Subject: Online Service Industry, Weekly Summary (LONG!) From: robert@clark.net (Robert Seidman) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 1994 02:08:00 EDT Message-ID: PREFACE:What this is and why I am doing it! ------------------------------------------- This is the first weekly installment of an online industry update. I’ll present some factual recent news about the big consumer online services and the Internet. I’ll also throw in an editorial opinion or two. The reason I am doing this? Fame? Fortune? A trip to Disney World? Well, if someone likes it enough to send me to Disney World, I’m sure I’d get over it! The real reason I am doing this is: Twelve years ago, I got my first modem and hooked it up to a Commodore 64. It was the kind of modem that you had to dial the number with the telephone and then unplug the modular plug from the handset and plug it into the modem. After about 12 hours of unsuccessful connections, I finally realized that this wasn’t going to work for me because the whole phone was in the handset. Modern technology. So, I went to sleep at 5 a.m., got about 4 hours sleep and headed down to the Radio Shack for an "older" style phone. I got home and tried again and made my first successful connection to a BBS! My life was truly and forever changed, and I’d like to think for the better. This rag won’t contain much information about the BBS world, because these days between the online services I have access to and Internet, I don’t spend much time on BBS’s. And while I loved BBS’s, it was always big online services, initially GEIS, Compuserve and Q-Link which just made me sit in front of the monitor with a slack jaw and a "WOW" expression on my face. I love this industry, where it has been, where it is now and where it is going. It has enriched my life and I am avid in my pursuit of industry information. I write this as a summary of information for those interested who have real lives and don’t have the time to track down the information. I’ve gotten so much from this industry that I wanted to give something back. So without further sappy and sentimental ramblings from the author, I present the first issue: IN, AROUND AND ONLINE: W/E 9/10/94 ---------------------------------- AMERICA ONLINE -------------- AMERICA ONLINE REORGANIZES -------------------------- America Online announced that it was reorganizing the company into four new divisions in order to take advantage of new market potential and to gain a foothold in the International market for interactive services. The new divisions are the AOL Services Company, Internet Services Company, AOL International and AOL technologies. All four units will report to AOL President and CEO Steve Case and Case will head up the Internet Services Company. This is an important move for AOL because Compuserve already has a strong international presence and Prodigy is already ramping up for worldwide growth. AOL, the fastest growing online service is seemingly positioning themselves to be number one. These changes will allow AOL to focus on market growth at home with the AOL Services and Internet Services companies and abroad with AOL International. AOL Technologies can clearly focus on the systems and support necessary to avoid the system difficulties caused by explosive growth, that were experienced earlier this year. In related news it was reported that AOL has partnership talks in the works with potential partners in Britain, France and Germany laying the groundwork for European expansion. OTHER AOL NEWS OF INTEREST -------------------------- Time Warner Interactive (TWI) , a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc. announce availability of the Time Warner Interactive forum on AOL. TWI is a leading developer and publisher of arcade style games across several platforms. To access this forum on AOL, use keyword: TWI COMPUSERVE ---------- H&R BLOCK CEO PREDICTS CIS WILL OUTPACE TAX BUSINESS --------------------------------------- Tom Bloch predicts that Compuserve will overtake the tax preparation business as the central focus of H&R Block. "If you just look at the current trends it's just a matter of years before CompuServe will represent more operating profits than our tax business," Tom Bloch told Reuters after the companies annual meeting in Kansas City. Bloch went on to say, "The two core businesses are very different.The information service business is a more dynamic, changing, exciting company, while the tax business is much more stable...This is going to be a real change for us." This isn’t a big surprise to me, but it still is great to see this happening. Further it clearly summarizes some of my beliefs. Online=Exciting. Taxes=Boring. Well, how would you interpret the use of "stable" in that quote?? OTHER COMPUSERVE NEWS --------------------- Dow Jones News Service articles are now available on Compuserve. Prodigy for some time has had Dow Jones News Retrieval stories. I’m not sure what is different about the Compuserve stories, or if there is any difference at all. I like the coverage provided by Dow Jones a great deal, it is good information. However, at 9.60/hr for 9600 service, you might want to check out