The term shovelware (origin unknown) does not do justice to the elegant products in this category. Essentially, it describes a process which converts a typesetting file into an HTML file for use on a World-Wide Web site, a task as integral to the ether world as marking up copy is to the print world.

In shopping for one, you'll want to know whether you can go in and edit the classified dump to HTML files, so you can do such things as insert hot links to national ads to pick up a little additional revenue.

Real Media's (http://www.realmedia.com) AdStream nonexclusive advertising services help you dynamically insert national advertising on relevant Internet classified web pages.

Multi-Ad Services' (http://www.multi-ad.com) Cams (Classified Ad Management) converts classified dumps into HTML files. (Worth mentioning is its retail co-op product, Recas 4.0, which has tapped into the possibilities of the virtual to create a really useful ad sales tool. More about that at a later date.)

The Internet Division of Montgomery Publishing (http://www.philanet.com) has a solution for converting classifieds from your front-end directly to your home page. Other companies are providing products that can do virtually the same thing, but they have not focused on classified solutions per se -- among them are Pantheon (http://www.pantheoninc.com), and John Juliano Computer Services (http://jjcs.com/~jjcs) for SII and Atex systems.

WebBase from Editorial System Engineering provides a more sophisticated and complex range of features, including a client registration and tracking database, an on-demand HTML generator, and a server replication and URL rerouting mechanism.

WebBase also does statistical data analysis -- such as comparisons of usage on similarly sized publications in the same region.

"Cooperative products" describes those solutions that accept classifieds from many newspapers and then dump them into a common database, updated daily, to which all the earth's Internet users have access.

A car buff in Malibu, Calif., for example, seeks a 1967 red Corvette convertible; a little old lady in Fox Valley, Ill., happens to be ready to sell the one that she has driven only on Sundays.

Your newspaper makes money by charging a slightly higher fee for ads which are to appear in the Internet version -- that is, the little old lady pays an extra dollar or two when she places her ad.

Experts suggest that you add a field in your ad taker's form to indicate whether the ad will appear only in print, only on the 'Net, or in both, and then create separate classified dump files for each permutation.

Among the companies that are willing to help you do this are Classifacts, Global Association of Newspaper Classified Ads (Ganca), AdOne Classified Network and the Quest Network.

You may wish to stop first at Ganca (http://www.wantads.org), since it is a member-benefit, not-for-profit adaptation of this concept.

Classifacts (http://www.classifacts.com) joins your class-ad database to those of 50 other newspapers around the country. It also provides "electronically inserted flyers," basically a hot link to another ad, and free-standing inserts, so you can enhance your base-level Internet classified revenues.

At the ripe old age of two years, Quest (http://www.adquest.com) claims title to being the oldest company providing a cooperative Internet classified product, as well as being the "largest classified paper in the world" (of course, it isn't really on paper, and the title to venerability is also disputed).

Newspapers e-mail ASCII text files to Quest for daily downloads to the database. Quest massages the text into HTML, then cross-indexes your ads with those from other newspapers, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (which, like Quest, is owned by Journal Communications).

This product also serves customers who don't have computers: If you're looking for that red Corvette (do you detect a theme?), just call 1-800-Freelist and Quest's operators will do the search for you -- free -- and then fax or mail the results to you. Newspapers pay 50 cents per ad per week, or 7.14 cents per day for the entire range of services.

AdOne (http://adone.com) quips, "It's one thing to get a World-Wide Web home page, but if you are alone in cyberspace," it'll be happy to be your 'Net classified integrator.

AdOne already is the ad integrator for more than 200 newspapers, providing software to match buyers and sellers around the country, and facilitating on-line ad placement in cooperation with your sales force. Ads also have hot links back to your newspaper.

AdOne, now in 30 states and Canada, expects to be in 50 states by the end of the summer. Its deepest inroads are in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Texas.

Front-end companies -- including Advanced Publishing Technologies, Baseview Products Inc., CCI Europe, Digital Technology International, CompuText Inc., Cybergraphic Systems and Sysdeco Media Group -- are adding Internet classified software features to existing products.

For example, Cybergraphic's new Cyber$ell classified system offers HTML conversions. CompuText has integrated a web browser into its class-ad database, so newspapers can manage their own web sites.

Users of Baseview's Macintosh-based ClassManagerPro get web-ready page generation capabilities as a standard feature. Designated ads in the ad dump are converted to HTML and indexed, either manually or via AppleScripting.

A URL designation on your home page points users to the index. Web surfers get a list of classifications --- the standard 100 Homes for Sale, 200 Homes for Rent, 300 Automotive, etc. -- click on the classification of interest, then are given a page listing all the ads in the classification.

SII (http://www.sii.com) has cut a three-faceted gem.

The first, Classified Gateway, is a server and database which sits in front of an SII (or other) front-end and manages remote ad input from advertisers, including graphics, which are automatically routed to an OPI or graphics server.

Advertisers can book and cost ads via the web or directly to a modem port, whereupon the receiving newspaper can validate and verify the ad booking.

SII's second facet is a Java applet web ad entry product, currently floating through SII with the working name of JavaAd. This Mac or PC-compatible Java applet lets users create their own ads while providing a tool for encouraging maximum lineage and keeping abbreviations consistent.

