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In Around and Online 95 01 27
In, Around and Online- Issue 2.4-- Week Ending 1/27/95
=======================================================
Copyright (C) 1995 Robert Seidman (robert@clark.net). All rights
reserved. May be reproduced in any medium for non-commercial purposes.
In This Issue...
================
- Internet: Ready For Prime Time?
- More Interesting Statistics
- Up, Up With People Magazine on CompuServe
- Brief Update on AOL Inbound Mail Woes
- Newsworthy Notes
- Short Takes
- Stock Watch
- How to Get This Newsletter
- Our Thanks To...
Internet: Ready For Prime Time?
===============================
Five years ago when I'd tell my friends I knew all about what was going
to happen on the next episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation because
I'd read it on the newsgroups available via the Internet they just looked
at me as if I was weird. Even weirder than normal. My girlfriend at the
time definitely thought it was weird. Until I showed her that there was
also information on one of her favorite pastimes; horseback riding. Then
she thought it was cool. Cool, but too hard. Even back then I was no
neophyte to this medium, but I agreed with her assessment.
Back then, if you weren't at a university, with the government or
involved with research, the chances were that you had never heard of the
Internet. In the last year or so print and broadcast media has pumped
the Internet down our throats. Why now? Partially because the major
online services began announcing Internet services. Mostly the coverage
has been due to fascination with the World Wide Web. I understand this
fascination, but when you get right down to it, it is still too hard to
use. It is getting easier, but right now, it still isn't quite easy
enough and there aren't enough services available via the World Wide Web
to make it viable for most people. To that end, today I believe that
more people will benefit from a connection to one of the commercially
available online services. If someone decides a more direct connection
is desirable, more than enough information is available via the
commercial online services to make a decision on a provider.
Now some of the security risks of Internet are becoming more apparent.
The risks were always there. That's what happens when you have an open
standard. But now some in the media are sounding warning alerts on the
dangers of the Internet. Some of the same folks who were saying the net
was the greatest thing since sliced bread are now complaining that it's
too hard to use and that while the information is there, it isn't easy
enough to get at. The media has also given a lot of coverage recently to
security risks; especially since the new "IP spoofing" technique has been
discovered. Some in the media are outright scaring the public away from
the Internet. Others are pointing out real flaws that scare users-
especially the big corporate users. And developers of firewall and
"anti-spoof" technologies are licking their chops as they prepare to cash in.
Let's face it, there ARE real issues and they need to be addressed. We
early adapters think the latest and greatest on the online services and
the Internet are extra special because it is all so much better than
anything we've had before. But we make a mistake when we assume that
just because it is so cool to us that it will automatically be cool to
everyone. It isn't. But someday, in some fashion, it will be. And it
will all be as common place as the television is today. Personally, I
would not over hype the WWW or any other technology that is available now
or that will be available in the future.
For now, let's get back to the basics of this medium: communication. A
simple thing like e-mail can be a very useful tool. I wouldn't
discourage anyone from using it. When print and broadcast media make
broad brush statements that the net has been over hyped (by them, mind
you), they're correct. I hope the media will strive to paint a more
balanced picture. Don't over hype what ISN'T there, but don't discourage
users from the basic communications tools that can make everyone's life
easier and more productive.
Look at the bright side, for all the real problems and issues that exist,
NOW is the time to deal with them. Much better to deal with them now
when there are only 30 or so million instead of waiting until there are
300 million.
More Interesting Statistics
===========================
The February Issue of Online Access Magazine has an interesting sidebar
in it. Before I get to that I want to say that for those of you who have
dismissed Online Access magazine because they traditionally have run 20
pages of content and 120 pages of BBS listings, you may want to take
another look. Online Access is getting better. It could be that they
are feeling immense pressure due to CMP's new offering, NetGuide
magazine. In it's 3rd issue NetGuide is vastly (in my opinion) superior
to Online Access. But Online Access has been a pretty good read the last
two issues and if you're as into all of this as I am, you might want to
give it a look.
If you have to pick one magazine, I'd advise on NetGuide. You get a lot
more information for a lot less money ( NetGuide lists at $2.95 and
Online Access at $4.95). But if you just can't get enough, pick up
Online Access too. The February issue has articles on the World Wide Web
and Point and Click software. There is also a nice article from Kevin
Savetz on selecting an Internet provider. Kevin often serves as pseudo
editor for this newsletter by pointing out errors I've made after I've
already made them! It's a little too late, but he keeps me on my toes.
Okay, I guess I've created a scenario that demands equal time.
NetGuide's February edition has a great feature story on Usenet
newsgroups by Daniel Akst. Also look for features on travel and an
interesting tale of how the Internet may save the monarch butterfly. And
as always, there is the info filled CyberGuide. NetGuide has a site on
the World Wide Web as well. Have a look at:
http://www.wais.com:80/techweb/ng/current/default.html . We now return
you to our regularly scheduled newsletter...
