Backchannelmedia

Marketing News, August 28, 2000

Acquisition Strengthens RespondTV T-Commerce Effort

By William F. Foley

Interactive television company RespondTV purchased Accelerate TV last week in a move to increase the t-commerce offerings it has on its I-TV service.

Heather Cabral, director of corporate communications at RespondTV, San Francisco, said Accelerate is a good fit for the company for two reasons: features and standards.

From a features standpoint, AccelerateTV expands RespondTV's capabilites.

Cable companies sell RespondTV as a service to subscribers interested in adding interactive or WebTV feature to their viewing. The company has concentrated on backend monitoring, tracking and easy fulfillment of orders placed interactively.

Accelerate TV has focused on "walled garden" applications - channels on which cable operators could sell time. These walled gardens use a shopping cart and an electronic wallet that saves customers' credit card and shipping information.

A walled garden contains categories that allow people to use their remote control to click on "clothes," for example, and view an assortment of fashions, put them in their shopping cart, make a purchase through a saved credit card number and then change the channel and resume watching TV.

Adding this capability to its suite of services makes RespondTV more attractive to cable operators aiming for revenue beyond subscriptions.

Both companies follow specifications of the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum, a multi-industry alliance stretching across broadcast and cable networks and television delivery systems as well as electronics, Internet and PC companies.

RespondTV also adds Accelerate TV's 30-person engineering and business staff experienced in I-TV.

"It's so hard to find [who] are qualified [and who] have experience in interactive television," said Michael Kokernak, CEO of interactive media-buying company Backchannelmedia, Boston.

"The acquisition has a lot to do with bringing on additional people who are knowledgeable in interactive TV," he said. "By combining both companies" they are stronger and they will create more competition for Wink and other interactive applications than if they go it alone. They are stronger as a team for venture capital."

The sale price was not made available by the privately held companies