[8941] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Dan Dern and Michael Fraase books
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lisa)
Mon Dec 13 15:34:04 1993
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 15:24:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Lisa <lisa@ss1.digex.net>
To: com-priv@psi.com
PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
Electronic Newsstand Puts Internet Book Excerpts, ToCs, Purchase
Discounts On-Line For Internet Users
Info for Daniel Dern's INTERNET GUIDE FOR NEW USERS, Michael
Fraase's THE MAC INTERNET TOUR GUIDE" Available by Popular Gopher
Method
December 10, 1993 -- The Electronic Newsstand ( a.k.a. "Enews")
announces that it has made available information about two popular
new Internet books, "The Internet Guide for New Users" by Daniel P.
Dern (McGraw-Hill) and "The Mac Internet Tour Guide" by Michael
Fraase (Ventana) to Internet users via its Enews Gopher server.
Special discount prices have been made available to people who
purchase the books by contacting the respective publishers at
electronic mail adddresses, voice or fax numbers provided and
indicate they saw the information on the Global Internet's
Electronic Newsstand.
Each book's Table of Contents is available on-line. The section for
Dern's book includes the forward by MIS consultant Cheryl Currid,
excerpts from the Preface and from each chapter, plus the Unix
shellscript from one of his Appendices (with additional information
on retrieving and using it), and an overview by the author on how
it differs from previous Internet user guides.
Fraase's section includes an excerpt from the Introduction, which
contains an outline and overview of the book's eight chapters.
The text files about Dern's and Fraase's Internet books are stored
in a set of directories on files on the Electronic Newsstand's
Gopher server, located on the Internet at "gopher.internet.com" in
the "Special Projects" section of the Electronic Newsstand
directory. Gopher is a menu-oriented client-server information
browsing and retrieval tool originally developed at the University
of Minnesota.
Internet users with access to a Gopher client program can simply
specify "gopher gopher.internet.com" at their command prompt; other
Internet users may use the Gopher client program provided by the
Internet Company, accessed by remote-login ("telnet
gopher.internet.com" -- when requested to provide a "login" name,
use: enews).
(Both methods currently require a user account with real-time
Internet access, such as from a connected company or university,
online service such as DELPHI or BIX, or public-access sites like
NYC's PANIX, SF's Portal, Boston's World or California's Netcom --
if you have e-mail-only access to the Internet, consider asking a
friend with full access to forward you parts of the text.)
The Electronic Newsstand is a joint venture between The New
Republic (Washington, DC) and The Internet Company (Cambridge, MA),
also providing Table of Contents and selected partial/full article
text for over forty magazines including The New Yorker, The New
Republic, The National Review, Out Magazine, The Learning Channel
Magazine and Internet World magazine.
According to author Daniel P. Dern, "Enews offers us an exciting
way to 'practice what we preach' -- to make information about our
books directly available to the Internet community via a tool that
millions of its users employ daily, and in the widest common
denominator of ASCII text."
Paul Vizza, Vice President for The Electronic Newsstand, says,
"Internet books like these are ideal candidates for publicizing via
the Electronic Newsstand. We're delighted for the opportunity to
play a part in helping users get more information about how to use
their 'on-ramp to the Information Highway.'"
Internet users began browsing the books' on-line information within
minutes after it was made available, even before it was announced
according to Robert Raisch, President of The Internet Company --
and McGraw-Hill reported an Enews-based sale within the first hour.
"It's important to understand that what The Electronic Newsstand is
doing is not 'advertising' in the traditional sense." Raisch points
out. "Advertising in the `real world' broadcasts information to
users.
"Each Internet user explicitly chooses to access our system and
browse the information on the Enews. As it is initiated by the
user, this is completely within the Appropriate Usage Policies
(AUPs) of every organization and network that comprises the Global
Internet. For those concerned regarding 'the commercial use of the
U.S. National Science Foundation's NSFNET,' it's important to
remember that commercial users won't be making use of NSFNET
service in contacting the Enews, only authorized NSFNET users will,
whose use is by definition acceptable."
#
The Global Internet is a "phone system for computer," enabling an
estimated ten million users at corporations and businesses of all
sizes, academic institutions, libraries, government agencies, and
public-access sites to gain direct real-time access to information
services such as The Electronic Newsstand. Another estimated
twenty million computer users around the world have indirect access
to Internet resources and users through electronic mail and BBS
connections.
The Internet Company is the premiere provider of Internet-based
information services for the Internet user community; Internet
Company clients also include Counterpoint Publishing, which offers
Internet access to the U.S. Federal Register, Code of Federal
Regulations and the Commerce Business Daily, the Commercial
Internet Exchange and Delphi Internet Services.
Daniel P. Dern has written about the Internet for publications
including Byte, Home Office Computing, LAN Times and Mac WEEK. He
is also editor of Internet World magazine, published by the
Meckler Corporation. (Internet World TOC, excerpts and information
is also available through the the Electronic Newsstand gopher.)
Michael Fraase is the owner of Arts & Farces, a Minneapolis-based
consulting firm, and the author of twenty-two computer books
including the three-volume "Macintosh Hypermedia Series" (Scott
Foresman) and "Groupware for the Macintosh" (Business One Irwin).
For more information, contact:
The Electronic Newsstand, Paul Vizza (vizza@enews.com) 1-800-403-6397
The Internet Company, Robert Raisch (raisch@internet.com) 1-617-547-4731
Daniel P. Dern (ddern@world.std.com) 1-617-969-7947
McGraw-Hill: Orders: 1-800-822-8158 x261 or 70007.1531@compuserve.com
(Publicity) Cynthia Borg, 1-212-337-5947
Ventana: (Orders) vporders@aol.com or 1-800-743-5369
(Publicity): Diane Lennox (Dilennox@aol.com) 1-919/942-0220
Michael Fraase (mfraase@farces.com)
- END -
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lisa M. Losito "Dilute, Dilute, Dilute. OK!"
lisa@digex.net -- Dr. Bronner
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
