Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id EAA10779; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 04:14:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 04:14:42 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199612170914.EAA10779@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #664 TELECOM Digest Tue, 17 Dec 96 04:14:00 EST Volume 16 : Issue 664 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report (hisys@rmi.net) Internet/TV Convergence (Monty Solomon) Dataquest Survey Blasts Internet Television (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (Igor Sviridov) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (James E. Bellaire) Re: WebTV Upgrade Released (David Scott Lewis) Re: WebTV Sad Story (jfmezei@videotron.ca) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Jeff Becklehimer) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Travis Dixon) Re: WebTV Sad Story (Fred R. Goldstein) Re: WebTV Sad Story (A Realworld Experience) (Bob Brown) Re: WebTV Sad Story (bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM) Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective (bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-329-0571 Fax: 847-329-0572 ** Article submission address: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Our archives are located at mirror.lcs.mit.edu. The URL is: http://mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp mirror.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to tel-archives@mirror.lcs.mit.edu to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hisys@rmi.net Subject: WebTV and CoyoteNet; a Minority Report Date: 17 Dec 1996 07:18:14 GMT Organization: Rocky Mountain Internet Allow me to be the curmudgeon for a moment ... Is WebTV a blessing for the Internet, or for our culture? I have my doubts. And all the hand-wringing charges of elitism aren't going to change any facts, either way. This message will be quickly labeled as doomsaying and other predictable dismissals by some. Feel free to stop reading now and slap on a convenient label, if such oversimpli- fications appeal to you. There's a soundbite at the end; skip to it if you get bored. I don't think there's a great deal we can do about the movement of which WebTV is one leading edge; that is a massive juggernaut, probably building up near to trillions of dollars in cumulative revenues in my lifetime. The best I can do right now is to "name the beast" with as clear and honest sight as I have (and maybe suggest some interesting eddies that coexist with the main flow rather than stopping it). Be warned that this is largely focussing on the "down side", because the "up side" will be promoted and hyped with a thousand paid and a million unpaid voices, and doesn't need my help. It's not all bad, but we need to acknowledge the bad aspects rather than pretend not to notice. My concerns have to do with quality and quantity, as well as "net culture". WebTV seems to be taking the the same fine quality delta that AOLine has been known for, and moving it several notches further. No doubt we'll pick up a few eloquent voices, a few urban poets of great vision, and a few unsong heros. But in all honestly, WebTV aims to bring massive numbers of the couch potato "I pay you to keep me amused" folks online. The goal is to ultimately expand the user base for the Internet by many fold, swamping the current users and any 'net culture' they might still have; there will be little chance to "enculturate" the newcomers with any of the values or (sub)culture of the old internet -- their "culture" will be manufactured the big media corporations. My predictions: the differentiation into 'info providers' and 'informa- tion consumers' will continue to accelerate, with collaboration, peer networks, information sharing, volunteerism and mutuality becoming ever less used concepts. "Info consumers" will be looking to be entertained, or at most superficially "educated". As Intel has stated, their mission statement is not to build computers, but to compete for consumer eyeball time, head to head against television. Expect more action on the screen, of the flash-without-content sort. Fast cuts, short nibbles of "sound bite" type text. Aimed at "don't change that channel", at keeping people amused or bemused. Designed by the same people who today design supermarket packaging and magazines and television, for the same purposes. A somewhat more interactive version of the same intellectual and spritual wasteland (with islands otherwise). Most newspapers are calculatedly written for a 4th grade reading level today, a least common denominator and thus very large market. This is well documented and verifiable, not just an opinion. Pages designed for WebTV will aim lower if anything. More than a few sentences on a page will be inconsistent with the viewership. This *IS* a change from the old Internet, no matter that some apologists will try to make it a shameful, elitist thing for us to notice such facts. "Info providers" will increasingly be large corporations with employees paid to disseminate the corporate product, rather than individuals (per the academic model which jump started net culture). Most of the market will be a relatively small number (proportionately) of mega websites, with enormous high speed networks of servers. These will be very capital intensive, costing millions of dollars and having largish professional staffs of specialists, much like other mass media: Televisions stations/networks; major newspapers/chains; major magazines; the motion picture industry. Product advertisers, paid subscriptions, and corporate PR will fund and control most defacto content, seeing that it's basically not much different than existing mass media. They won't expect much info contribution from info consumers, beyond play-polls [Would you have sex with a stranger for $1,000,000 as X did in the movie? Yes/No; Current totals 5,236,197 yes/ 3,494,855 no/ 1,298,114 undecided] and marketing demographic feedback [What's most important to you in a car, pick one:...]. Most WebTV viewers will "surf" on whims and fads, more like channel surfing than library research. A mention in the right places could mean any web site can get its 15 minutes of fame, and be totally saturated - unless it's one of the big corporate megasites which specialize in this. Of course, if it has more than two television- resolution screens of text, or uses more than 4th grade vocabulary, or doesn't have snazzy moving Java aplets, it won't hold people's attentions. Yes, WebTV will allow "gee whiz" email to Aunt Betty, supplementing the telephone and written mail. And later even some real time audio and low res video! This will be sorta nice at times, useful; but it won't truly do much to stay humanly more in touch with Aunt Betty for most folks, it won't impact our lives as positively as even the telephone did (ie: there will be a small incremental gain). Few people will take the time to learn and practice skillful or heartfelt communication, instead going for quick cliches and then change the channel. (The idea of spending 15 minutes *thinking* about what you really want to say and how to say it will seem alien, when you could instead click on an efficient professionally written "greeting card" slogan (without even buying one of those hard to use alphanumeric keyboards) and be off to Bay Watch Online or Web Sites of The Rich and Famous). Despite this, email is probably the best part of the whole deal, even if over hyped. Content-wise, its cultural effect will be slightly positive or slightly negative or neutral, because most of it will be contained as private communication, like the telephone (as opposed to television, which has large cultural impacts). As mentioned above, the incrmental "media format" impact will not be as great as the phone, which had cultural effect via the immediate real-time human-identifiable-voice connection which mail did not have. Email is less radical to the human psyche than the telephone was, and videophones are only a notch more effective). Oh, another prediction: personal websites will become the message doormats, bumperstickers, painted mailboxes, answering machine messages, and "personalized greeting cards" (ref Target or Kmart) of the future. 