In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: O
X-Status: 


This is PURE Speculation and Opinion (From Rex Ballard)
On Wed, 19 Apr 1995, Steve Outing wrote:

> On 4/19/95, Chris J. Walther, SDA/SGN, Berne wrote:
> >According to wire reports of today, eight of the largest newspaper
> >companies in the U.S. have announced a joint venture called
> >New Century Network which shall help to drive the industry
> >into broader use of on-line services and other forms of electronic
> >publishing.
I'm curious why McGraw-Hill wasn't on the list.  E-mail 
(rballard@standardpoor.com)

> >Well, as I am sitting on the other side of the big pond, I
> >would just appreciate an e-mail address where I can request
> >more details regarding this initiative. Can anybodyy help?

> You can find the press release by using InfoSeek -- http://www.infoseek.com
> -- and searching under "Wire services." Or try DowVision --
> http://dowvision.wais.net/
Funny isn't it, NCN is announcing that it WILL PLAY on the internet, and 
guess where this announcement showed up.  You can get the Wall Street 
Journal and New York Times on dowvision.wais.net too!

> Here's an excerpt:
> >
> >--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 1995--Eight of the nation's largest newspaper
> >companies announced today that they are forming a new company to create a
> >national network of local online newspaper services.
It looks like they will be upgrading their X.25 WAN to TCP/IP.  With good 
fire-walling they can keep the "raw copy" behind the wall, and publish to 
the Internet via front-end Web Servers.

> >The new company, New Century Network, will be operated as a joint venture
> >by Advance Publications, Inc., Cox Newspapers, Inc., Gannett Co., Inc.,
> >The Hearst Corporation, Knight-Ridder, Inc., The Times Mirror Co., Tribune
> >Company and The Washington Post Co.

> >The objective of the new company will be to support local newspapers in
> >helping them provide local online services to their communities.
This would also be consistant with the transition from X.25 to TCP/IP on 
the existing links.  Locals could "uplink" to the nationals and Nationals 
could "Downlink" web pages for "highlights, main-sections, and head-line 
news" (reducing Web Congestion).

> >"The NCN network of local online communities will be unique in giving
> >customers unprecedented access to the interactive news and information
> >services of newspapers across the U.S.," said Charles T. Brumback,
> >chairman and chief executive officer of Tribune Company, speaking on
> >behalf of the partners.
> [snip]

Boy, that's cute wording.  I thought the internet already gave most of US 
unprecedented access to the interactive news and information services to 
our customers.  The biggest problem has been collecting a check!  But 
THEIR Customers haven't had that kind of access before :-).

> The announcement is rather vague and I'd love to know more. Is this another
> (larger) version of PAFET? Why isn't PAFET involved? Is this a research and
> standards group or a real company that will be creating a national network?
The WAN has existed for quite some time.  Up until now, it has been 
mostly X.25 over Frame-Relay.  If they upgrade that to TCP/IP over X.25 
or Frame-Relay, and put that out to the internet, the result will be 
excellent two way service behind the fire-walls and distribution to the 
internet (Compuserve, Prodigy, Netcom, and about 10 other ~1 million user 
networks).

The joke is that the common carriers will just put them on the protected 
backbone with the rest of the internet traffic.  Since the backbones are 
protected by the common carriers, you can "sniff" the backbone for 
passwords anymore.

> Will it promote one platform? (I would think this is not good news for the
> online services that are trying to do deals with newspapers.) The principals
> seem to have done a good job of keeping this quiet until the announcement.
It will probably support a baseline of compatibility.  They wouldn't want 
to loose 2 Million Netscape users OR 3 million Mosaic Users or even 1 
Million WinWeb users, or 1 Million Cello Users.  Besides, if they commit 
to one client, and one of the other GPL products leap-frogs it, that 
would create an open door for new competition.

> FYI, I hear New Century will give a presentation on Sunday to NAA conference
> attendees.

Rex Ballard


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Mon May  1 03:23:08 1995