What happens when a small company is acquired by MicrosoftCorp. [NASDAQ:MSFT]? The answer: A product turns into a platform. WebTV PrimeTime for Developers is the company's new developer package of tools, and technical, artistic, and marketing resources.

Announced a year ago as the first commercial set-top box to display the Internet on standard televisions, WebTV claims the US has approximately 100 million homes capable of connecting to the Internet through televisions. A Find/SVP 1997 American Internet User Survey found 55 million non-Internet users in the US want to learn more about the Internet or will begin using the Internet in the next 12 months. The Microsoft acquisition, announced two months ago, gives WebTV the backing to stake-out a claim on those 100 million homes.

John Lee, WebTV's corporate evangelist, says, "We have learned there are differences between WebTV users and users who connect to the Internet through a computer, and these differences need to be relayed to developers. Using WebTV Primetime, developers can create or alter existing Internet content to fit a new Internet audience.

Citing differences between the two groups of users, Lee said WebTV users are more like television users. "They want audio," he continued. "They want things to move. They do not want too much information on a single screen. They want less on a screen. Computer screens are packed with information and choices. A television audience does not want that."

According to WebTV, more than 30 developers have already joined WebTV PrimeTime. At a cost of $750 per year, the program is designed for small and large Internet content developers.

Colossal Pictures of San Francisco, Web content developer Zentropy Interactive of Los Angeles, and Silicon Reef of San Francisco, California and Sydney, Australia are among early Primetime participants.

More information is available at http://www.webtv.net/primetime/ .

Source: Newsbytes