For Internet gaming companies, speed online seems to be a key factor in attracting new clientele, or so it seems. It's easy to draw that conclusion after checking out Youbet.com's new Youbet Express Web-based wagering product.
Youbet Express is available at three delivery speeds for 28.8K, 56K and (100K) DSL/cable modems, providing access at the right level for different users' computers. The platform is optimized for Internet Explorer 5.0 and above, although other Web browsers aren't guaranteed the same quality of experience.
"This new platform enables horseracing enthusiasts to access the Youbet network at the speed of the Internet, without having to wait for delivery and, for some, the difficult installation of a CD-ROM, " explained Ron Luniewski, Youbet's chief operating officer. "This gives users immediate access to Youbet's interactivity and breadth of content, such as handicapping data, statistics, odds, live commentary and streaming media, while expediting the wagering process."
The company sought feedback from various focus groups and used what it learned from its original product while building the new Youbet Express platform, according to Luniewski.
"If you do go to our site, I think it's one of the best looking and performing websites out there," he said. "We do require a download of a minute or two on your first visit so we can get some of the graphics and other things onto your hard drive, so it does require a little bit of a download."
Fans can access live streaming video from more than one racetrack at a time through the Youbet Express platform. Subscribers just choose the tracks they want to watch and a separate screen comes up showing the action at the selected track. Youbet Express also boasts a "Desk Jockey" section on the site that features contests, news briefs, and commentary from several racing experts, with most of the content written with a sarcastic twist to keep users entertained and informed simultaneously.
Luniewski said, "So far everybody loves it, and what we're really starting to notice is that people like the notion that they can take care of instant gratification. They can now sign up on a Friday and be wagering on Friday night or Saturday morning as opposed to having to wait four or five days for a CD to show up in the mail. So we're getting some good feedback from that. And we can see that our numbers, in terms of conversion rate [from the CD-ROM platform], are steadily increasing.
"What we believe will happen is that the current horseracing fan will use either product and, quite frankly, probably has more of the patience to wait for the CD. The sports fans--what we refer to as the cyber-yuppies, the bottom-end baby boomers, the guys that are fantasy sports players on the Net, where the Internet is a transparent medium to them--really don't have the patience to wait for a CD. So, we believe, and we've already seen, that we'll see those guys migrate more to the product because they can take advantage of it quickly."
Youbet is also looking to add more features to its lineup in the future, although Luniewski says that these plans are not firm yet. "We're going to--as we go through this year--look at doing products that are not in rich media, such as simple wireless interfaces that may not be betting at the beginning, but could do odds, late changes, minutes to post, things like that," he said.
He added, " Everything we did is in XML so it's relatively easy for us to transport into other appliances as they get decent market penetration. We think wireless this year will be a nice application for us to begin going into. We also may--and I stress that--bring up more of a flat HTML-based interface."
In the company's year-end filings, it listed nearly 16,000 customers that wagered about $98 million through the Youbet system. One of the biggest issue's facing Youbet is its looming delistment from the Nasdaq. Recently the company received notification that it would be delisted (it trades on the Nasdaq under the UBET symbol currently) and reassigned to trading over-the-counter if it couldn't maintain minimum trading value for a 10-day period.
"The markets are going to do what the markets are going to do," Luniewski said. "We believe that the Youbet Express product will help us get to cash-flow positive quicker than the CD version. We've always said that at roughly 30,000 subscribers we'll get the positive cash flow and we're about halfway there now."
With Youbet's stock price trading at below 50-cents, company executives are probably banking that the Express platform will deliver on that hope.