Date: Sat, 22 Apr 1995 23:39:08 -0400 From: "Robert D. Seidman" Subject: In, Around and Online - Issue 2.16 W/E 4/21/95 To: Multiple recipients of list ONLINE-L In, Around and Online- Issue 2.16 - Week Ending 4/21/95 ======================================================= Copyright (C) 1995 Robert Seidman (robert@clark.net). All rights reserved. May be reproduced in any medium for non-commercial purposes. In This Issue... ================ Newspapers Band Together for "New Century" Editorial On New Century Network More Microsoft "News" News America Online and New Line Take Aim at Twenty-Somethings AT&T's Interchange Takes a 9% Stake In Europe Online Speaking of Interchange... Newsworthy Notes Short Takes This Week's Most Worthy Web Site Stock Watch If You Plan to be at Spring COMDEX/Windows World... Newspapers Band Together for "New Century" ========================================== Newspaper readership is declining and print costs are up -- these are considered the lean years for the newspaper industry (though many newspaper conglomerates reported healthy quarterly earnings). Some analysts speculate that the post baby boomers just aren't that interested in the news. Others speculate that this segment is just receiving most of its news via television and radio and abandoning traditional newsprint. Hoping to capitalize on the growing interest in "cyberspace" eight newspaper companies banded together this week to form the "New Century Network". The companies participating in the venture are: Advance Publications Inc.; Cox Newspapers Inc.; Gannett Co. Inc.; Hearst Corp.; Knight-Ridder Inc.; Times Mirror Co.; Tribune Co. and The Washington Post Co. New Century Network (NCN) is composed of many companies that have already attempted to succeed with "local" newspapers on national online services. But the mission of NCN, according to the press releases, is to "support local newspapers in helping them provide local online services to their communities." Additionally, the companies involved hope to pool resources and share content to develop quality content and come up with common technical standards. The companies reportedly will spend "tens of millions" of dollars over the next several years in creating the national network of local newspapers. The network will bypass the traditional online services altogether in favor of the Internet's World Wide Web. While supporting the local newspapers may be the main mission, in a telephone press conference representatives made it clear that they hope to reinforce the information franchises created by individual daily newspapers. They also hope to stave off the increasing competition in the electronic environment. "Our goal is to help all newspapers strengthen their relationships with customers and retain their leadership as information providers," said Peter Winter, a VP of Cox Newspapers, who is running the venture until a chief executive is hired or appointed. NCN also plans to help newspapers line up advertising, track usage, handle billing and offer economic incentives for distributing information electronically. The venture will only support daily newspapers but is open to all daily newspapers whether they are among the properties of the founding NCN members or not. NCN emphasized that it would not be a national online clearing house of local newspapers that could be accessed from all over the country. Instead NCN plans to leverage the ability of the local papers to gather, edit and package electronic content. They are sure to give emphasis to building electronic communities. Editorial On New Century Network ================================ While many of the players involved do have services established on the major online services, members of NCN expect that ultimately everyone will migrate to the World Wide Web. "The direction we're going in and that the commercial services are going in is that it will all wind up together on the Web," according to Bob Ingle, VP of new media for Knight-Ridder and a member of the board of New Century Network. Will everything wind up on the Web? It is hard to say, and I will admit that I have vacillated as much as anyone else on this issue. At first, I thought not everyone would go to the Web, then in a fit of defeatism (as I put up my own Web page), I surely felt that everyone would migrate to the Web. Now? Well, I still maintain that everyone will wind up on the Web because it is so easy to do. However, I think there are several reasons why this might not wind up as the only place providers will put content. "It's taken lots of twists and turns since then," he said. "But what's really amazing is that eight of the largest newspaper companies have gotten together and agreed on a plan," said Bob Ingle. How amazing is this? Fear can be a great motivator! While the newspapers mentioned no specific competition they were banding together against, many are saying that they are banding together to fend off the possible upcoming "onslaught" by Microsoft. I can understand the sentiment. Microsoft has clearly demonstrated (without even having one paying customer-- see issue 2.14 ) that it plans to leverage its