Walt Disney Co. has "raised the stakes in its high-
profile bet on the Internet" by agreeing yesterday to buy a
43% stake in CA-based Infoseek Corp., which operates one of
the Web's most popular search engines, according to Karen
Kaplan of the L.A. TIMES. Disney plans to turn Infoseek
into a top Internet portal site, a "starting point for
linking to the World Wide Web's millions of pages in easy-
to-navigate fashion." It expects to debut the new site "by
the end of the year" (L.A. TIMES, 6/19). To acquire its
stake, Disney "will give Infoseek its ownership position" in
WA-based Starwave plus $70M in cash. Disney will have a
minority position on the Infoseek board and "will also
purchase warrants enabling it to take majority control of
Infoseek over time." Infoseek officials said that Disney is
paying $139M for those warrants (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/19).
The planned portal site will feature links to Disney-
controlled Web sites, including ESPN SportsZone, NBA.com,
NFL.com, and the official NASCAR site (AD AGE, 6/19).
ONLINE NOTES: In Wednesday's WALL STREET JOURNAL, David
Sweet examined Times Mirror Interzines' and ESPN Internet
Ventures' attempts to attract extreme sports fans to their
sites. Sweet: "Hoping to capitalize on [fans'] obsessions,
major media companies are beginning to embrace alternative -
- or extreme -- sports on the Internet" (WALL STREET
JOURNAL, 6/18). Times Mirror Interzines (TMI) is profiled
by Elizabeth Gardner of INTERNET WORLD, who writes that
while targeted advertising "is going to be [TMI's] bread and
butter for a long time," TMI hopes to utilize other revenue
sources, including licensing databases to other sites,
"beefing up existing online stores and sponsoring a sports
memorabilia auction site" (INTERNET WORLD, 6/15).