90% will be uncreative "fill in the blank" semi-rote creations of formulistic mass software. Very few will actually have original text beyond captions, interesting insights, personally created images of merit, or functional things to share (like source code). Expect cliche'd clip art of the latest fad toys (cute little ponies with hair you can comb) and hot celebs. But nearly everyone (it will seem) will be able to have one! (And some will be wonderful!). "Look it up on the Web" educational assistance will in many, perhaps most, cases become another tool for kids to regurgitate rather than learn. With relatively little work, they can "write" reports on, say, dolphins, by typing "dolfins" in a search engine form, click on the first few sites to find an interesting one, grab text and images from one or two sites, rephrase the text some (optional), throw in some fonts and emphasis, and make a report that LOOKS better than most college students could have in 1985, but without ever thinking or learning anything. (Of course, WebTV kids will be at a "disadvantage", without a word processor and local hard disk and printer. They might have to do more work than cut and paste, and something might even seep in during the processs. But I think those will be fixed before long). As always, of course, it will be *possible* for some to learn a lot, if they are so motivated. But it will be easier for most to avoid real learning. Online discussion groups, whether Usenet or mailing lists, will be deluged with folks who don't contribute much. They will either be looking for free advice (the internet has been sold as this), or will be endlessly repeating a small set of trite mass-produced opinions - the ones that don't get into the newspaper letter columns, not due to political censorship but due to simple quality control. I say "deluged" even tho I expect only a smallish fraction of the WebTV crowd to attempt to participate - but it's a small portion of a very large market. Initially, using conventional modems, there won't be too great an impact on the bandwidth. Why should tripling the number of users expecting unlimited usage for $20/month do more than accelerate the existing problems? But that will prove way too slow, because graphics, sound, movement, animation, and video are required to steal those eyeballs away from MTV. Text can come fast, but it's too boring. So there will be much movement to implement cable modems and xDSL (especially ADSL), to give every one of those consumers 1.5-8 Mbps of download channel. Think what that means: ONE NEIGHBORHOOD could saturate today's entire backbone, and one city could require the backbone to expand 100 fold to keep up (not likely to be well funded by $19.95/month). Of course, they won't get that kind of bandwidth, their big pipes will be very jerky and sporadic. But they will act as sponges, able to soak up many times a much backbone bandwidth as there is available. A low impedance short to ground, datawise. This will have real impact, tho it's not clear yet whether we'll go to some form of volume-based charge, universal access-time charges, or corporate financing of infrastructure like television (at which time it becomes "theirs" and serves their purposes). But note that these folks are largely going to be people who were once satisfied by a few dozen TV channels, and 50 popular magazines. Caches are going to work well for this market, as they are faddish and trendy and not as proportinately intellectually diverse as the former internet. (Think of the magazines near the supermarket checkout stands, rather than the selection at the best newstand in town). This will mitigate the effect some, but won't erase the thousandfold increase in demand (imagine 300 million users worldwide expecting 1-8 mbps each download at peak hours). The bandwidth crisis will be real, and it will shift the paradigm as much as the commercialization of broadcasting or the centralization of ownership of media has changed those communication channels. The internet infrastructure of 2005 will be optimized for "broadcast" information from "megasite" producers to mass consumers who are mostly passive except for "channel surfing", rather than for information collaboration among relative peers. Organizationally it will resemble today's television industry much more than 1990's internet. It may even merge into one industry with television. And it may "penalize" atypical interests. "Geraldo Online" is going to be quick to download, because six other people on your block are viewing it too, after that reference on TV this evening. But you may have to wait for anything non-faddish and uncached to download. Some will say that WebTV "democratizes" the net, making it more accessible and representative, empowering more people. To some degree it might, for some people. But the overall thrust is NOT coming from the grass roots. This is not a project wherein inner city neighborhoods gets together than uses the network to organize politically, to nourish and expand their non-mainstream culture, to address their real life problems like gangs or jobs. It's a creation of Phillips and Sony and RCA and Disney and Time and Reuters and NBC/ABC/CBS/CNN and Paramount and all the same extremely wealthy and powerful commercial portions of our society that have dominated and controlled the mainstream media. They will tout isolated examples of good deeds in things like inner cities, but those are PR; the core of this change in direction is based on the exact same agendas and worldviews that control TV or People magazine (or major sports teams). Has the ubiquity of CocaCola ads or the popularity of Cheers democratized the world? The best I can hope for now is to keep alive some "commercially unviable" niches of intelligent and thoughtful discussion, peer creativity, collaborative information exchange, and free and diverse thought that will never show up significantly on CBS's broadcasts or AT&T's web sites. Perhaps some of the magic of the old internet can survive in these niches, or even expand and flourish. We can be an insignificant (volume wise) "rider" on the tidal wave of the corporate media information model. We can be a net within a net, where one can find thoughtful and meaningful words and concepts that don't fit the MTV or WebTV "good design" guidelines. We can use a tenth grade vocabulary :) We can discuss grey and multi-hued issues. We can joke and learn about each other (in some niches) as humans, outside of only professional roles. We can balance