technology advantage and create compelling applications not just forms that house content. You can bet that America Online and Prodigy (and the others) will be working on integrating full applications into their services. Can this be done on the Web? Sure it can. The problem with the Web isn't lack of ability. As I've said before, some of the most brilliant minds in the world are working on the Web. The problem is getting all the brilliant minds together to agree on an "open standard". Open standards are wonderful things, but ultimately, in technology circles, the "WOW THAT IS COOL!" factor is important. In fact, that is one of the reasons for the success of the Web to date. But the W3 consortium may find itself running the "open standards" shop as a true competitive business soon or face getting snuffed out by new and cooler (albeit proprietary) technologies. Is my opinion a rash one? Perhaps, but consider the very nature of TCP/IP! I mean, what difference does it make if you're a closed proprietary application as long as EVERYONE can still get to you from an Internet connection? Does it need to be any more open than that? CompuServe and AOL have already gone down this path and Microsoft and AT&T's Interchange plan to offer this connectivity shortly after they launch. Prodigy is sure to follow. The point is, while the applications may not be based on open standards, as long as anyone can get them and use them, they are still pretty open. (Note, I say this from the consumer perspective, not the developer perspective.) Oh sure, the Web is free. As I've said all along, "IT WON'T BE FREE FOREVER". There will be plenty of FREE STUFF. But a lot of the good things you know and love will start charging. As an example, witness the San Jose Mercury News Web site. A pretty good site, right? Good enough to earn top honors in Interactive Age magazine's recent ranking of the top 25 business sites on the World Wide Web. For more information, you can visit Interactive Age on the Web at: http://wais.wais.com:80/techweb/ia/current/default.html. And guess what the San Jose Mercury News started doing this week? You guessed it! Charging for access. Here's their blurb: "While much of Mercury Center is free and advertiser-supported, we do charge for some services. You have free access to all the headlines and summaries from today's paper, breaking news, the world's largest employment classified section, and plenty of features in our Archives. Subscribers also have access to the full text of Mercury News and wire service stories, our daily comics, our Dave Barry archive, and more." The service is $4.95/mo. and only $1/mo. if you already subscribe to the print version of the newspaper. The point of all this is that for the WWW to succeed in pay services the content is going to have to be packaged compellingly and priced reasonably. I'll tell you what folks -- I love the Web. I have my own page on the Web and I don't have a page on Prodigy, America Online or CompuServe. But I find it a lot easier and quicker to surf the San Jose Mercury on AOL than reading it on the Web. I'd worry if I am AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy or the New Century Network that Microsoft is going to come out with something so cool that people will WANT IT just because it is so cool. Again, whatever your opinion is of Microsoft, when you see how seamlessly they've integrated their "Introductory Bookshelf" application into the online service, you can't help but be impressed. If they build an easy to use application around online news and online newspapers... But the banding together of several major newspapers to form NCN was a smart move. There are economies of scale and they should be able to crank out some compelling products aimed at the consumer. It was also a smart move to name the venture "New Century" Network. They're not likely to begin recouping their "tens of millions" of dollars of investment until the new century rolls around. More Microsoft "News" News ========================== First the story was (from insiders of Microsoft Network no less) that Microsoft was going to hire lots of editors and have its own full fledged newsroom. Then Microsoft came out and basically said, "No, we're just going to do what the other services are doing -- package the wire services and organize the content nicely." Will MS open up a full fledged newsroom on the Microsoft Network? Time will tell, but regardless of how "minimal" the news staff will be, Microsoft seems very serious about the way they plan to present news. Last Sunday's New York Times contained a classified ad seeking a Managing Editor for The Microsoft Network. "If you're looking for a challenge in the uncharted territory of multimedia news operations, you should talk with us...," the ad stated. They aren't looking for college kids or beginners either. They want someone with at least 10 years experience in all levels of print or broadcast news and at least 7 years of senior editorial experience. America Online and New Line Take Aim at Twenty-Somethings ========================================================= New Line Television and America