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                     ITS TIME FOR A NEW REIGN OF POWER


        ..-= On-Line Services Pump Up InterNet Pipelines

          The math seems simple enough.  All the major commercial on-line
          services combined have 6 million subscribers.

          Even conservative estimates say the Internet has that many active 
          users, out of a potential audience of 20 million.  More 
          importantly, that "sub scribership" is rising exponentially, with 
          Matrix Information and Directory Services Inc. figuring the number 
          of users will double this year alone.

          So it is hardly a surprise that online services, which have tried 
          to provide one stop shopping for electronically available 
          information, are falling over themselves to provide pipelines from 
          their systems into the gnarly web of academic, government and 
          private computer networks that constitute the InterNet.

          "I believe it is the prevalent opportunity long-term," says Bill 
          Day, director of Internet development for Prodigy Services Co., 
          which is launching a new "Son of Prodigy" service that will be 
          housed on the Net itself.  "The Internet really represents the 
          future of our business."

          Which explains the piece by piece addition in recent weeks of 
          Internet related features inside each of the major online 
          services:

          CompuServ, which five years ago connected its electronic mail to 
          the Internet, this summer added access to Usenet news groups and 
          is testing the ability to retrieve files from computers on the Net.

          America Online now claims to be "the nation's most popular
          Internet service provider," with email discussion group and file
          retrieval capabilities.

          And GEnie Information services says it will begin to roll out 
          Internet services by the end of the year, the last of the major 
          services to do so.

          To date, the on-line companies have for the most part contented 
          themselves with providing access to the Internet from within.  
          That has meant allowing their existing subscribers to move out 
          onto the Net after having first logged in to the broader 
          collection of information and other services that has been their 
          more conventional business.

          But is about to change.

          The online services are moving out onto the Net itself, in varying 
          ways, compuServe already provides a "Home Page" that gives
          information about its services and instruction on how to become a
          subscriber.  America Online also is about to launch its own World
          Wide Web site.

          But the most ambitious plan may belong to Prodigy, which rolled
          out its basic consumer online service five years ago.

          Now, the joint venture of International Business Machines Corp,
          and Sears, Roebuck & Co. will launch its second major "On-Line"
          service.  Named astranet, the new brand marks a departure from the
          strategy of appealing to the widest possible audience and using 
          navigation schemes that have been strictly built in-house.

          AstraNet will be for people seeking an easy way through the 
          Internet.  It will allow users of the Net to access information 
          through standard access tools like Mosaic.  Eventually, Prodigy 
          says all of its information services will be available through 
          AstraNet.

          Another tack is being taken by Delphi Internet Services Corp., the 
          Rupert Murdoch entry into cyberspace that was the first national 
          online service to provide near-complete access to the Internet.  
          Chief executive Alan Baratz says Delphi will aim new services at 
          "specific communities of interest" that may originate within 
          Delphi or out on the Net.

          Users perusing Delphi's own topic area about the X Files 
          television program, for instance, could be directed to related 
          images and sound clips that may be contained in Delphi databases 
          on computers out on the Internet.

          The creation of such flexible services will require a "new breed 
          of editor" that deals solely with how to cater to reader interests 
          in appealing enough ways to induce Internet users to pay for 
          content.  The Net's tradition that "information wants to be free" 
          creates a negative perception about fee-based services.

          If nothing else, the on-line services are preparing to make their 
          existing data "internet-compatible" CompuServe, for instance, is 
          in the midst of marking up all its data in the file format that
          allows hypertext links to other documents found on the Net.
          Prodigy is doing the same.

          Attempts to smooth over moves onto the Net will be crucial if
          online services are to compete in what they see as a great
          untapped frontier of "deeper databases" and other content.

          Day, for example, believes that Prodigy's ventures on the Net will
          have "equal stature" with its regular online service.  More
          critically to a venture that already consumed an estimated $1
          BILLION of start-up capital, Day hopes that Net-related revenues
          will exceed those from its regular Prodigy service by the trun of
          the next century.

          E-Mail - to Internet users
          FTP - File Transfers
          Gopher - Menued lists of information resources
          Mosaic - Most popular viewer for the World Wide Web
          Usenet news Groups - discussions on thousands of topics
          World Wide Web
          (WWW,or the Web) - Publishing program used by Net-Based computers

          .-= RiPPED for YOUR info.=-.