The third facet is Weblink:C, the classified integration module which can stand alone or be part of an SII I-4 News sale (in-house or via SII's service bureau).

This is where the proprietary shovelware feature comes in: Weblink:C provides customizable extracts from the SII classified advertising database, which are then converted to HTML, and transferred via FTP to a specified directory on a named server on the TCP/IP network.

The Web Indexer program on the staging server or Tandem does the indexing, and then turns the HTML ad dump into a live web page, or uses it to update an existing page front for that classification.

The Internet has left us scribbling new names and numbers -- and virtual addresses -- into our Rolodexes. American Color and Management Process Integrators Inc. (http://www.mpiinc.com) both provide turnkey solutions for Internet classifieds using the Illustra database solutions for storage and searching, and page creation, modification and control.

American Color's product, digisite.com, offers a home page and eight connected pages, and registration to 15 search engines, in addition to your own unique domain name, encryption and security, and an electronic post office.

Using the same technology, MPI's Cityscape sends your entertainment and automotive listings into the ether.

The motto of Spanlink Communications (http://www.spanlink.com) at the show was, "Talk to a real person." I thought it was going to guarantee that I would never have to punch another button on my telephone again.

Not so; Spanlink's Web Call offers a person-to-person verification feature. Users enter text for your paper over the Internet, and include a phone number. An ad taker at your paper uses the number -- which has automatically popped up on her or his screen -- to call the buyer to verify the ad and accompanying data.

And yes, I can enter a different callback number for the ad taker if I'm calling from my job, or schedule a call for another time (if, for example, I'm on the 'Net and have only one phone line).

Gannett Media Technology International's (http://www.gmti.com) AdLink for Automotive and Real Estate lets Realtors and automotive advertisers enter their own ads and submit them to your paper for publication. The AdLink system includes Internet access, audiotext, faxback and kiosk capabilities.

Auto dealers also get a dealer sales network, while Realtors get a property photo database.

For an alternative approach to full-text class ad database searching, The Loki Group of Chicago takes the class ad dump and does a semantic scan to build a multikeyed database for Web Access.

The dump is scanned for terms or synonyms like "bdrm," "brm" and "bedroom," which are parsed into a token database. When web users sign on, they don't have to sweat the distinctions -- any one of those terms will yield information about all of them.

Loki's product works with any web browser and comes with a user interface that helps to structure meaningful queries.

Edgil Associate's AdParse (http://www.edgil.com) yields similar results, with a table editor that edits every available abbreviation, synonym or word variation for each ad. A GUI also allows you to add or subtract vocabulary terms or to change synonyms.

AdParse can be used to index class ads for audiotext, faxback, electronic bulletin board or web services.

AdParse comes with Edgil's WebCentral, which gives your paper the ability to publish classifieds as web pages. First, WebCentral gracefully plops your ads into a Sybase database, then manages communications between the web browser and the database, providing the link that facilitates user queries.

To do this, you need to have Edgil's prepackaged applications for each category -- automotive, real estate, employment and (as they say) more.

CText offers its customers Virtual Resources' Career Site (http://www.careersite.com/). Employers can enter job specifications over the 'Net, or fax, e-mail or snail-mail specifications to CareerSite for posting. Then site visitors can e-mail resumes on-line, or CareerSite will screen and forward them to you, as well as taking on the unpleasant task of sending "regrets mail."

The related technology offers concept-based searching, agent technology for automatic information delivery, a high-speed search engine, relevance ranking and industry-specific knowledge to identify and organize concepts found in resumes and job descriptions. The interface is adaptable to automotive, real estate and personals ads.

-- L. Carol Christopher

AdOne Classified Network,
(212) 431-3303;
Advanced Publishing Technology,
(818) 557-3035;
American Color,
(770) 951-1551;
Baseview Products,
(313) 662-5800;
BureauCom,
(800) 825-6867;
CCI Europe,
(770) 419-1588;
ClassiFACTS,
(303) 745-1011;
CompuText Inc.,
(713) 480-3494;
CText Inc. CareerSite,
(313) 213-9500;
Cybergraphic Systems,
(617) 221-0077;
Digital Technology International,
(801) 226-2984;
Edgil Associates Inc.,
(508) 251-9932;
Editorial Systems Engineering Co.,
(617) 276-9400;
Gannett Media Technologies International,
(800) 801-3771;
Global Association of Newspaper Classified Ads,
(818) 813-1387;
John Juliano Computer Services,
(404) 377-9450;
The Loki Group,
(312) 761-4654;
Management Process Integrators,
(602) 596-9356;
Montgomery Publishing Internet Division,
(215) 542-0200;
Multi-Ad Services,
(800) 447-1950;
Pantheon,
(800) 668-1647;
Publishing Partners International,
(603) 644-3339;
Quest Network,
(715) 258-9990;
Real Media,
(212) 604-9516;
Spanlink,
(800) 452-8349;
Sysdeco Media Group,
(415) 964-7861;
System Integrators Inc.,
(916) 929-9481.

From THE COLE PAPERS, July 1996, Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved.