Electronic Publishing Tempting But Treacherous

Think ahead before putting information on the Net

Finding themselves suddenly in a world of immediately available electronic information, an increasing number of publishers are deciding that the Internet is the place to be. Daily newspapers, national magazines, book publishers, and even publishers of encyclopedias and other reference books, have opted to place their material on-line. They are joining the list of high-tech companies and universities that already have made documentation and other reference material via the Internet.

Technologies born through the use of internetworking are now being employed in the business of publishing. The availability of those technologies and of the Internet itself has created unprecedented opportunities for purveying information-for the traditional publisher and the novice alike.

But putting real documents on the Internet can be less than a picnic, potential publishers were warned by Bruce Gilliat, vice president of sales and marketing for WAIS, Inc., an information server company in Menlo Park, CA, in a speech to the Bay Area Round Table of the Irvine Research Unit in Software of the University of California, Irvine.

A company needs to answer several questions before it goes on the Internet with publications, Gilliat said. One is what it hopes to gain. "There's not a lot of people making money on the Internet today, so what is your objective in getting on the Internet?" he asked. Some are just seeking a presence on the World-Wide Web, but unless solid and useful documents and links to other servers are provided, that can be frustrating for a person looking for real information, Gilliat warned.

His advice:

WAIS was founded by Brewster Kahle, one of the founders of Thinking Machines Corp., the Cambridge, MA, maker of massively parallel computers. The company's WAISserver 2.0 product allows content providers to index and publish large databases on the Internet, in different formats, and manages updates. The company also provides production services. Its recent projects include CMP Publications' TechWeb and the Scholastic Internet Center, a provider of educational materials for K-12 teachers and students.

Further information on WAIS is available from info@wais.com, or on the company's Web server, http://www.wais.com, or from Gilliat at bruce@wais.com.