the Internet from behind a corporate "firewall" you may
encounter some problems with Clickshare. We'd like to know about them.
(You'll also find information on the registration page about possible
difficulties for anyone trying out Clickshare from AOL, CompuServe,
Prodigy, MSN.)

Thank you for your participation.

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Bill Densmore -- Chairman                           CLICKSHARE CORP. |
| 75 Water St., P.O. Box 266                   densmore@clickshare.com |
| Williamstown MA 01267 USA                               413 458-8001 |
| Building a free market for digital information  //www.clickshare.com |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+







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