Posted:
17:59:44 on February 05 2002
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: General Star Trek
According to CNet's News.com, National Internet service provider EarthLink announced Tuesday that it has teamed with Paramount Digital Entertainment to provide Star Trek-branded Internet access in an attempt to lure new subscribers.
The service, which is priced at $21.95 per month, will offer a Star Trek-themed browser, a StarTrek.net e-mail address, and other features such as desktop wallpaper, sounds, and icons. The service is available to both dial-up and broadband Internet users.
Some, however, question the value of this new branded service to EarthLink. Jarvis Mak, a senior analyst at Neilson/NetRatings, was quoted as saying "'Star Trek' as a franchise doesn't have a widespread appeal on a consistent basis."
Presumably, Mr. Mak was speaking about Star Trek's appeal as an Internet property, rather than overall appeal as an entertainment franchise. Research from Neilson/NetRatings shows that over the last year, Paramount's official Star Trek Web site, StarTrek.com, saw between 300,000 and 740,000 unique visitors per month. Still, it's interesting to note that the research measures only the official Star Trek Web site, which is known to be somewhat lacking in new information and news, rather than sites such as TrekWeb and TrekToday, which consistently bring new information to the fans.
For the complete story concerning the new Star Trek-branded service, you may visit the CNET News.com story by clicking here. To sign up for the new Internet service, users may visit the EarthLink Web site by clicking here.
Information in the CNet story seems to suggest that existing EarthLink customers can switch to the new service and/or take advantage of its included items such as the StarTrek.net e-mail addresses, but does not provide information on how existing customers may do so.
(Thanks to 'covetom' for this report).
