In early 1999 Xoom.com, a developer of online personal storage and home pages, was too big for its britches. Its servers were overloaded and the whole site was breaking down. Instead of investing in roomier servers, however, company chairman Chris Kitze decided to give CNET CEO, Halsey Minor, a call. The two realized Xoom's community features would fit quite well with CNET. One phone call eventually resulted in a three-way merger between Xoom.com, Snap.com, and NBC's Internet properties. NBCi will reportedly account for a whopping $880 million of NBC's advertising budget over a ten-year period.

A bird of a different feather

In July 1999, umbrella organization NBCi lent its famous peacock logo to a barrage of Internet subsidiaries: snap.com, a search-and-buy portal service; nbc.com, the headquarters for NBC television; Interactive Neighborhood; a site for local news; Videoseeker.com, a video resource and directory; AccessHollywood.com, a resource for the latest on celebrity gossip and fanfare; and, of course, Xoom. Property of General Electric Corp, NBC owns a 49.9 percent stake in NBCi, with an option to acquire a stake of up to 53 percent. Xoom possesses a 34 percent stake, while CNET holds the remainder.

Specialties

Xoom.com's specialties include home-page building, chat rooms, message boards, HTML e-mail, online greeting cards, clip art, and downloadable software utilities. Yet the heart of the company is its direct marketing offerings. In exchange for services such as homepage hosting, e-mail, and chat rooms, users automatically receive e-mailed advertisements on Xoom-endorsed goods. This kind of e-commerce hosting comprises about 60 percent of Xoom's U.S. revenues. By partnering with NBC and mixing the Web with television, Xoom's ultimate goal is to convert television watchers into Web buyers.