their own version of a new story which was written specifically to be both a novel and a CD-ROM. It was to be called "Mirage" and was a story about two sisters. The music that accompanied it ranged from opera to classical to alternative rock. Co-author Matthew Costello stressed using multiple types of media to make the story have more of an emotional impact on the audience.This is why these products are being developed together. Hershey says "Rather than cannibalizing on sales, this will spur them. Consumers will be more likely to buy the other product if they have bought on-not less likely."These types of synergies, which are basically collaborations within the media conglomerate encourage sales by adding more excitement and the cross-promotion brings all of the products more visibility than they would be able to receive on their own. This type of synergy is also happening in another section of the Time Warner conglomerate.A Warner Books imprint, Mysterious Press is working with a sister company, Time Warner Electronic Publishing. "TWEP and online game publisher Simutronics have joined forces to create an online, text-based, interactive mystery game that will draw on resources of Mysterious Press' editors and its stable of authors." These types of synergies can be very beneficial because they help to bring some media material, in this case these stories across different types of medias, and in this way they are cross-advertising for each other. Time Warner is also taking part in joint ventures which bring it more opportunities to advertise and sell its products. For example, in 1993 Time Warner and US West worked together to improve U.S. cable systems to an interactive fiber-optic data highway that could lead to such direct services to the home as music on demand and video on demand. This deal was based on U.S. West investing $2.5 billion in Time Warner Inc. which gave them a big stake (25.5%)in several Time Warner operating u...
