Nickelodeon has recently closed the San Mateo branch of its on-line unit
announced Nick On-line Pres. Fred Seibert. The office had been doing
research and development for "Project Nozzle" -- a re-launch of Nick.com as
a children's Web portal. To help strengthen the re-launch Viacom, owners of
Nick, bought San Mateo-based Web development house Nvolve, which turned
into the now de-funked San Mateo branch of Nick.com. This decision comes on
the heals of the suspension of "Project Nozzle's" main component My
Nick.com, which launched in October, after it received negative feedback
from its young visitors. Viacom plans to bring the re-worked site back in
five to six weeks. Since Viacom decided to split its Internet holdings into
MTVi and Nick On-line [AF 12/28/99], confusion has reigned regarding the
directions of both divisions. MTV On-line first announced it bought the
domain name "Super Music Network," with an intent to create a music
destination spanning a vast array of music. Soon after, USA TODAY reported
that MTV was going to call their new on-line music site "Qwert.com." After
both initial ideas failed, MTV On-line acquired smaller competitor SonicNet
and beefed up their three existing sites, VH1.com, MTV.com and SonicNet.com
for their re-launch. No doubt the evolution will continue!
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
