They were heavily influenced by the success of FoxSports, a once unexceptional Web site, after it cut a deal for prominent placement on Microsoft's msn network--and then saw traffic leap from 2.2 million to 10.4 million visitors per month.
Companies such as AOL Time Warner 's (nyse: AOL - news - people ) America Online, Microsoft 's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) MSNNetwork and even Yahoo!