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:
- Figure out where the revenue is coming from. Some Internet
publishers are making most of their income from on-line advertisers
now, but hope to add to that with subscription money from users
later, when the content is enhanced and made more complete or
personalized. Encyclopedia Britannica, which WAIS has helped
go on-line, has sold its service to four universities, but doesn't
know where additional revenue will come from, Gilliat reported.
- Think about the needs of the end-user. "You've got to keep
them in your server," Gilliat said. "It's got to be relevant,
it's got to be easy, and it's got to be fast."
- