Tripod: Messages from the Staff

<body bgcolor="#CCFFFF" link="#FF0000" vlink="#990000" text="#000000" background="../../../tripod/letters/img/www_subdomain/bg.gif"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td valign="TOP" align="CENTER" width="178">  <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="170"> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/logo-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/logo.gif" alt="Tripod Map" border="0" height="58" width="170" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/universal2-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/universal2.gif" alt="Member Services Map" width="170" height="59" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr><tr><td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="170" bgcolor="#999966"> <img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/tripod_zones.gif" alt="tripod zones" width="81" height="17" border="0"></td> </tr><tr> <form 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href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/logo-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/logo.gif" alt="Tripod Map" border="0" height="58" width="170" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/universal2-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/universal2.gif" alt="Member Services Map" width="170" height="59" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr><tr><td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="170" bgcolor="#999966"> <img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/tripod_zones.gif" alt="tripod zones" width="81" height="17" border="0"></td> </tr><tr> <form action="http://www.tripod.com/bin/redirect" method="POST"> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="170" bgcolor="#999966"> <select name="URL"> <option value="/">Choose one:</option> <option value="/cars_trucks/">Cars&Trucks;</option> <option value="/computers_internet/">Computers/</option> <option value="/computers_internet/">       Internet</option> <option value="/entertainment/">Entertainment</option> <option value="/fun_games/">Fun&Games;</option> <option value="/health_fitness/">Health/Fitness</option> <option value="/home_family/">Home/Family</option> <option value="/jobs_career/">Jobs/Career</option> <option value="/money_business/">Money/Business</option> <option value="/shopping/">Shopping</option> <option value="/society_culture/">Society/Culture</option> <option value="/sports/">Sports</option> <option value="/teens/">Teens</option> <option value="/travel/">Travel</option> <option value="/women/">Women</option> </select><input type="IMAGE" src="../../../img/www_subdomain/go.gif" width="24" height="20" border="0" align="ABSMIDDLE"> <img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/trans.gif" width="1" height="3" border="0"><br><img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/p_member_comm.gif" alt="pod member communities" width="146" height="11" border="0"><br> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/pods-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/pods.gif" alt="Pod Map" width="170" height="18" border="0" align="top" ismap></a></td> </form> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="170">  <tr><td></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> </table> <center><form name="FreeShop"> <table border="0" width="120" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr valign="TOP"> <td align="center" valign="TOP" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120"> <a href="/"> </a></td> </tr> <tr valign="TOP"> <td align="center" valign="TOP" nowrap bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120"> <select name="FreeShop" onchange="self.parent.location.href = "http://www.tripod.com/bin/accipiter/tripod_adclick?CID=000023280000033200000000&overrideURL=" + this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;"> <option value="">FreeShop <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00013.htm">Computing <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00013.htm">-& Electronics <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00019.htm">Entertainment <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00022.htm">Travel <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00014.htm">Software <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00015.htm">Style & Image <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00016.htm">Personal <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00016.htm">-Finance <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00017.htm">Business <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00017.htm">-& Career <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00018.htm">Lifestyles <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00018.htm">-& Interest <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00020.htm">Hobbies <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00021.htm">Family <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00023.htm">Auto <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00024.htm">Home & Living <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00025.htm">Health, Fitness <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00025.htm">-& Sports <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">Completely <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">-FREE Offers </select></td> </tr> </table> </form> </center> </td> <td valign="TOP" width="100%"> <basefont size="3">   <img src="../../../tripod/letters/img/www_subdomain/letter.top.gif" alt="from tripod..with love.." width="401" height="124" border="0"> <center> </center> <br> <br> <br><br> <blockquote> <b>From Paul DeBraccio, Vice President of Advertising/Sales:</b> <br><br> <b>My Internet Beginnings</b><br><br> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/staff/advertising-html/anchor_paul.html"></a> Now that the Web is a ubiquitous part of our lives, we never stop to think about our first experiences with the infamous WWW. It can be equated with the first time you had sex, or your first beer or first cigarette (or should that be cigar?), or even your first shiny new car.