give and take. Things like the old practice of asking for information, and then spending the time to organize and post a summary of responses. Writing FAQ-like documents. Ask for help in a respectful way, rather than thinking our $19.95 bought us a bunch of consultants just as it bought us entertaining eyecandy professional web sites from Disneycorp and GM. I call this new/old "guerilla internet" subnet the CoyoteNet (not trademarked :-) in honor of the coyotes which unlike bears and wolves and ferrets, have managed to live amidst "development", even development which ravishes the formerly fertile landscape. Don't be surprised to see web sites which deliberately seek to be unattractive to WebTV. I expect to see somebody write an FAQ on "how NOT to optimize for WebTV". As in "how not to compromise your content" or even "how to bore the couch potatos so they'll channel surf elsewhere". Rather than "how to make it impossible for them to read if they are serious". I would like to have an open door for those who truly want more than the commercial pablum, even if their tool is WebTV. I hope there will still be paths of access for the black kid on the South Side of Chicago, who can't afford a network computer but whose family does have WebTV, and who is actually trying to learn, self-educate, and enculturate into an intellectually vibrant subculture absent at home or in the public schools. But it's OK with me if they have to learn to read and conceptually integrate more than 3 short paragraphs before jumping to another subject, in order to get into this niche. The "elitism" I represent is about expecting people to develop their potentials, and rewarding same, rather than sinking to the lowest common denominator. It's about relatively equal opportunity (within an imperfect world), but not guaranteed equal outcomes; effort does count. Trying to write well, thinking before replying, critically examining alternatives - there should remain a niche on the internet where these continue to be more valued than buying a new car because it's advertized as somehow making you more potent. And yes, the old internet (and usenet/uucpnet) had problems too. There was never a perfect golden age. But even in imperfection, it had value, and values, atypical of the mainstream culture. These are in great danger of being lost in the commercial repaving of the internet wildlands. I don't mean to preserve a static remnant as a museum piece, but to keep alive a dynamic and still evolving subcultural descendant, hopefully able to reach new heights. Here's the promised soundbite: The internet is the latest orange grove to be turned into (almost) indistinguishable suburbs modeled on those left by mass TV, radio, magazines and newspapers. WebTV is the bulldozers and contract assemblers putting up more ticky tacky boxes on the hillside. Rather than the internet culture following the path of the Amazon tribe whose land has been "developed", let's think more like the coyote, and co-exist in the "unprofitable" margins. Zhahai (a gardener of memes) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:17:14 -0500 From: Monty Solomon Subject: Internet/TV Convergence Reply-To: monty@roscom.COM Begin forwarded message: Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 12:50:55 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre Subject: Internet/TV convergence [Dan Schiller has been saying for a long time now that the emerging Internet business model is basically television. The evidence over the last six weeks is definitely heading in his direction. Here is his analysis.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 11 December 1996 Dear Phil: Your missive, to the effect that PCs and television were on a converging course, seems to me to open up a wide and important set of issues. Why is this convergence - or collision - happening? What does it mean to transfer television practices to this new context? How far can this transfer develop; may the process of convergence become generalized as a developing model for the net? Here are some comments. Internet Television: Net Makeover? By Dan Schiller Professor of Communication University of California, San Diego December 1996 Television and the Internet are pressing against one another, in a trend that raises vitally important issues. Why is this convergence - or collision - occurring? What does it mean to project contemporary television practices onto cyberspace? Might the process of convergence become generalized as a model for the Web's further evolution; how far can it go? Let's map some of the abundant recent evidence. 1. Convergence is real Television Systems: PC and TV manufacturers each seek enlarged markets. TVs that can stand in as Internet terminals, and PCs that can accept television signals are, in turn, obvious extensions of current consumer electronics markets. Similarly, U.S. computer software companies and broadcast television networks, program companies, and stations have commenced to jockey for competitive advantage as their industries merge. Nowhere has this internecine disagreement come through more forcefully than in the process of developing technical standards for digital TVs. Negotiators for computer companies recently staged an upset victory in the standards-making contest, setting the stage for what one analyst calls "a titanic battle for the nation's living rooms" between established set makers and personal computer manufacturers, "both of which want to build the digital device that will display these images."1 In truth, this epic contest will be even broader, in part because a stable Internet infrastructure has yet to materialize. Strategic alliances have been quick to proliferate. Microsoft and DirecTV - itself a subsidiary of GM's Hughes Corporation, with minority participation by AT&T - have inaugurated DirecPC, utilizing a satellite-delivery system to furnish television over a PC for a monthly subscription fee akin to that charged by cable television system operators.2 Philips Magnavox and, separately, Sony, are marketing "Web TV" set-top boxes, while Time-Warner, like other giant cable system operators, is contracting with suppliers for similar equipment, to work with emerging systems that will beam TV-like Internet channels to suitably equipped television sets.3 Network Services and the ongoing initiative to transform the Web into a "push" rather than a "pull" medium: The Interpublic Group, a major advertising holding company, has partnered with Ifusion Com, to create an Internet broadcasting system named Arrive. Akin to analogous services offered by Pointcast, Backweb Technologies and Intermind, Arrive will deliver customized information, including advertising, directly to users' screens whenever their computers are idle. The result, writes one observer, is to relieve users of "the need to search through the overwhelming amounts of data available" - because preselected sources of information are brought to users automatically.4 In such a context, the ability to control the viewer's start-up screen acquires newly decisive importance. Both Netscape and Microsoft have targeted the startup screen as what one writer calls a "platform[] for receiving Internet broadcasts."5 Microsoft's entry will utilize its Windows operating system software to create "Active Desktop" - a TV-like receiver that is already allied with a leading Internet broadcaster. One of