Tenagra recognizes 5 top Internet marketing successes of 1994

Cliff Kurtzman (Cliff.Kurtzman@tenagra.com)
Wed, 14 Dec 1994 08:35:17 -0800

Note to INET-MARKETING folks: Over the past year, Internet
marketing/advertising/presence has really exploded as a new industry.
Companies specializing in these areas are springing up on a weekly basis.
We concluded that there should be some recognition for our Industry's
successes, and further that we would go ahead and take the initiative to
provide recognition to some of those we felt had made significant
contributions and innovations. Each success makes our industry more
credible in the public's eye, and recognition of those successes ends up
helping us all. Unfortunately, the process of creating a short list has
left out many, many worthy endeavours. We welcome your comments on how
well you think we hit the target.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TENAGRA RECOGNIZES 5 TOP INTERNET MARKETING SUCCESSES OF 1994

HOUSTON, Texas, Dec. 14, 1994 - The selection of 5 Top Internet Marketing
Successes of 1994 was announced today by The Tenagra Corporation (Tenagra),
a company that specializes in Internet marketing strategies. These
selections recognize companies and individuals that have achieved
significant and innovative Internet marketing successes over the past year.
Selected winners include: PizzaHut, for their marketing efforts using
their World Wide Web pizza server; id Software for the marketing of the
DOOM computer game; The Netscape Communications Corporation for their
marketing of Internet access software; Randy Adams and Bill Rollinson for
the marketing of the Internet Shopping Network; and Gleason Sackman and
Glenn Fleishman for orchestrating the Net-Happenings and Internet Marketing
mailing lists. Details follow:

Without question, the first award goes to PizzaHut for their World Wide Web
pizza server. No amount of money could have bought PizzaHut the incredible
positive publicity they received from establishing their storefront on the
Internet. They put their name on the lips of everyone on the Internet, and
received extensive press coverage in every major newspaper and the evening
news. Its hard to read an Internet article in the popular press without
the author mentioning that "even PizzaHut is on the Internet." They
established themselves in the public eye as "with it" and a 1990's company.
Absolutely masterful coordination of the use of the Internet together with
a print media campaign that maneuvered the press for publicity purposes.
It took us awhile to realize that the direct sale of pizza over the
Internet wasn't what really mattered, but even that would probably be a
success if they made their online prices the least expensive way to make a
purchase. And the free publicity continues ...

The second award goes to id Software for the foresight to use the Internet
to freely distribute the first episode of DOOM, their best selling computer
game. DOOM exploded across the Internet like wildfire, creating a user
base worldwide. Then they made a fortune selling enhanced commercial
versions and sequels that added more features.

The third award goes to Netscape Communications Corporation. Jim Clark,
Marc Andreessen and the rest of the Netscape team built the best Web access
software on the market and then gave it away for free in a major marketing
gamble that appears to be paying off. People are eager to buy their
Netsite server, they have become an overnight industry major player, and
they are driving the direction the technology is developing. And they
responded to our bug report on Thanksgiving day! Netscape understands that
their customers are a fickle lot and to be successful in this market you
not only have to be the best but keep on being the best. We wish them a
bright and profitable future.

The fourth award goes to the founders of the Internet Shopping Network:
Randy Adams and Bill Rollinson. They really pioneered the Web based store
on a significant scale, generated interest in shopping on the Internet,
received extensive publicity for doing so, and created enough recognized
value to be acquired by the Home Shopping Network.

The fifth award is a two way tie. Gleason Sackman gets the first share of
this award for creating and moderating the Net-Happenings newsgroup and
mailing list. Net-Happenings has become THE place to go to publicize and
find new Internet resources of significance. The second share of this
award goes to Glenn Fleishman of Point of Presence Company, moderator of
the Internet Marketing Discussion List, THE place to go to discuss Internet
marketing issues. Also a nod to Bruce Speyer of EINet, the marketing list
administrator. These folks have all put in a tremendous amount of work to
make the Internet a better place for marketing and commerce. Kudos!

A hyperlinked version of this Press Release is available on the Internet at
the Web Address (URL):
http://arganet.tenagra.com/Tenagra/awards94.html

Web Addresses (URLs) of those mentioned in this Press Release are:

Pizza Hut: http://www.pizzahut.com/
Doom: http://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/~kapis-p/doom/DOOM.html
id Software: http://guest.cedar.buffalo.edu/~kapis-p/doom/id.html
Netscape Communications Corporation: http://www.mcom.com/
Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen:
http://www.mcom.com/MCOM/mcom_docs/backgrounder_docs/founders.html
The Internet Shopping Network: http://www.internet.net/
Randy Adams: http://www.internet.net/information/randy.html
Bill Rollinson: http://www.internet.net/information/bill.html
The Net-Happenings List:
http://www.internic.net/internic/lists/net-happenings.html
The Internet Marketing List: http://galaxy.einet.net/hypermail/inet-marketing/
Point of Presence Company: http://www.popco.com/
Bruce Speyer: http://www.einet.net/EINet/staff/spy/spy.html
EINet: http://www.einet.net/

###

The Tenagra Corporation (http://arganet.tenagra.com/), founded in April,
1993 helps organizations use the Internet to enhance their business
processes and as well as market their products and services to a worldwide
audience. Tenagra is a member of the NASA Johnson Technology
Commercialization Center, which is operated by the IC2 Institute, the
international research center for the study of Innovation, Creativity and
Capital, at The University of Texas at Austin.

Beginning in 1994, Tenagra has begun annual recognition of innovative and
significant successes in the Internet marketing industry. Projects on
which Tenagra participates are excluded from consideration.

All trade names contained herein are trademarks and registered trademarks
of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Clifford R. Kurtzman
The Tenagra Corporation
Cliff.Kurtzman@Tenagra.com
713/335-1072

Note to our humble moderator: I know I echo the sentiments of many on this
list in expressing thanks for all the work you have put into INET-MARKETING
over the past half year. By way of award, I'm afraid you'll have to settle
for recognition from colleagues and some positive publicity. And if you
ever make it to Houston, dinner is on us. BTW, do you like PizzaHut?

Wishing you and all our list members a profitable new year
-- Cliff and the gang @ Tenagra.