<br><br> Electronics have always been the focus of my life. I started reading stereo magazines when I was fourteen and built my first stereo when I was eighteen. To this day, whenever I earn extra money (or not so extra) it goes to my local stereo store  or now my local computer retailer.<br><br> I was the car stereo installer and advisor in my Floral Park, Long Island neighborhood. If one of my buddies was in the market for a car stereo, they knew that they could sucker me into going along to the store with them. The promise of a couple of free beers was all the inducement I needed to install it for them.<br><br> When I graduated from college and entered the ad agency business, I did the media planning and buying for Atari computers, AT&T, and various tiny software companies. It was in that stage of my life that I realized that my addiction to transistors and chips could be helpful to my career. It seems that most of my supervisors and clients were somewhat intimidated by the technical aspects of the products we had to advertise, so they allowed me to delve into the tech aspects of media buying. As a result, I became friends with the publishers of the leading computer and stereo magazines like PC and Stereo Review.<br><br> When I tired of buying media <b>for</b> the tech companies, I thought it would be fun to sell advertising <b>to</b> the big tech companies. At that point I went to Omni Magazine, a sci-fi magazine that was ahead if its time. While at Omni, I became friends with the editors and some of the MIT Medialab luminaries like Negraponte, et al. The job also enabled me to get to know the marketing and design people at Sony, Panasonic, Commodore, Sharp, Aiwa, IBM, Prodigy, and many smaller high-end audio and software companies.<br><br> As a result, I then became known in the advertising world as the Consumer Electronics maven. Whenever a magazine needed someone to help them to reach the big electronics companies, I was offered a job. I like to think it was because of my expert knowledge of advertising and the media. But, I know it was simply because I was always able to ingratiate myself with the tech companies by incessantly discussing their products with them, like the proverbial kid in the candy store.<br><br> After heading up the advertising department at a failing video magazine, I was called by Conde-Nast, the leading magazine publisher in the world, to head up their corporate sales department and develop programs for big name fashion advertisers like Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein. The truth is that they wanted me to help them to schmooze (you guessed it) IBM and Panasonic and Intel and Sony and all the other tech companies that I spent my life discussing.<br><br> Oddly enough, my first taste of the Internet was at this non-tech fashion company. It was only four years ago, but they were so behind the times that every department had only a selection of DOS, old Macs, and Win3.11 computers and a mixture of dot matrix and early HP Laser printers.<br><br> Because I was the Tech Guy, they provided me with a 66 MHz Toshiba Laptop (state of the art at the time) and an Internet Connection. I was the only one in my 46-person department that had a connection  and I was a celebrity because of it.<br><br> Most of my co-workers would amble into my office and stare at the screen and say, "I've heard about the Internet, but I've never actually seen it." The truth is I did not know much about it myself. I was completely embarrassed when one of the secretaries helpfully pointed out to me, "You will not get anywhere if you continue to click on the black type!"<br><br> When I did manage to ascertain that you cannot click on just anything and expect to get somewhere, it was actually fun.<br><br> The search engines mesmerized me. Imagine having an entire library at your fingertips. At the click of a button, you can be transported to Russia, or find out where to find bootleg Dead tapes and get entire rosters of all the major league teams. It was like finding a pot of gold for information  and it appeared to go on and on. The chat rooms were also enticing, but the losers that seemed to hang out there were less than interesting.<br><br> The Web grew and grew in my heart, and I pondered the career possibilities. Conde-Nast had a Web site and it seemed inevitable that I would be tapped to run that department soon.<br><br> Then one day the phone rang and the voice on the other end asked if I would be interested in setting up a sales and marketing department for an up and coming commercial Web site. I had to think about it for a day or so. A highly respected friend suggested that I go for it, since "those people desperately need people who truly understand media sales and marketing." So, I went to that site, ecstatic that I would be a VP running the sales and marketing department of a Web site, and that I would finally be known for something more than my tech knowledge.<br><br> I was also excited that I would be establishing the company in New York and would create the team, the technology, the office space, hire an ad agency and a PR firm, and be the grand wazoo.<br><br> This came to a climax when I rented the office space and called my ad agency friends and hired the staff.<br><br> It then dawned on me that we needed a lot of computers and software and modems and hubs and ISDN and T-1 lines and connectors and ISPs and printers and faxes and more software and more modems  and my CTO called and told me that he could not send someone back east to help.<br><br> Guess who spent the summer of '96 unpacking computers and dealing with modem interrupts and installing and reinstalling software and running cables and hooking up printers and buying printer cartridges by the dozen and reinstalling software and restarting computers and reinstalling software for Tripod NY?<br><br> I guess you cannot completely get away from your first love no matter how hard you try. <br><br> <ul> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/staff/advertising-html/anchor_paul.html">Paul DeBraccio</a> (4/3/98) </ul> <br><br> <center> <hr width="330"> <br><br> Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/archive.html">archive</a>. <br><br> </center> <br> </blockquote> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>