A Paperless Newsproduct for a New Century

Abstract

The University of Florida's newspaper conference (Oct. 21-23, 1993) brought educators and professionals together to learn about newspapers: where they've been, what they are, and what they might be.Where they've beenThe so-called electronic of today originated in the early and mid-More sophisticated BBS allowed users to in real time with other users. (It's not surprising that shortwave enthusiasts embraced the idea of BBS because they could do with computers what they had been doing with shortwave radios--communicate with people electronically.) Later BBS offered more powerful PCs with the ability to handle many phone lines simultaneously.On-line services expanded the BBS concept by charging people to access more powerful servers loaded with more data. On-line services line Nexis, Data Times, and Dialog bought data from newspapers, magazines, journals, newsletters, wire services, and features services. Firms offered specialized financial, legal, community, and news data to clients as well.Although it might seem natural that newspapers would embrace the idea of the on-line electronic newspaper, they were slow to do so. Early attempts by newspapers to deliver information failed in large measure because of the limitations of technology. TeleText and VideoText failed because they required dedicated terminals ($600 to $900), had poor messaging capabilities, used complicated programming schemes, and offered no advertising support. Furthermore, these early services tied up TV and phone lines.Where they areToday, a handful of newspapers across the United States are delivering their news on-line. Some papers sell their news content to big on-line services like Prodigy and America OnLine. Others use bulletin board software to offer news, chat services and features to users who own PCs and modems. Some of those papers with their own on-line services are the Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune, the San lose Mercury News, the Charlotte Observer, the Spokane Spokesman-Review, the Chicago Tribune, the Middlesex News, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the Florida Today, Newsday, and USA Today Sports.Panelists from the San lose Mercury, the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, and the Albuquerque Tribune had the following observations about their on-line newspapers:* Regardless of their circulation, each paper reported about 4,000 on-line clients.* On-line services require at least a copy editor, a customer service representative, and a technical person. The San Jose Mercury has a staff of 16 (copy editors, software people, and billing staff).* The papers all had to work out special fee arrangements with the wire service to allow wire copy to be distributed on-line.* On-line services tend to supplement--not duplicate--the parent paper's content.* The most heavily used section of the on-line service is the chat service, which allows users to interact in real time with other users or experts. Horoscopes, play listings for movies, and classifieds are popular, too. …