Active Desktop's "premier" or default channels will be supplied by PointCast, whose on-line network already reaches an estimated 1.7 million subscribers with broadcast feeds of news and advertising.6 TheWall Street Journal tellingly refers to Microsoft's overall initiative, as "an important experiment in audience-building," and one with special appeal "to new consumers that haven't been moved yet to go on- line."7 (More momentarily on who these "new consumers" might be, and on how they relate to emerging "push" services.) Another important initiative arrived last summer, when Intel, the leading semiconductor manufacturer, rolled out Intercast, a system allowing Pentium processor-equipped computers to receive video and audio signals. Intercast permits concurrent Web surfing and TV viewing, and sends out specially created content that complements or ties back into TV shows. The venture depends on a growing list of major broadcast programmers, including GE's TV network NBC, Time- Warner's CNN, Viacom's MTV and, interestingly, Boston public broadcasting station WGBH.8 And then there is America Online's recent hire of Bob Pittman, the wunderkind who launched MTV fifteen years ago, "to polish the surface of the first break-out brand in cyberspace."9 AOL's churning subscriber base of 7 million may not look like much next to the tens of millions of net surfers, but perhaps that's not the relevant comparison. It's certainly a formidable basis on which to compete against the ratings numbers garnered by any of the existing cable networks. Perhaps AOL can identify means of symbiotically migrating audiences from and to TV. Oprah Winfrey, for example - whose television talkshow reaches a daily audience of some 15 million viewers - has successfully carried a portion of her on-air bookclub audience to her AOL program service.10 ESPN's popular Web-based Sportszone comprises another such linkage between the two media. Audience measurement infrastructure: Feverish discussion is underway of how best to track the net surfers' attention - especially to commercial messages.11 Nielsen, the longtime television ratings service, is actively developing audience measurement technique on the Web, where it already faces competition. DoubleClick, for example, comprises a network service for subscribing Web sites and advertisers; by monitoring usage it builds user profiles, on the basis of which it instantaneously uploads customized ads. Since March, 1996, DoubleClick has identified the preferences of some 10 million Web surfers, with a reported 100,000 more profiles flowing in each day. A new trade association, the Internet Advertising Bureau, helps ensure that the sponsors who are, according to one writer, "trying to turn the once-eclectic Web into the ultimate 24-hour marketing machine," do not lack for an institutional voice.12 Programming: "[A]dvertisers," writes Joan Voight, a reporter for AdWeek, "want to work hand in hand with publishers to coproduce the material that packs Web pages." ParentTime, a Web site that is a joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Time Warner, provides parents with interactive advice and promotes Time Warner magazines such as Parenting and Sports Illustrated for Kids. P&G has, in addition nine brand-specific Web sites, with dozens of others waiting in the wings; but ParentTime is a collaborative effort by the world's leading advertiser and a megamedia corporate ally to experiment with interactive program forms specifically targeted at consumer advertisers' most-needed audience: women.13 At this juncture, we return to the question of who the new targets of internet broadcasting will likely be, for the effort by advertisers to increase women's use of the net has indeed been at once widespread and concerted. Ed Meyer, then CEO of Grey Advertising, was asked in March of 1995 what "key issues" had to be explored with regard to new media. He responded: "One of the biggest issues is how we get women to use new-media applications and embrace these new technologies. With 70% of traditional advertising directed to women, it's vital to the success of new-media opportunities to appeal to and be used by women."14 Women's use of the Internet has duly increased, at least in the U.S.; women accounted for less than 10% of Internet users a few years ago but, according to one tally, totaled nearly one-third by summer 1996.15 It's significant, in this context, that one of Microsoft's six introductory TV-like channels is a magazine for women called UnderWire.16 Even beyond these new channels, the horizon of on-line network television is shrinking toward experiences that give Web users incentive to interact under the sign of one or another brand. Sponsored chatrooms, for example, encourage users to exchange personal messages that contextualize their use of particular commodities - make-up, say, or malt liquor - within the span of everyday social interaction. Thus is an emergent cultural practice reconsecrated to consumption, the most hallowed ground we have. Interactive genres of different kinds, from drama to news to games, seem certain as well to evolve further, under the watchful eye of sponsors who can lard them in all sorts of creative ways with product mentions and demonstrations. On one side, then, "push" services threaten to reduce use of the net to a more passive television-type experience. On the other side, however, there are ongoing reformulations of Web experience that put a premium on forms of active engagement - but mainly insofar as users' involvement can be rechanneled on terms established by sponsorship. There is little doubt that TVs and PCs are converging, and that a series of unfolding applications are beginning to recast the Web. What then are the implications of these developments? 2. Market Power and Commercial Sponsorship It is not "television" that is converging with cyberspace, of course, but a historically specific set of practices that we can more properly gloss as "commercial networked television." Commercial networked television is hardly new. It's crucial to stress that, long before the Internet, commercial networked television had already acquired the defining institutional identity that now bulks large in its convergence with the Web. Each of the two adjectives hints at a crucial feature. First has been the centralization of television content, or programming. This centralization should be distinguished from the considerable geographical concentration in programming and related industries that it encouraged. Centralization of programming via networking meant that large producers and distributors, rather than local or nonprofit broadcasters, were enabled to gain market power sufficient to dominate the larger television industry. (Thousands of U.S. musicians and untold other performers, by comparison, became casualties, as networks and stations successfully pushed to utilize recordings in preference to more expensive and unreliable live performances. Microsoft is putting $400 million annually into developing Web content, with no expectation of turning a profit for at least three more years. That's around an order of magnitude above the annual investment that was required by Rupert Murdoch's Fox Broadcasting network [or, for that matter, by Gannett's newspaper, USA Today], before each began to pay off. And corporations as a whole are estimated to have spent a couple of