Online Access ran a small sidebar entitled "Consumers Comprise Small
Piece of the Internet Pie where they site statistics from the FIND/SVP
1994 American Information User (AIU) survey of 2,000 households.
According to the survey, no more than 3-4 million of the the 30 million
users are "consumers". The survey points out that the rest are
institutional users from academia, government and business. There is a
lot of valuable information in the FIND/SVP survey, but this little
newsbyte is just not one of them. Why? BECAUSE EVERYONE IS A CONSUMER!
Jeez. The statistic that I want to see is of the 30 million Internet
"users" how many have more than e-mail access and are the 6 million or so
that have Internet "access" via the online services included in the 30
million total? The real issue isn't how many are consumers (everyone
really IS a consumer), but rather how many are in a position (can use
tools like WWW) to consume.
Up, Up With People Magazine on CompuServe
========================================
Frequent readers of this newsletter know that I'm an information junkie
that devours online and offline versions of Time, Newsweek, US News and
World Report, Business Week, San Jose Mercury News, Chicago Tribune and
The Washington Post -- to name a few. But some of these are not
publications that appeal to the mainstream of mainstreamers. On Friday,
CompuServe launched an online version of one of Time Warner's popular
People Magazine.
Okay, so People Magazine is fluff. But it is fun fluff, and CompuServe
and People have done a good job of presenting the publication in the
online medium. I don't subscribe to People, but I'm at the dentist or
orthodontist frequently enough to be a regular reader. Now, on those off
weeks when I actually have no appointments, I can get my People fix on
CompuServe.
I have one thing to say: More Heather, more Cindy and more Claudia!
You can call me a sexist pig if you like, but remember this IS the
magazine that does a cover story on the sexiest MAN in America.
The People Magazine area on CompuServe offers the full text of the
magazine, pictures and interactive forums. Special events are planned as
well. It isn't necessarily news, but it is fun. It is available via GO
PEOPLE . Their is a portion of the area that is available within the
basic services. The full text of the magazine and the forums are in the
Plus area.
Brief Update on AOL Inbound Mail Woes
=====================================
Last week I wrote about the delays experienced receiving inbound e-mail
from the Internet on America Online. The delays haven't gone away, but
it appears that most mail is being posted within 48 hours. Hey, it's
better than 100+ hours. America Online plans to add another mail server
and is working on a scaleable architecture that will prevent future
problems from growth. I tried to hook up with AOL spokeswoman Pam McGraw
for an official statement, but real life and phone tag got in the way.
We plan to speak next week, so I'll hopefully have some official word then.
An America Online insider advised me that my premise that the problems
may in part have been due to mail bombing of AOL were off base. While
mail bombing does occur, even in what may seem as large numbers, the
numbers represent an insignificant portion of the total inbound mail
traffic being handled. For now, the problem really is "too many cars,
not enough road".
Newsworthy Notes
================
MICROSOFT ANTITRUST reluctantly revisited. No updates from Judge
Sporkin. He said he needed a few days to read over the material. He
didn't say which planet he was using as his time base. We'll keep you posted.
PRODIGY ANNOUNCED "explosive growth" in users downloading their new WWW
browser. Over 75,000 have already downloaded the software and as Prodigy
moves towards 100,000 they will be the single largest site accessing the
WWW. The numbers may not sound all that impressive, but considering
Prodigy has only promoted the information on a minimal basis online over
the last week, it is pretty impressive. Of course, they've also taken
out full page advertisements in print publications such as the Wall
Street Journal.
GE OFFERS FREE access to GEnie for Japan based users from now until
further notice. All fees will be waived. GE is making this offer to
help during the rebuilding process following the Kobe earthquake.
AMERICAN EXPRESS and America Online are holding a press conference Monday
at 10:00 a.m. EST to announce "something". In the brief story from
Reuters on Friday they state that they asked an American Express
spokeswoman if American Express would be investing in America Online.
She replied that no details would be given until the press conference.
According to the story, the America Online spokeswoman indicated that
they plan to discuss interactive services. I predict that they'll be
announcing services that will be launched on America Online. Nope,
I'm not the Amazing Kreskin. I'm just a guy who received mail from
someone at American Express asking if I'd written about or plan to write
about the new services that will be launched Monday. I do. But if
American Express invests in AOL, that would make for a really interesting
story.
APPLE'S eWORLD service announced expanded international news coverage.
Three new wires from Reuters are now available: UK News Today offering
business and general news from the United Kingdom; Global Grandstand
providing international sports coverage (wouldn't want anyone to miss the
badminton results), and World News Watch providing breaking stories from
around the world sorted by region. They've also added UPI's consumer
service, "News You can Use". Proud new eWORLD member that I am, I
immediately checked this out. This very nicely rounds out the in-depth
coverage they already had from Reuters, Gannett and Dow Jones.
