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WorldStream's Ken Williams: Reach Out and Webcast Someone Can the ex-PC game maker build a network where meetings and sales events are broadcast routinely? His new technology looks promising Ken Williams has long focused on the product more than on its path to the consumer. He founded Sierra On-Line, for nearly two decades one of the world's leading PC game makers, selling it to Cendant Corp. in 1996 for $1 billion. So it seemed natural that when he turned his attention to the Web -- after a short and not particularly fulfilling retirement -- that he would again emphasize content. That was his goal with TalkSpot.com, a Web site he co-founded two years ago to provide interactive programming -- ranging from the Web version of talk radio to politics to news. "We wanted to be the CBS of the Internet," says Williams. That dream died a quick death. Early this year, with Talkspot already launched, Williams had a conversation with venture capitalist Rich Shapero of Crosspoint Venture Partners that made him change the course for the site's parent company -- WorldStream Communications, based in Bellevue, Wash. Shapero "was trying to convince me that there was more money to be made in providing the network to other people than in providing content," says Williams, WorldStream's CEO. "We did the math, and it was pretty compelling." Exit content guy, enter infrastructure guy. By this past June, Williams laid off the staff of the TalkSpot site, bringing on board specialists in the emerging technologies of streaming media and Web-based interactive conferencing. The result: Early in December, WorldStream unveiled its new technology designed to broadcast teleconferences, concerts, product presentations, or sales events.
Using the service is fairly simple. Clients log onto the network of linked servers. Using the servers' eComm1 software and Studio In A Box (available for rent or purchase), a client can transmit a production with audio and good-quality video to anyone with a 28.8 kpbs-or-faster Internet connection -- and do it with better sound and video than most competing systems now are providing. Programs also can be archived on WorldStream's system for later access. The client signs an annual contract with WorldStream and pays a monthly fee that works much like a wireless phone contract. The minimum fee is $5,000 a month. Viewers to a program or presentation are given a URL where they can see the program. The URL may be posted on a Web site, e-mailed to potential viewers, or "tagged" with the requirement that the visitor must come from a specific Internet site. LIVE WITH JAMES HOFFA. The system gets positive reviews from customers. Voxcap.com, an Internet site that offers news about political activism around the world, used it to broadcast programs from the recent World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. "We were very, very pleased with it," says Voxcap.com community development director Jeff Fisher. "We were live and interactive with people like [Teamsters President] James Hoffa and [documentary producer] Michael Moore. People from anywhere could send in questions to our guests, who could then answer." While other companies are offering similar features, Williams says that WorldStream's goal is to provide a more stable and broadly based system by owning and operating the hardware and software. Williams sees WorldStream as an essential tool for any company that needs to talk with customers or other businesses. "There's no doubt in my mind that any company with more than 50 employees will someday be a subscriber to a service like ours," he says. Sales meetings, new-product releases, classes -- just about anything that now is handled by telephone, in a classroom, with a videotape, or by flying people in for a meeting can be done interactively over the Internet. Says Williams: "Pretty soon it will seem archaic to pick up the telephone when there is a computer sitting right there." Still, there are big challenges ahead for WorldStream. One is the sheer technical problem of devising a way to send complex programs to recipients who may be working on out-of-date browsers and PCs. "The Internet is just not a homogenous environment," says Williams. "What we're trying to do is develop a generic platform that's as pervasive as the telephone in an environment that's sort of like the Wild West." Williams seems pleased with the progress WorldStream is making. "Now, using our technology, you can have a great experience even with a 56K modem and a bad connection. And it will get better as we improve the system," he says.
Certainly, Williams, now 46, is not new to the problem of selling a nascent technology. He got his start in the computer industry as a young programmer for companies like Warner Bros. and Arcata Data Management in Southern California more than 20 years ago. His entry into gaming was a serendipitous event: His wife, Roberta, became entranced with an adventure computer game she saw running on a university mainframe and asked Williams if he could program something similar. He could, he did, and the two of them created games and soon started selling them door-to-door. That led to Sierra On-Line, which, during the 20 years Williams ran it, developed such best-selling games as Red Baron and King's Quest. When he sold the company to Cendant, which has since been plagued by accounting problems, he pocketed $150 million. MANY PLANES IN THE AIR. Those years at Sierra, Williams says, taught him some valuable lessons. One is how to operate large, network-based systems. That's something Sierra did while developing games like flight simulators that a number of people could play, pre-Web, over telephone lines on Sierra's Imagination Network. "Running a simulator with hundreds of planes in the air is a tricky technology," he says. "And it's directly relevant to what we're trying to do now across the Internet -- running a large national network." Another set of skills he picked up is basic operations management. Sierra On-Line was publicly traded for nearly 10 years, and when Williams sold the company, it had 1,000 employees. That experience sharpened Williams' ability to develop financial plans, to satisfy investors, and to meet deadlines. "It's one thing to write millions of lines of code, another to bring it to market," he says. "That's something I don't think a 20-year-old kid starting a company out of a garage always understands." Those who know Williams agree that his broad experience is proving useful at WorldStream. "Some companies are focusing on content, others on infrastructure," says Dunkle. "Williams has a foot in both camps." One thing those Sierra years did not teach Williams is how to relax. He tried to take time off after selling the game company in 1996, but quickly got bored. "It's weird getting up in the morning and having nothing to do," he says. He likes to boat and has a 62-foot Nordhaven motor-powered yacht capable of sailing 5,000 miles on a tank of fuel. "It's sitting behind my house," Williams says with a chuckle. But, he says, the Internet has proved simply too tempting an arena. "It's like being around the first few weeks after Gutenberg invented the printing press," he says. "To sit out now for three or four years would be kind of silly." Gantenbein is a freelance writer in Seattle. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |
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Ken Williams: CEO of WorldStream WEB POINTERS Click here to visit some of the sites mentioned in the story: WorldStream Sierra On-Line Cendant Crosspoint Centra Software Contigo Software Akamai Creative Strategies Voxcap Workgroup Strat. Svcs. | ||||||||||||