billions of dollars in developing Web pages. This scale of expenditure makes it all but certain that one or another megamedia company will eventually figure out how to innovate profitable cyberspace genres. But the question of how far such companies will be able to dominate the market for Web- based experiences is a larger and more complex one. The key goal of Webcasters, on current evidence, is to concentrate and stabilize relations between program services and audiences. Under active exploration in realizing this goal, and therewith in claiming additional market power, are "push" services, exclusive licensing agreements, a star system, blockbuster programming investments, and operating system software. But it must never be forgotten that this multifaceted attempt to stabilize the relation between programming and audience is itself largely a function of the second abiding aspect of a commercial networked model - its embedded reliance on advertiser sponsorship. The Wall Street Journal is perfectly correct to reduce this sprawling hubbub of business activity to the following headline: "How Net Is Becoming More Like Television To Draw Advertisers." The explosive growth of Internet broadcasting is tantamount to an admission that advertisers have succeeded in bending the Web to their particular social purposes. TV is the world's most effective selling tool. Simplifying only somewhat, it was because of its ability to accommodate live-action demonstration, over and above identification and endorsement of products and product applications, that TV succeeded radio as the foremost advertising medium. Advertisers are not yet confident that the Web portends an equally decisive new stage in the ongoing evolution of the sales effort - but they are certain that they cannot afford to overlook that possibility. So much at least we may take from the celebrated address, already two and a half years ago, by Ed Artzt, then CEO of Procter and Gamble. Before the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Artzt hectored his audience to rouse itself from its slumbers, and to "seize technology in [its] teeth" to ensure access for commercial sponsors to new media.17 Consider how far the debate has traveled - and metamorphosized - since then. Today it is no longer a question of whether advertising and marketing will move on the net. Now, rather, the issue has become how to make the pioneering forms of commercial representation - banner ads and corporate home pages - succeed more efficiently, or give up pride of place to "new and improved" advertising practices. Hunter Madsen, vice president for commercial strategy at Hotwired, makes a strong case for unremitting experimentation, toward less- standardized banners or "brand modules," and direct interpenetration of commercial and editorial matter ["content cobranding"].18 The generic forms of advertiser sponsorship and programming on the Web, surely, are nowhere near stabilization. But neither is their ultimate form the chief issue. Advertisers have proclaimed the necessity of colonizing cyberspace, and of making it dependent on their ability to provide funding. Does anyone still truly think that they will realize the folly of this ambition, and abandon the net? If advertisers ever recognized that the "culture" of the net was unreceptive, that time is long gone. They will try, and try again, until ... 3. Implications Let's distinguish two levels of analysis. The first is, what does advertiser sponsorship do to the media that become dependent on it? The second is, to what extent will the net come to be advertiser supported? There is plenty of evidence that advertiser sponsorship profoundly affects individual media practices, content, and relationships with audiences. It is not mainly a matter of poor ethics or lapsed standards, but of a systematic overall orientation. Advertisers want media to deliver audiences to them, in predictable quantities and at standard and comparably efficient costs. These audiences, moreover, need to be of ascertained composition and "quality," in the sense that advertisers desire to purchase access to a guranteed number of women ages 18-49, or men aged 25-54. (Of course audience sales is often much more nuanced and targeted than this.) I have already underlined that the rollout of "push" services instantiates an effort to recreate an old necessity in new form: access to stable - measurable and predictable - audiences for advertisements. When advertisers foot an appreciable proportion of overall media costs, they come to dominate that medium's workaday self- consciousness, which in turn places new pressures and limits upon that medium's relationship with its audience. It is not only a matter of "censorship" to suit the idiosyncracies of particular sponsors (though neither should censorship of this kind be gainsaid). It's also, and more substantively, a question of emphasis on particular program forms, and the priorities that they express - particular creative practices rather than others. The practices that saturate our culture, and that are now being transferred wholesale to the net, are market-driven in intent and in effect. That doesn't mean they cannot sometimes eventuate in true artistry, but rather that emerging forms of art on the net are themselves being placed in harness to a narrow and exclusionary social purpose: selling.19 How far can this convergence go? Of this we can hardly be confident. The trail is already littered with the effects of poor strategic judgments and corporate missteps. Consider only the just-announced decision by Pacific Telesis, Bell Atlantic and Nynex that their venture into television production, TeleTV, will disband. Or the trade journal Variety's recent pronouncement: that "convergence" itself is ceasing to be this season's buzzword in Hollywood. Surely there will be additional failures. Nobody can be certain that any particular venture will succeed, let alone that it will transform the net. But that doesn't mean the whole thing is an open question. Most significant, it seems to me, is that the outcome itself is being left essentially to "market forces," that is, to the very business behemoths whose actions I have briefly assayed. If present trends are not interrupted, the extent to which a variant of commercial network television comes to prevail on the Web will be very largely determined by profitseeking companies. Other social interests, prospecting for alternative visions of cyberspace, including churches, public-interest organizations and community groups, educational institutions, musuems, libraries, and labor unions, will either be marginalized, or else incorporated - and exploited - by sponsors seeking access to their members, and perhaps a patina of legitimacy. The debate over the propriety of advertiser-supported radio broadcasting (the so-called "American system") unfolded through years of public discussion,20 and drew outbursts of anticommercial concern from highly placed politicians, church leaders, businesspeople, educators, and philanthropic organizations. In contrast, the "debate" over commercialism in cyberspace has been a nonstarter. The established media have been nearly silent; aside from the question of "spamming" - basically a diversion - scant attention has been accorded to the grave questions raised by the growing commercial presence on the net. In such circumstances, what chance is