"I don't think it's actually necessary yet," says Ryan. "I think that every client is at a different stage in the life cycle. The Internet is one of those unusual media that do not trend simultaneously across the industry. Some clients that are very sophisticated are already doing broadband and rich media, others are still struggling with building a web site. It's a really new industry. Because of the demand on the inventory and because everyone is moving into the Internet to advertise, I think you will see a switch to day part or spot buying. For instance, if Fidelity wants to reach people at five o'clock and it's 35-year-old males they're seeking, I think you will see the entire industry move towards allowing clients to buy "prime time," so to speak. We're going to do that along with the industry - we're not going to accelerate that or slow it down. We'll do it as our clients demand it."

So what is the future demanding? Medscape is already a huge presence on CBS and AOL, what next? Major changes, or more of the same?

"We need to do expanded marketing in 2000," projects Ryan, "because we are really a corporation of sites now. We not only have this great professional site Medscape.com, but we now also have a nurses' site, a pharmacists' site, and a med student site as well as the consumer site. It's the largest network in the industry. We haven't done enough to make a lot of noise about that and you'll see us really increase that. The other thing we'll be concentrating on, like everyone else, is solidifying all the e-commerce partners and making those announcements as well. We're happy being a really great health destination for doctors, health care professionals, and consumers. So when you look at a business model sustained by advertising, I think we have an excellent one and we're not going to shy away from that. There's a lot of advertising in health care space and we're a great destination and have fabulous editorial. We expand that for our clients and CBS and AOL, so our reach is tremendous, so we need to get into e-commerce to expand our incremental revenue so we can reach profitability as every Internet company does. But I think with our core business we're in a very good position to be very successful as we are."

How about competition? Everyone knows that the big three concerns of consumers are sex, money, and death (excuse us, relationships, security, and health), so this can't be the only game in town in the latter category.

"WebMD and Healtheon are certainly competition," admits Ryan. "Their model is a little bit different from ours. Healtheon is a very strong connectivity player. Medscape has a relationship with National Data Corporation, a very large, traditional, profitable organization, so I think we rival each other. I think that's terrific. I think there's not only going to be two winners, I think there's going to be more. There's plenty of room in the health care space for successful players that fill different niches, so when you look at covering both physicians and consumers, both of those companies are very good. When you look at the next level of physician-only or consumer-only sites there's others of high quality. But I think that Medscape rivals any of them."

But,in the end, although fate may have begun this highly successful corporate marriage, it was mutual care and interest that have sustained it. Quality, preparedness, and a right match make the bottom line. Referring to Frazee's initial contact, Ryan opines:

"Although he stumbled upon us, the reason he stopped everything at CBS and targeted Medscape was what he found impressed him so much."