Dear Club WebTV Members,

Welcome to the October issue of Club WebTV. This is our ninth month of tips, tricks, great sites, and a look inside WebTV Networks. I would like to remind everyone that just by being a WebTV subscriber, you are a part of an exclusive group of people we call Club WebTV. If you are reading this editorial on your television screen, you're a member.

The concept of WebTV subscribers being a unique group is not so hard to understand. Even if you are not new to the Internet, you are accessing the Internet in an entirely new way. You've learned about the World Wide Web, newsgroups, e-mail and chat, all without a computer. Perhaps you've run into some prejudiced old timers suffering from Netitude. Maybe you've even learned something from one. Maybe you even taught a veteran Internet user a thing or two about what it's like to be a WebTV subscriber. Couch potatoes? Hardly. Using a WebTV Internet terminal does not make you a less inquisitive, curious, or discerning person than someone who uses a computer to dive into cyberspace. With over 150,000 subscribers, we've shown that WebTV subscribers encompass all types of individuals.

You, our first 150,000 subscribers, are the people who have allowed this company to grow. Many of you have watched the service change from one with no access to newsgroups to one that not only has newsgroups, but also a newsletter to teach you about communicating in them. We've taken online community access even further with our Fall Upgrade, giving you Internet Relay Chat. We've gone from supporting no multimedia other than MIDI music, to supporting most audio formats, Macromedia Flash, and most recently, MPEG video. We've even been working on our own video format called VideoFlash. Explore has changed dramatically as well. No longer just an index of top sites, Explore's new look and our new home page now let you see what we have in store for you without having to scroll through the index.

Our growth has also given us the opportunity to create and release the WebTV Plus Receiver, due in stores by the end of this month. Maybe you're reading this issue of Club WebTV just to find out about this new product. I'm sure more than some of you have your concerns.

The WebTV Plus Receiver will access almost exactly the same Internet features you do now. The majority of its enhancements have more to do with interactive television features than with Internet access. The WebTV Plus Receiver will combine television and the Internet in an entirely new way, and if you enjoy home theaters, complete with a video disc player, surround sound speakers, VCR, five disc CD carousel and love all six of your remote controls, the WebTV Plus Receiver was made for you! But if what you really want is the Internet on your television, the WebTV Internet terminal you have now will serve you for years to come. And we're all committed to continuing to enhance the current product with free software upgrades and continual improvements to the service.

I've worked for WebTV Networks for over a year. On my first day, there were no Sony and Philips WebTV Internet terminals, and there were no customers. There were only prototype boxes on little TVs and hours spent learning how they worked, and how to teach people to use and solve problems with them over the phone. Our original customers helped shape what kind of company we became, what kind of Customer Care Specialist I became, and what kinds of things we discussed in the newsletter. I would like to dedicate the October Club WebTV issue, the last one we'll have before the new WebTV Plus subscribers come on board, to all of you, the founding members of Club WebTV.

Sincerely,

Sonya Trejo

Club WebTV Editor-in-Chief