there of building an abiding public purpose into the net? *** In actuality, many people and organizations, a diversity of motive and ambition continue to be present, as the commercial imperative unfolds across the Web. Some participants are unalloyed boosters; some are alienated cynics - seemingly above the dismal venality and small-mindedness of it all. Still others may take pleasure in successfully smuggling private messages - cybergraffiti - into sponsored spaces, or in covertly intruding in other ways. But what of those more active dissenters, who seek to carry forward on the net the longstanding oppositional traditions of independent film and video artistry, and of free thought and association more generally? We may place our hopes in them - with our hearts, at least, if not yet with our heads. ---Dan Schiller Professor of Communication dschille@weber.UCSD.edu 1quote from Mark Lander, "Industries Agree On U.S. Standards For TV Of Future," New York Times 26 November 1996: A1, C6; Bryan Gruley, "Television and Computer Makers Reach An Accord on Design of Digital-TV Sets," Wall Street Journal 26 November 1996: B10; Joel Brinkley, "Defining TV's And Computers For a Future of High Definition," New York Times 2 December 1996: C1, C11. 2Katherine Stalter, "NBC, Intel link to channel TV to PC," Variety 1-14 July 1996: 33. 3Mark Robichaux, "Time Warner Inc. Is Expected to Order Up to $450 Million of TV Set-Top Boxes," Wall Street Journal, 10 December 1996: B8. 4Stuart Elliott, "Advertising," New York Times 20 November 1996: C5. 5David Bank, "How Net Is Becoming More Like Television To Draw Advertisers," Wall Street Journal 13 December 1996: A1, A8. 6David Bank, "Microsoft Picks On-Line News From PointCast," Wall Street Journal 12 December 1996: B4. 7Don Clark, "Microsoft's On-Line Service Goes to a TV Format," Wall Street Journal 9 Dec 96: B7. 8Amy Dunkin, "PC Meets TV: The Plot Thickens," Business Week 23 December 1996: 94-5. 9Cathy Taylor, "Welcome! You've Got Bob Pittman," MediaWeek 2 December 1996: 24-27. 10Deirdre Donahue, "But some wonder if people are really reading," USA Today 12 December 1996: D1, D2. 11Jane Greenstein, "Advertisers Stell Trying to Get a Line on Net Users," Los Angeles Times 2 December 1996: D5. 12Joan Voight, "Beyond the Banner," Wired December 1996: 196, 204. 13Jeff Harrington, "P&G's programming push," USA Today 25 November 1996: 12B. 14"InterViews," Advertising Age 13 March 1995, S-26. 15Andrew Kantor and Michael Neubarth, "Off The Charts: The Internet 1996," Internet World Dec 96: 44-51. 16Don Clark, "Microsoft's On-Line Service Goes to a TV Format," Wall Street Journal 9 Dec 96: B7. 17For an illuminating discussion, see Matthew P. McAllister, The Commercialization of American Culture. Sage, 1996. 18Hunter Madsen, "Reclaim the Deadzone," Wired December 1996, 206-220. 19For those wishing to learn more about the role of advertising in television itself, check out Erik Barnouw's classic book, The Sponsor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. 20Robert W. McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: Dataquest Survey Blasts Internet Television Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 12:28:09 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) I usually have a lot of respect for Dataquest, but they blew it big time by spewing the results of a recent telephone survey. As part of Dataquest's new The Digital Consumer program, they surveyed nearly 7,000 home consumers. Their conclusion: "The Internet television in its current form does not have significant market potential in Dataquest's view," said Van Baker, director and principal analyst of Dataquest's The Digital Consumer program. Baker later gives himself an "out" by noting that Internet TV could be made more enticing. He sites "push" customization and the delivery of local content as two ways to expand Internet TV's market potential. However, their headline reads: "Dataquest survey shows U.S. households are turned off by Internet television." How many will see the headline and never read Mr. Baker's "exceptions"? First, WebTV and its cousins from Sega and Bandai need to have more interactivity. Also, customization, push technologies, and delivery of local content _ARE_ real issues. My response to Mr. Baker is that he isn't giving the Web TV (including WebTV) clan enough credit. These are OBVIOUS limitations, but limitations that are being aggressively addressed. An open word (or several) to Mr. Baker: "Open your eyes and see the possibilities." Frankly, chastising "Version 1.0" technologies in this industry is utterly ridiculous. Vision, Mr. Baker, it takes vision to see the future in all its glory. Second, I'd like to shoot down the survey results with a bit of academic backing. Moriarty and Kosnik point out that customer needs that form a foundation for targeting a market or a segment are difficult to discern, because potential customers are typically unable to articulate needs they do not know they have. (See R.T. Moriarty and T.J. Kosnik, "High-tech concepts, continuity and change," IEEE Engineering Management Review, March 1990, pp. 25-35. BTW, yours truly was the editor-in-chief of EMR from 1987-1995.) On a much more basic level, it comes down to the flaws revealed by Prahalad and Hamel in their McKinsey award-winning papers in Harvard Business Review. Remember their ideas on strategic intent, core competencies (which most people bastardize -- bluntly, "it's a technology, stupid!") and expeditionary marketing? Let's focus on the later concept: Expeditionary marketing. How about some examples, shall we? Traditional survey methods revealed that there was no market for: 1) The Sony Walkman, 2) NutraSweet, and 3) CT scanners And, believe me, there are plenty more examples. What gets under my skin is that most traditional market research is near worthless when applied to radical innovations. But the media touts the research as Gospel. Dataquest and the other leading market research firms should stick to what they do best: Simple extrapolation. If they choose to enter the realm of radical innovations, they need to implement a whole new set of tools. They need to take their telephone surveys and put them in the circular file; frankly, that's all they're worth! To review the Dataquest release, go to: http://stonewall.dataquest.com:80/irc/press/ir-n9652.html For the marketing perspective, see the following monographs: Factors that impact consumer adoption of innovative technological services over time: The case of the Internet by Roy Henrichs (1995) Marketing high technology: An analysis of organizational buyer and seller behavior in the expert systems industry by W.A. Rooks, Jr. (1991) Using market diffusion models for developing and assessing marketing strategies by Namwoon Kim (1993) Technological generations and the spread of the social definition of new technologies by R.S. Larsen (1993) Predicting the future: Assessing forecasts and predictions for residential broadband services by Sandy Kyrish (1993) Substitutability and complementarity in the diffusion of multiple electronic communication media: An evolutionary approach by L.L. Soe (1994) Evaluative criteria and user acceptance of end user information technology: A study of end-user cognitive and normative pre-adoption beliefs by E. Karahanna (1993) Predictive insights through analogical reasoning by H. Lee (1993) Understanding