EntryPoint Aims at
Putting Cash in the
Bank With Cyber Wallet
NTN Communications has gone prime time with its interactive football game.
BUZZTIME, Inc., a division of San Diego-based NTN, struck a deal last month to produce a customized version of QB1 for FoxSports.com.
QB1 is the popular, live multiplayer football strategy game played around the country by Internet users and patrons of about 3,000 sports bars and restaurants. The game allows players to compete against each other during an NFL game by calling offensive plays before the football on the field is snapped.
The QB1 game for FoxSports allows players at home to play along over the Internet on their home computers while watching the live Fox NFL TV broadcast.
As part of the agreement, BUZZTIME has been providing FoxSports.com with live sports trivia shows. NTN and BUZZTIME have also received on-air promotion during every football game.
“The real objective is re-branding all of our game content,” said Stan Kinsey, NTN’s CEO. “We believe this deal with Fox is a whole new cornerstone of live interactive games.
“We believe that five years from now every sporting event will have a play along game with it. We hope to be the key company in the world creating these games.”
Kinsey said NTN not only wants to develop sports games for the Internet via the computer but for every interactive format possible, such as cell phones and other personal communications devices.
Tyrone Lam, president of BUZZTIME, said the Fox deal is expected to increase traffic on the QB1. com site.
“The partnership will also provide us with a number of exciting E-commerce and advertising opportunities as we leverage the FoxSports.com advertising and marketing campaign promoting the QB1 experience,” Lam said.
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Cyber Wallet: EntryPoint plans to cash in on the latest version of the San Diego firm’s eWallet technology.
EWallet is a virtual wallet where users can enter their preferred credit card accounts, and they remain securely stored on their PC and only accessible by password.
The free technology, which can be downloaded from the company’s Web site (www. entrypoint.com), also stores billing and shipping addresses.
The cool eWallet, which actually looks like a wallet onscreen, also fills out credit card and personal information for users when they want to purchase something.
“You open your wallet and drag your Visa card to the Web page and let go and it will fill in the form for you,” said Francis Costello, EntryPoint’s 31-year-old president and chief operating officer.
“We’re very enthusiastic about where we are,” he said about the company’s growth. “We had a large number of consumers use the technology during Christmas.”
The eWallet technology also comes with the EntryPoint toolbar, which includes links to the best online shopping; links to finding airline tickets, car rentals, hotel reservations; a gateway to greeting cards; and customized sports, weather, news and stock information.
“What we do is bring a great number of interesting things to the customer right at their desktop,” Costello said. “You don’t have to find stuff. We bring it to you.”
He said Internet-based companies will find success by simplifying the Internet experience.
“The Internet is fundamentally hard to use. There’s enormous opportunity to continue to make it easier. ”
Bits & Bytes: Going once, going twice San Diego’s Silverlining, LLC has joined the online auction world. Silverlining (www.silverliningauctions.com), a membership driven site, offers high-ticket items with no minimum bid. Items up for bid on the site include a 1999 Plymouth Prowler and a Mediterranean home.
The UCSD Irwin and Joan Jacobs School of Engineering has the highest number of faculty members in the world honored as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering fellows for the Class of 2000. The professors are Walter Burkhard, Larry Carter and Chung-Kuan Cheng, of the Computer Science and Engineering Department; and Peter Asbeck, Larry Larson, Bhaskar Rao and Kenneth Zeger from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The distinguished Class of 2000 is composed of 248 of the finest engineers from universities, corporations and government laboratories whose contributions to the art and science of electronic and information technologies have improved the quality of daily life.
Technology business leaders are split on business conditions and outcomes over the next 12 months, according to the latest “Technology Barometer” survey released by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Among many things, the survey found that one-third of technology business leaders expects a resurgence of inflation over the next 12 months. For more information, check out the survey online (www.baromtersurveys.com). San Diego’s Nuera Communications, Inc. has received $20 million in second round financing from SBC Venture Capital Corp., a subsidiary of Texas-based telecom giant SBC Communications.
Nuera, whose technology enables carriers to offer new personalized voice services, plans to use the money to invest in its core technology and expand its sales and marketing efforts.
Any cool tech-story ideas? E-mail Siedsma for her monthly tech column at (asiedsma@sdbj.com).