what is available on Prodigy first. The Dow Jones News Retrieval Service stories on Prodigy are part of the core service except, I believe from 9:40 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. M-F, when they are part of the PLUS services. If someone from Dow Jones or Compuserve wants to let me know what is different on CIS than Prodigy, please do. I’m curious, but I’m weird that way. If you’re already swearing by the Clipping service on CIS, these stories will be available for you. Even at $9.60/hr ($4.80/hr if you’re still on a 2400 baud modem. If you’re still on a 2400 baud modem and reading this, I’m wondering if you still have your black and white TV and drive a car that has a radio that doesn’t receive FM) this is a better deal than many of the commercial news clipping services available. Summary: These are GREAT STORIES, however you can read them, if you’re a news junkie..READ THEM! THE INTERNET ------------ PIZZA HUT PIZZA SERVER ---------------------- Okay, so this is old news. Really Old News, but hey, I’m so sick of this news that I thought I would whine to the world at large about how sick of this I am. I don’t get the big deal about this anyway. While this is a nice service for people who are not able to speak, I really don’t get the big deal with everyone else. I wonder how many crank e-mails will be sent sending 45 pizzas with anchovies to people that the crank e-mailer really hates?! NOTE TO PIZZA HUT- If you receive e-mails requesting that 45 pizzas be delivered to my residence, please note: I DO NOT LIKE ANCHOVIES. If they are for Pepperoni, Sausage and Mushroom, you might want to call first! (Actually, they do call to verify orders first.) Okay, now for the REAL NEWS.... NEW YORK TIMES TO OFFER HELP WANTED SECTION ON THE NET ------------------------------------------------------ New York Times will be offering its help wanted classifieds via the PIPELINE Internet Service (based in NY). The service will be free for 6 months (to advertisers and job seekers). I’m not sure when it is available, but you’ll be able to get there via Gopher or WWW clients according to the press release. The NYT is apparently looking to be the Help Wanted service of the Internet. I think this is pretty cool! And for free?? BONUS! Hopefully, when they start charging, they’ll only charge the people placing the ad and not the folks looking for the jobs! When I find out more about this, I’ll post it. HOME SHOPPING NETWORK BUYS INTERNET SHOPPING -------------------------------------------- Even as the survey is circulating stating that less than 10% use computer online services for shopping or banking, Home Shopping Network is looking to bring their cable and broadcast television retail experience to the Internet by acquiring Internet Shopping Network. Who has time to shop on the internet? Well, I don’t know about the survey, but if 10% of the folks on the Internet are willing to shop on it, it sounds lucrative to me. If you want to see the current Internet Shopping Network, get out your favorite World Wide Web client and check out: http://shop.internet.net. OTHER INTERESTING STUFF ----------------------- Who would’ve thought that the Internet would come into play in the battle for operating system supremacy in the IBM clone market. But that’s what seems to be happening. It seems IBM is trying to take advantage of Microsoft’s delays with releasing a new Windows operating system by announcing that a new OS/2 for Windows (they’re calling it WARP) will be released in October. Warp, complete with point and click Internet clients will also offer point and click Internet access via the Advantis Network (another joint venture between IBM and Sears). Meanwhile, Microsoft announces that the new operating system, previously code named Chicago, will be called Microsoft ‘95. Reportedly scheduled to be released by the end of the 2nd quarter of ‘95, rumors abound that Internet clients will be part of the operating system. I was personally hoping for Microsoft ‘94 but to quote Clint Eastwood, "That’s not gonna happen." Since I’m writing about Online Services I don’t want to get into my feelings on the new naming scheme, though MS assures us that there won’t necessarily be a Windows ‘96.Incremental patches and improvements to Windows ‘95 will be called Windows ‘95A, etc. It has been rumored that Microsoft would launch their own online service with the release of the new operating system. None of the press releases on the delays in releasing the operating system or the announcement of the new name mentioned an online service. Don’t feel bad Microsoft, I still haven’t seen my beta for Ziff’s Interchange online service. If IBM releases Warp next month, it may well increase OS/2’s market share. They're also talking about spending a lot of money marketing it. You'll probably be seeing "Surf the Internet with Warp" ads soon on a TV screen near you. Well, that wraps this summary. I’m no writer, but I hope those reading this got some useful information out of it! Complaints, criticisms, suggestions and female stalkers are welcome! See you next week, unless I am inundated with Anchovy pizzas! Robert Seidman robert@clark.net