products and markets for radical innovations by Gary Lynn (1993) Lead user model for analysis of new product developments in the computer industry by M.G. Angur (1991) Strategies for new products in fast changing high technology markets by C.S. Kim (1991) Anyone want to debate this further? I'm ready! :-) GO WebTV!!! David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org Strategies & Technologies, an Internet marketing consultancy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 23:51:17 -0600 From: Igor Sviridov Subject: Re: WebTV Upgrade Released Organization: J. River, Inc. In article , David Scott Lewis wrote: > WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. [skipped] Actually, frames ARE there and DO work :-) Other nice enhancements are multimedia mail, audio control panel with pause/start/stop, phone number display when dialing, screen saver :) and scheduled mail check (unit will be ON, though TV may be off). SSL still not implemented :-( so sfnb.com customers like me still can't use WebTV for banking ;-). I eagerly wait for SSL, cookies and telnet (well, last may be tough). Other nice extension would be HTML editor and Web hosting service from WebTV - even WebTV customers will be creative ;-) --igor -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 96 17:52:00 EST From: James E Bellaire Subject: Re: WebTV Upgrade Released David Scott Lewis writes: > WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. > First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right > direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, > and frames aren't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff > can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for > JavaScript or ActiveX. What web spoofing stuff? Is there some kind of security hole in JavaScript that I have missed? (The last one I heard about was a few months back and was with a particular browser that has been upgraded since. That problem was related to machines behind firewalls running software to discover break-in points or relay information to machines outside the firewall. That would not affect most WebTV people, since they are on ISPs not corporate or educational dialups.) By the way: According to WebTV there is no 'local' dialup for my town of 20,000 in Indiana. (I'm 317-677, soon to be 765-677.) The non-local dialups given are in Ohio (513-291 and 513-640 - not the 317-638 and 317-977 Indianapolis numbers) A town 20 miles away (317-457) is given two other numbers, 513-868 and 513-640. Not sure why there would be a difference there ... By the way, BOTH 513-291 and 513-640 are, as of last September 28th, 937-291 and 937-640. Permissive is still in effect. (513-868 is remaining in 513.) Glad I subscribe to one of the three local ISPs! WebTV would be too expensive in this area. James E. Bellaire bellaire@tk.com Webpage Available 23.5 Hrs a Day!!! http://www.iquest.net/~bellaire/ ------------------------------ From: David Scott Lewis Subject: WebTV Upgrade Released Friday Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 10:01:52 -0800 Organization: Strategies & Technologies, Inc. (STI) WebTV just implemented an upgrade that subscribers should know about. First, RealAudio has been added. That's one step in the right direction. I hope support for Shockwave, PDF, QuickTime, QuickTimeVR, and frames isn't too far behind. BTW, until this Web spoofing stuff can be resolved, WebTV should stay away from adding support for JavaScript or ActiveX. Second, they've added background music. The music seems to repeat after an hour or so, but it's pretty good. What they need to do is to support viewer selection of a musical genre. Personally, I like The Music of Cyberspace series. Third, they've made it possible to switch users without logging off and logging on again. There were a few other additions, such as checking for e-mail even when the unit is off, but the above are the main upgrade features. BTW, it was totally painless to add the upgrades. It took about 10 minutes, but it was a simple click on the remote control. That's it! WebTV, albeit a consumer product, is the best example of why NCs are needed: Ease of maintenance! And WebTV does NOT have goofy functions, like logging off by hitting the "Start" button (boy, isn't that intuitive!). For your enjoyment, here are four useful URLs (each is an article): http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,6043,00.html http://www.packet.com/schrage/today.html (this one, because it ends with "today.html" may not last for long!) http://techweb.cmp.com:80/ng/nov96/fcompare.htm http://www.nytimes.com/web/docsroot/library/cyber/techcol/1202techcol.html For a pointer on the Web TV phenomena (including WebTV, and the systems from Sega and Bandai), go to: http://users.visi.net/~cwt/tv-inet.html David Scott Lewis thewebguy@acm.org ------------------------------ From: jfmezei Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 01:40:45 -0500 Organization: SPC Reply-To: nospam.jfmezei@videotron.ca Is WEBtv just a box you can connect to any TV set , or is it a combination of compatible CPU and monitor? Also, many have been impressed with the quality of the text. Could this be because the image is not "broadcast" but directly fed into the TV and that the monitor may in fact have a greater resolution than the broadcast NTSC standard? ------------------------------ From: beck@slidell.com (Jeff Becklehimer) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 16 Dec 1996 23:51:22 GMT Organization: slidell.com inc, Slidell Louisiana Phil Leonard (pleonard@cybercom.net) wrote: > In article ID , beck@slidell.com > (Jeff Becklehimer) writes: >> Just curious, does this violate copyright laws? Also, when you say an >> image is "too detailed" does this mean you also resize or reduce the >> number of colors of the images to make them fit on the screen? > If they ARE violating any copyright laws then everyone of us who cache > images we view on the Internet, are, as well. I know you can't easily > see this with Netscape, but Internet Explorer shows you every image > you ever looked at, until the cache is full and pushes the last image > out to make room for the fresh ones. This is true but what I was referring to is the fact that their proxy server modifies the image and then redistributes it. This is not a temporary copy used for viewing. I guess my question should have been "Is the proxy serving a derivative work or just a copy?" Jeff Becklehimer slidell.com, inc. ------------------------------ From: travisd@saltmine.radix.net (Travis Dixon) Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 17 Dec 1996 01:39:39 GMT Organization: RadixNet Internet Services JP White (ffv.aerotech@ffvaerotech.com) wrote: > has a phone line. It's early days, give them a chance! Expect to see > a higher monthly rate when the cable modem does appear as an option. I > doubt they'll give away the extra bandwidth, though it would be real > nice if they did! I would imagine that the cost for extra bandwidth would be evened out by not having to provide a dial-up line for every user - just a POP at the CableCo's headend. Besides, just because they're on Cable modems doesn't mean that they're going to push more bits down the line. --travis ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:34:48 -0500 From: Fred R. Goldstein Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Andy McFadden