Online teamed up this week to develop "The Hub," a "unique a unique online source for entertainment, interaction, information and cool stuff targeted towards young adults, for America Online, the Internet and other new media venues." Well I don't know about the name. I hear "The Hub" and I think of discount furniture stores in the Washington, DC area, but this "The Hub" is geared towards the twenty-somethings and plans to be THE hip place to be in cyberspace. "We are creating a compelling online destination where today's gen- x, twenty-something, whatever-you want-to-label them adults will want to be and be seen," said Robert Friedman, President New Line Television. Will want to be and be seen? If that statement comes anywhere near the mark, then I'm very glad that I am in my 30s! What, I'm supposed to give up Seinfeld, Friends and comedy clubs so that I can be seen at "The Hub"? The "be and be seen" notion is kind of insulting to me, but then again, I'm not an x-er, a twenty-something or whatever-you-want-to-label them adult. "The Hub," which is scheduled to debut on AOL this summer, will attempt to leverage New Line's proven programming success and AOL's success as an online service provider. " The channel plans to feature regularly scheduled programming, themed special events, on-air promotions and contests, plus a Do-Good Center to make charity tie-ins accessible to young adults. Additionally, "The Hub" will create and foster an online community for young adults to "hang out," interact with their peers and actively create and program content for the channel. "The Hub" also intends to feature companion Web sites and CD-ROMs as well as an interactive marketplace." "It will have attitude, yet reflect and respect their diversity. It will be a source for information, social interactivity, and surprises. And it will be a place that sells stuff, stuff that in many cases you won't be able to find anywhere else," said Friedman. "The Hub," will be a 50-50 venture between New Line Television and America Online. I can't wait to read what HotWired's "Ned Brainard" has to say about this on HotWired's FLUX page. (http://www.hotwired.com) AT&T's Interchange Takes a 9% of Europe Online ============================================== AT&T Interchange Online Network now owns a 9% stake in Europe Online SA, according to German publisher Burda GmbH. Burda also holds a stake in the European online network set for launch sometime later this year. In January, Europe Online announced that it had licensed AT&T Interchange's software for its service. Europe Online was formed by two of the initial investors of America Online. Speculation earlier in the year was that America Online had been snubbed by Europe Online. According to Steve Case (issue 2.3), this wasn't true. AOL wanted a deal with a significant equity stake and Europe Online was only interested in a licensing agreement. Seems like AOL got the better deal in joining forces with media conglomerate Bertelsmann, for a 50-50 venture to provide online services in Europe. Early on, I'd predict that AOL will succeed more than Europe Online. The Interchange service was created from the "publisher" point of view as a new way to compellingly package content. And it is exactly that. However, there still isn't a lot of data to suggest consumers care a lot about content. The consumers seem more interested in communicating and downloading than in content. Here it seems AOL will have more success than Europe Online with the Interchange format. And Microsoft plans to launch the Microsoft Network from day one as an international service... Speaking of Interchange... ========================== >From day one I liked what I saw on Interchange. But I am not the typical consumer...I am a content-a-holic. Still, I worried about Interchange's ability to succeed because the software tasked the CPU more than any application I'd ever run and it liked LOTS of memory. Running it on an 8Meg DX4-75 it was so slow as to be unusable. Recently, I got a copy of the early release of the April beta software. Why they held back so long with these improvements isn't clear to me, but the software now runs, and I am not exaggerating, about 20 times faster. It is now as fast as any other service I've accessed at 14.4 (and even faster than some of them) and definitely a usable service. They still need to hurry up and add a "chat" feature though. America Online has demonstrated that chat is a very successful money maker. Time spent on chat is pure profit other than what goes to the network provider (SprintNet, Tymenet, etc.). In the case of AT&T's Interchange, ultimately the network costs should be pretty inexpensive! Newsworthy Notes ================ PRODIGY announced an affiliation with three of the baby Bells to provide ISDN connections to the Prodigy online service. ISDN service will be provided by BellSouth, NYNEX and Pacific Bell. Prodigy co-parent company IBM (aka those wonderful people who employ me!) will supply the consumer grade ISDN modem, known as the Wave Runner, for $495 beginning in May. NIFTY-SERVE GOES OVER the one million mark. According to NIFTY Corp. its