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On Sat, 3 Jun 1995, Richard Layman wrote:

> According to all the reports earlier in the year, or was it late last 
> year, the next version of Prodigy, called P2, will be HTML-based.  So 
> that could be a decent strategy for moving to the Web, eventually.  
Actually, Prodigy is getting into the Web very aggressively.  There
are some features, like banking that aren't ready for "the big net",
but Prodigy is very interested in attracting the 30-60 million web
users out there to come and visit.  Prodigy is also tying content
and advertizing together much more effectivly than with the old NPLPS
interface.  Prodigy adopted NPLPS because it appeared to be an emerging
standard (especially in Japan).  Today, HTML and related Web standards
are emerging as worthy replacements.  As to the communications costs,
the old X.25 pads were also getting obsolete (most were actually fronts
for frame-relay nets, Cheap TCP/IP terminal servers make much more 
efficient use of the available bandwidth.  Internet connectivity
is also cheaper than a private network of point-to-point links, and
RSA and diverse routing provide adaquate security.  Anonymous routing
and load balancing through DNS "switching" provides the ability to
handle an order of magnitude more content at a minor incremental cost.

> I don't know how it works, but the LA Times TimesLink service is available
> on Prodigy, but one doesn't have to be a Prodigy subscriber to get it. 
> (Right now, I'm happy reading a week's worth of hard copy issues at a 
> time, at the Library of Congress). 
I like to read a few pages from about 20 publications available on the Web.
I actually read about 100 pages/day in technical and trade content.  Lycos,
Yahoo, and WWWW are godsends.  I want to get InfoSeek by my ANS Firewall
keeps eating the passwords for protected documents.

> The points people have been making about the continued viability of BBSs 
> have been good ones.  Lots of people have slow modems out there or old 
> machines.
9600 and 14,400 modems are running about $50.  A trivial investment for
access to infromation worth several times that per month (if you used an
online dial-up bbs at 2400 baud).  The telephone eats 64,000 bits/second
up to the POP whether you are talking at 300 baud or 28,800.  The phone 
company charges somebody for every bit.

>  What would be interesting to see from market research 
> is if there are some big differences between users of BBS, online services, 
> and Internet online service users in terms of willingness and interest in  
> using online newspapers, willingness to pay, amount of time spent, etc.  
These days, only the ignorant (those who have been misinformed into not 
looking) would completely ignore the internet.  Even a visit at 2400 baud
give a glimpse into a whole new world of possiblities and opportunities.

> It could be that there are differences by size of newspaper market as 
> well, using the BackerSpielvogelBates "techthusiast" model.  
Many local newspapers are also becoming the local internet pops.  They
even offer free browsers or instructions to set the home page to their
"banner page", which point to their content and search engine, then to
"The rest of the net".

The cost is only a few dollars more than a "BBS" if they just want to
start with Linux and Slip/PPP.  Eventually, the overwhelming response
and excess traffic (from locals coming in from 50 different carriers)
drives them into more expensive upgrades such as Sun 1000s or Sun 2000 PDBs.

> (Interestingly, the Raleigh/Durham area is one of the areas with a high
> number of techthusiasts -- high levels of college+, high income, computer
> and other high tech users, innovators and early adopters.  Other areas
> include Boston, Houston, D.C., and the Silicon Valley.)

New York City is getting pretty Techie too.  We have many "print shops"
filled with artists who pay $6-$20/hour to scan artwork onto Floppies that
will eventually be turned into Web Pages.  Pretty soon, they'll just
provide the direct internet connection and let the artist compose and
upload.

> Online services like Prodigy do provide the opportunity to experiment, 
> and make a little money besides.  Maybe that's a decent strategy for now.

They are actually "smudging the market", giving inferior service and
expensive surcharges, until they can negotiate royalty and "for-pay"
arrangements with various content providers.  As they are able to
offer more "Paid for" Web content, they will be more supportive of
the web.  Prodigy has to make sure that they don't end up with
a lawsuit because 2 million P* users hit they N.Y. Times home-page.
Prodigy is paying NYT for feeds and data.  They don't want users
hammering commercial sites with their "prodigy.com" IDs and suddenly
get a strong-arm negotiator.

> Richard Layman, Mgr., Business Development, and Research Producer

	Rex Ballard
	Personal Post




From rballard@cnj.digex.net Sun Jun 11 19:34:18 1995
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