writes, > We occasionally find minor errors in the CCMI database or in the way > we use it, and like to get them resolved as quickly as possible. The troubles are severalfold. The CCMI database is as good as you can get in today's market, but that doesn't make it perfect. CCMI has to make compromises too. Local calling tariffs are not all "of a mold"; the way they work in different areas can be quite variable. CCMI just takes a couple of good estimates which work in most places, but not always for everyone. > We list expensive local calls (e.g. $0.25 flat rate per call) as being > non-local, which may be what you're seeing. Again, the goal is to > avoid causing any surprises for the customer. Most of them don't care > whether the bill comes from AT&T or the BOC, they're just concerned > about what the calls cost. > We're using the actual tariff data from CCMI. I did some tests on a few > phone bills and they were dead on. But whose phone bills? Nowadays there is competition for long distance, with variout discount plans, and local rates may have options galore too. > ...There are two problems with putting a bunch > of POP numbers on the screen. First and foremost, it's fine for > technical folks but fairly lame for the bulk of the population who > want to plug it in and then just not worry about it. The whole "it > just works" concept requires hiding as much of the internal workings > from the mass-market consumer as possible, without subjecting them to > any nasty surprises. But it does have nasty surprises. The CCMI database is great in those places where calls are "toll" or "local", period. That used to be the norm in most places, and still applies in many. But what about, say, Boston, where there are something like 8 valid "local" residence tariff options, with different radii? (Measured, contiguous, suburban, metropolitan, circle, measured-circle, LATA-wide, Bay State East, just in case anyone wonders, and I may be missing one or more.) The WebTV application gave me two numbers for Needham, MA. The "local" one was Waltham, the "toll" one was Boston. That's a good approximation. BUT Needham is not *contiguous* to either, or to any of their numbers. Under the NYNEX tariff, the basic residence "flat rate" package ($16/mo) is "contiguous" only. Other exchanges within an 8 mile radius are charged at Zone 1 Measured rates (1.6 cents/minute); "local" beyond 8 miles is charged at Zone 2 (5.5 cents/minute. Zone rates have *no* off-peak discounts, so night/weekend toll calls, at 3.6c/minute, are cheaper than zone 2 local!) A web junkie in Needham would be better off with Suburban service (about $25) calling Waltham, or Metropolitan (around $30) also calling Boston. Therefore a "contiguous" user in Needham would be presented with no "free" calls, but the zone 1 is correctly positioned better than zone 2. But now let's move up the road to Belmont. The WebTV application shows two "local" numbers, but the Boston number shows first, before the Waltham number. Both are Zone 1, but Belmont is contiguous to Waltham, not Boston! WebTV would miss the free call at any opportunity to make a Zone 1 metered call. Humans can figure this out. Wetware isn't perfect but it is trainable. Getting the local numbers right is a challenge for ISPs. I've looked at, for instance, UUNET's on-line list of dial POPs. They have some exchange names wrong, so if you don't research the actual whereabouts of the prefix, you'll sometimes get a toll or unwanted zone charge. For instance, they list a "Sherman Oaks" CA number which is really in Canoga Park, several miles to the west (overlapping but different calling radius). They're not the only ones with similar errors. Fred R. Goldstein fgoldstein@bbn.com BBN Corp. Cambridge MA USA +1 617 873 3850 ------------------------------ From: Bob Brown Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story (a Realworld Experience) Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:36:00 -0500 Organization: The EmiNet Domain (407)731-0222 Reply-To: rbrown@emi.net Andy, I saw your post on comp.dcom.telecom. This is an interesting thread because it homes in on the only problem I see with Webtv and that is the long distance charges in some areas. I am the Director of Information Technology at my company and spend way too many hours on the web. My parents are not computer literate at all and are not good candidates to purchase a computer to use to connect to a local ISP. Your product is the perfect thing for them. I actually find myself using it as much or more than my PC. I just wanted to share the experience I just had calling their local phone provider and A T & T since it might give you some insight into what people are dealing with. My mom and dad live in area code 803 in exchange 478. So I called their local company, Farmers Tel. They have no calling plan to give my parents a break. They are actually kind of high. I should say that they were very nice and gave me AT&T's number. This is where it gets interesting. Instead of just saying that I was looking for a calling plan to reduce the charges on a frequently called number I made the mistake of mentioning the internet and Webtv. So they politely transferred me to AT&T's Worldnet service, their internet service provider group. When I explained to this person what I was trying to find out and mentioned WebTv they politely transfered me to the Direct Satellite TV group in AT&T. Now I am kind of bummed out over the fact that my mom and dad will probably be soured on the internet deal because they are very frugal and will not happily pay a lot of long distance charges. But the real reason that I am writing this to you is to share the experience that a lot of non-techie people are going to run into when they try to use your beautifully designed product and service. I'm hoping that you are agressively pursuing a relationship with some major ISP's to provide toll free service in the areas that still remain isolated. Thanks for reading this if you got this far. I don't know about you but I sure feel better now. Oh, and if anyone can figure out who I can call at AT&T to find out about a calling plan for mom and dad please let me know. Robert T. Brown III (Bob) robert.brown@sfwmd.gov (at work) West Palm Beach, Florida rbrown@emi.net (at home) 26 40 32 NORTH 80 05 37 WEST http://www.emi.net/~rbrown ------------------------------ From: bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM Subject: Re: WebTV Sad Story Date: 16 Dec 1996 17:33:10 GMT Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company I've had the Philips box for over a month now and in so far I'm happy with it. The newest download last week which audio is on in the backgroud during surf'n sessions. Problem when you call-up your own selection of radio or cd's from the list they do not play. So WEBTV has some more debuging problems? Or is it a marketing strategy for more money? ------------------------------ From: bwismer@msmail3.HAC.COM Subject: Re: WebTV Musings: A User's Perspective Date: 16 Dec 1996 17:40:17 GMT Organization: Hughes Aircraft Company I'm going through printer withdrawl with my WEBTV. So I forward or send my email stuff to my office to print or spell check etc. but when WEBTV matures it will be a handy affordable toy instead of paying a couple of grand for an obsolete computer. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #664 ******************************