Japan based online service topped has topped one million subscriber mark. The Kyodo newswire also reports that the NEC Corp. affiliated (and NIFTY-Serve rival) PC-VAN announced last Monday that they'd gone over the 1 million mark. CBS FORMS ALLIANCE with Norfolk, Va. based Infinet, an Internet access provider and publisher. The goal? Get CBS' 200+ affiliate stations get up and running on the World Wide Web. Infinet is majority owned by Landmark Communications Inc., which owns 2 CBS affiliates that are already up and running on the Web. HOTWIRED SEEKS BUCKS. According to Folio: First Day (a Cowles Business Media publication), Wired Magazine's electronic publishing wing, HotWired is offering minority stakes in its World Wide Web Site in order to raise about $5 million to fund future growth. HotWired president, Andrew Anker says they're not looking for venture capitalists but equity partners and content providers. According to the story, News Corp, Viacom and Turner Broadcasting are among the targeted prospects. COMPUSERVE MEMBERS may want to watch out before downloading and installing the new NetLauncher software which allows CompuServe members to make a PPP connection to CompuServe and browse the Web with Spry's Mosaic browser. According to reports, the software may render existing net access software unusable by changin configuration files and the winsock.dll file. I haven't tried it myself yet. If you have existing net applications, you may want to back up your config files and your existing winsock.dll. Short Takes =========== ESPN AND STARWAVE announced that their multimedia based ESPN SportsZone has teamed up with "Pro Football Weekly" to provide in-depth NFL draft-day coverage. By the time you see this the draft probably be over, but you can still check out SportsZone at:http://ESPNET.SportsZone.com/ . Come on guys, lose the case sensitive URL! OXYMORON OF THE WEEK, observant readers have recently made sightings of a new book in the "Dummies" series -- America Online for Dummies. It had to happen! This week, America Online hosted an online event with the author of the book, John Kaufeld. If you missed it, the transcripts should be up in the archives area soon. Check it out at keyword: Center Stage . This isn't a slam at AOL users, I've used one AOL service or another for going on 8 years now. But always, their software was so easy, you didn't really need a book. Now that the service offers so much content, a book may not be a bad idea for new users. DO YOU BELIEVE in magic? Join renowned magician and super entertainer David Copperfield for an interactive chat on Prodigy. Monday, April 24 at 9 PM ET. Now if Mr. Copperfield could only make his fiance, supermodel Claudia Schiffer, magically appear in my apartment. JUMP: CHAT . THE FONZ IS BACK! Okay, not really, but you can join actor (turned director?) Henry Winkler in an interactive chat sponsored by PEOPLE (magazine) Online on CompuServe. May 3rd at 9pm. ET. GO: AUDITORIUM . WHY DRINK AND DRIVE when you can stay at home and drink and get on the World Wide Web and read all about Stolichnya Vodka! That's right, Stoli drinkers, you now have your own home on the Web known as "Stoli Central". All you ever wanted to know about Vodka and more. Hey, it is a pretty colorful site for such a colorless drink! This Week's Most Worthy Web Site ================================ Hands down (in my opinion) it is the Red Cross site located at: http://www.crossnet.com . Find out how you can help support the survivors of the tragic bombing this week in Oklahoma City. Note: the news reported by NBC that Timothy McVeigh, the arrested bombing suspect had described himself in his AOL profile as a "Mad Bomber" is a hoax, according to AOL. Apparently the profile was created on Friday, 2 days after McVeigh had been incarcerated. Stock Watch =========== This Last 52 52 Week's Week's Week Week Company Ticker Close Close High Low ------- ------ ------ ------ ------- ------- America Online AMER $77.88 $83.31 $94.75 $27.50 Apple AAPL $39.13 $38.25 $48.06 $24.63 Netcom NETC $23.25 $25.75 $31.75 $16.75 Bolt,Beranek & Newman BBN $18.63 $19.38 $22.25 $10.00 AT&T T $49.13 $51.25 $57.13 $47.25 General Elec. GE $55.00 $55.00 $56.00 $45.00 H&R Block HRB $41.38 $45.63 $47.63 $33.00 IBM IBM $91.63 $86.38 $91.63 $54.50 MCI MCIC $22.63 $22.00 $25.88 $17.25 Microsoft MSFT $75.00 $72.50 $78.13 $45.44 News Corp NWS $18.75 $20.13 $25.31 $14.38 Sears S $53.88 $52.75 $54.13 $43.50 If You Plan to be at Spring COMDEX/Windows World... =================================================== ...then please join Internet analyst, author and self proclaimed curmudgeon, Daniel Dern (gopher://gopher.dern.com:2205); Netsite President, David Williams, and ME for a presentation at COMDEX: "Exciting New Front-End Tools," on Wednesday, April 26 at 10:30 am. How to Get This Newsletter By E-Mail ==================================== Send an e-mail to LISTSERV@CLARK.NET and in the BODY of the message type: SUBSCRIBE ONLINE-L YOUR FULL NAME Example: SUBSCRIBE ONLINE-L Robert Seidman. In, Around and Online is also available via the web at: http://www.clark.net/pub/robert/ See you next week.