The corporate strategy shifted from acquiring exclusive game content to securing exclusive distribution relationship, while the client platform changed from a Windows executable to a browser-based java applet. Excite was their first partner. T.E. Network acquired Michael Riccio's WebDeck service, which offered Java-based versions of Euchre, Spades, and Hearts that ran in the popular web browsers circa 1998, to accelerate this transition. In July 1998, the company launched this web-based offering as "Excite Games by TEN" and built a large audience by offering co-branded browser-based games to many of the portals available in 1998. The Pogo.com brand was launched on September 1, 1999, and the company renamed itself to Pogo.com. Pogo grew quickly, eventually outpacing its competition to become the "stickiest game site on the Internet." according to a company press release. Although the site was popular by late 2000, the Dot-Com bubble was bursting for most startup companies, and cash was very tight. Pogo.com entered into a deal to be purchased by then popular web portal Excite@Home Network, also a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers/Vinod Khosla investment. However Excite was having problems of its own and heading for bankruptcy. When AT&T took control of the Excite@Home board, they aborted the acquisition. In March 2001, a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers investment from the early 1980s, Electronic Arts (EA) purchased Pogo.com for approximately $40 million. Some of their distributions partners included Excite, WebCrawler, Netscape's Netcenter, Prodigy, Geocities, CNET, Snap.com, Road Runner, Go, @Home Network, AltaVista, Sony Station, XOOM, and iVillage. Pogo.com's games and community were considered by some to be very engaging, and Pogo.com became the stickiest site among the top-100 websites. Launched in 2003, Club Pogo is Pogo.com's premium subscription-based service. Perks to subscribers include exclusive members-only rooms (discontinued), no ad interruptions, graphic emoticons (smileys) (discontinued), private chat (discontinued), "Pogo Minis" (avatars) (which later became available to free Pogo members), double jackpot spins (discontinued), and access to full content in-game.