Vol. 6, No. 4, April 1995

Untangled web

Alliance of newspaper publishers seeks to simplify Internet access

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
-- Sir Walter Scott

Certainly the plan behind the Internet wasn't to deceive its users, but anyone who has attempted to log on and surf the 'Net has found that deceit must have been on the agenda somewhere.

Whether you're fighting Winsock or MacTCP, getting onto the 'Net certainly isn't as easy as, say, getting onto Prodigy or America Online. But wait -- those services (along with CompuServe, Microsoft Network and others) are now offering what they claim as easy access to the Internet.

But putting the shoe on the other foot, setting up a World-Wide Web presence is no walk in the park; I should know, as I have spent the better part of three months getting a Web server running for this operation.

So it was not without a certain amount of relief that I read of the New Century Network, an alliance of eight of the largest newspaper publishing companies in the United States. The goal of the network is to provide newspapers with the technical expertise to get onto the Web, as well as establishing standards for inter-newspaper access and business transactions.

Inside, you'll find the details on NCN, but suffice it to say that its No. 1 goal -- to have all but the smallest of its members' 185 newspapers on the World-Wide Web within three years -- is a laudatory challenge.

We certainly have some reservations about how the group will attempt to go about establishing its "standards"; we're concerned that financial relationships between suppliers of Web software and the members may unduly influence what is a "standard" and what isn't; we have issues about how much of a paper’s content will be free on the Web -- but on the whole, we think this is a good plan.

Propitiously, we have devoted most of this issue to the World-Wide Web. Inside, you'll find Christopher Ryan’s explanation of how he set up Web access for reporters at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina.

This is a modified version of his presentation at the National Institute for Advanced Reporting, held in March in Indianapolis. We missed Ryan’s presentation at the conference, but saw his course notes in the conference handbook and prevailed upon him to share his techniques.

After Ryan’s solid tips and tricks, we take flight to Boston to hear some of the speakers at the 15th annual Seybold Seminars. Two publishers and two technologists kicked off the three-day affair, and their views of publishing and technology would have gotten them booted out of the room just a few years back. (In fact, Efi Arazi, the founder of Scitex and Electronics for Imaging, made the seemingly controversial statement that the problem of color management is over; nobody tried to throw him out, though.)

We also take a gander at some of the award-winning products displayed at the Seybold trade show.

The only story in this issue that doesn't mention the word "Internet" is datelined Kansas City. There, more than 100 newspaper executives who are concerned with pre-press technologies met to discuss what is rapidly becoming the more mundane part of our lives -- getting ink onto paper.

The Newspaper Association of America concentrated this two-day meeting on products -- giving a dizzying array of product demonstrations -- while also providing a forum for suppliers to discuss their concerns about the industry.

And to round out this issue, the new management team at Atex Publishing Systems Corp. speaks out on how they plan to run the company -- they're the fourth group of managers in five years.

The issues about the World-Wide Web are moving almost as fast as it does -- there are more than 30,000 servers today, up from 50 18 months ago. Whether you're looking for information from our nation’s major newspapers (or from a humble technology newsletter), it is rapidly becoming easier and easier to connect.

-- David M. Cole

From THE COLE PAPERS, May 1995, Copyright © 1995, All Rights Reserved.