INTUIT AND TRAVELER'S BANK announced the introduction of a new and
improved Quicken Gold Visa card that now offers free delivery of monthly
credit card transactions by modem. Whether you're a newly converted
Quicken junkie like I am, or a grizzled Quicken veteran, this is
something that can make your life a little easier. However, they missed
a golden marketing opportunity by not giving away free "I'm a Slave to
Quicken", sweatshirts.
AUTODESK INC., famous for its computer aided design (CAD) software is
plotting a strategy to get into the online business. "I think there is a
place for us in the general consumer market," according to CEO Carol
Bartz in a story reported by Reuters.
THE INTERNET MARATHON will be a new cable television show about the net.
Initially, only available to an audience of about one million, but
gradually over the next year building up to over 25 million cable
households. The advertising structure here is really interesting.
"Sponsorship starts at only $1,250 for a six month commitment a Home
Page, and up to $5,000 for a weekly 30-second spot and full Internet Home
Page. (Additional Home Pages can be purchased at only $500 each.)"
Brought to you buy Lighthouse Productions. For more info, point your
browser to: http://netcenter.com/ .
TELEGRAFIX COMMUNICATION INC., announced that it is now shipping the
"long awaited" RIPterm Professional 2.0 software. The press release
says they believe they are the first to drop all support for GIF images
due to the Unisys/CompuServe licensing issue. RIPscrip 2.0 uses the JPEG
compression format. This is more oriented to the BBS world, but the
point is that there is software out there that is getting more and more
competitive with what the big online services are providing, but on a
much smaller scale
SILICON GRAPHICS, widely known for spectacular computer created
animation, wants to bring their razzle dazzle to the Internet. "The
Internet is rapidly turning visual," according to Tom Jermoluk,
president of Silicon Graphics. Can you say, "BANDWIDTH HOG"? I knew you
could. Who cares, we'll all have the equivalent of T-1 hookups via cable
next week. I wish. Anyway, Silicon Graphics will be shipping hardware
and software that will allow companies to create visually rich digital
storefronts on the World Wide Web.
SPRY SHIPS "Mosaic in a Box"; a stripped down "economical, one-disk
solution to what remains the Internet's greatest barrier of entry: local,
instant Internet access." It appears that aside from "Air Mosaic", no
other tools are provided so this is instant WWW, but not instant anything
else. Since the software does establish the network connection, in
theory, the end user could run off and get shareware versions of
everything. To the already savvy Internet users this is not too
important. But, the example they mentioned in the press release paints a
scenario where a business supplies its customers with Mosaic in a Box so
that the customer can instantly get on the net and access information and
product support. Spry has updated their Air Mosaic to be more
competitive with Netscape. Air Mosaic will now display text first and
allow users to scroll within pages while the graphics draw. Several other
features were added involving hotlists and toolbars.
IBM ANNOUNCED that they would begin offering dedicated leased line
Internet service in April via the IBM Global Network, through its US
provider, Advantis. At speeds from 56K and up, IBM wants to provide and
service corporate Internet connections. MCI has already announced plans
for a similar service.
PERFORMANCE SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL (PSI) announced a similar service to
what IBM plans to offer and created a new acronym at the same time. PSI
will begin offering "The InternetMAN" service. MAN being an acronym for
Metropolitan Area Network. The truth is there is nothing new under the
sun here, they'll just only be offering the service in three metropolitan
areas (Washington, D.C., San Francisco and New York City) beginning in
February. What next, InternetLIKEWOWMAN service in LA?
PSI also announced the InterRamp Affinity program that will allow
universities to distribute individual Internet accounts to alumni
organizations via the InterRamp service.
NYNEX ANNOUNCES ONLINE interactive Yellow Pages on Prodigy. You're all
familiar with the Yellow Pages, but not THESE yellow pages. From the
press release: "For example, American Business Interiors, Inc. of
Manhattan has placed more than 40 screens of advertising on the NYNEX
Interactive Yellow Pages to showcase its furniture collection and will
periodically update the ads as it revised its product line and pricing."
Prodigy users in "downstate" New York will want to try JUMP NYNEX .
LOTUS DEVELOPMENT Corp. announced two new notes services that will
integrate Lotus Notes with Internet applications. InterNotes will allow
notes users to publish information on the net and access information from
the net within Lotus Notes. The first two products are InterNotes Web
Publisher for publishing information on the WWW and InterNotes News for
access to newsgroups. Meanwhile, a company called Corporate Software has
developed its own software for seamlessly converting Notes databases into
HTML documents for presentation on the WWW.
QVC INC., the home shopping folks, announced that they plan to choose a
commercial online service sometime this spring to launch its initial
interactive shopping campaign. Stephen Hamlin, QVC's Vice President of
Interactive Operations said that a broader range of products would be
offered online than on the television. According to the story from
Reuters, QVC will also have a home page up on the WWW as early as March,
but Hamlin noted that this site would be informational only and would not
offer any interactive shopping. Hamlin predicts that within a year the
base of users on online services will provide a large enough target audience.
SHORT TAKES
===========
NEW STAR TREK info on the net. Paramount has put up some multimedia
information on the new Star Trek: Voyager. I love this show already!
Complete with emergency holographic doctor. Beam over to:
http://voyager.paramount.com/ on the WWW.
NEW SHOES ON THE NET. Check out Reebok's "Planet Reebok" on the WWW.
This isn't just an advertisement, it's a mini interactive online service,
complete with a "talk to the pros" area. I was surprised this was so
good! Check it out at: http://planetreebok.com/ .
WHO IS THE HOST of Jeopardy is the correct response to the answer: Alex
Trebek? If you're not a Jeopardy fan, that might have sounded pretty
stupid. Scratch that; it sounds dumb even if you are a fan. But PRODIGY
members will have a chance to chat with Jeopardy host Alex Trebek this
Tuesday 2/2 at 9p.m. EST in the general chat area on Prodigy.
FIND OUT WHAT AILS America and how to prevent it at the Center for
Disease Control's site on the WWW. Lots of interesting info and some
pretty morbid morbidity statistics. That was awful, but this site
isn't. Point your WWW browser to: http://www.cdc.gov/ .
ACK! TYPE RADIO! Can't get enough TALK Radio? Time Online on America
Online is presenting an evening of TYPE Radio. A slew of talk radio
personalities including Ed Koch (yeah the ex-mayor), Michael Reagan (Rush
Limbaugh wannabe and son of former President),Tom Leykis and eight
others. From 8p.m. to 12:00a.m. EST, on Tuesday, January 31.
Keyword: TIME on America Online.
HIFI/SIRE/Warner Bros. Records' smart New York band Fossil will be the
featured guest on the Monday, January 30th (9:30 p.m. EST) edition of
Warner Bros. Records' weekly interactive talk show, Cyber-Talk(TM).
Fossil will be available to chat with fans regarding their self-titled
debut album. On America Online at keyword WARNER.
ENGINEERING, ELECTRONIC and just plain geeky folks will want to check out
Western Micro Technologies' "Design Shop" on the WWW. This is the place
for electronic industry professionals. There's even a politically
incorrect "Smartest Guy in the World" contest. I think women can enter
too. It appears to be a way for them to find out all kinds of marketing
information about you and your company. But still, the contest winner
picks up 12 round trip tickets good anywhere in the world. Find out more
at: http://www.westernmicro.com .
THE MOST AWESOME graphics I've ever seen online. Nope, they aren't on
the WWW, they're on America Online. TSR, the D&D folks are previewing
their area on America Online and the graphics are incredible on the
Windows version of the America Online software. On the Mac side, the
graphics weren't quite as rich, but hopefully will be sometime in the
near future. This will probably only work on the newest versions of the
software (Windows version 2.0 and Mac Version 2.5.1). Check it out at
keyword: TSR .
A WWW SCAVENGER HUNT is being sponsored by International Teletimes for
all WWW citizens. If you feel like scavenging, steer your WWW browser
to: http://www.wimsey.com/teletimes/scavenger_hunt_95.html .
PHIL DONAHUE ONLINE - yep, it's HIM and he'll be answering questions from
PRODIGY members in the TV Bulletin Board. Questions are being accepted
now through 2/10.
Stock Watch
===========
Last This 52 52
Week's Week's Week Week
Company Ticker Close Close High Low
------- ------ ------ ------ ------- -------
America Online AMER $56.63 $52.75 $58.50 $25.13
Apple AAPL $42.63 $39.88 $48.06 $24.63
Netcom NETC $23.75 $24.00 $29.25 $16.75
AT&T T $48.75 $49.88 $57.13 $47.25
General Electric GE $51.00 $50.50 $54.88 $45.00
H&R Block HRB $34.00 $34.75 $48.75 $33.00
IBM IBM $75.38 $72.50 $77.25 $51.38
MCI MCIC $18.25 $17.69 $27.88 $17.25
Microsoft MSFT $61.63 $59.88 $65.25 $39.00
Sears S $45.13 $45.25 $55.13 $42.13
How to Get This Newsletter
==========================
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Via the Word Wide Web: point your browser to:
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Via the newsgroups. In, Around and Online is regularly posted to
alt.online-service, alt.internet services and alt.business.
Our Thanks to...
================
Nabisco's White Fudge Covered Oreo Cookies for providing me the
sugar rush necessary to complete this newsletter. These things are
awesome! And they say you can't teach an old dog a new trick.
See you next week.
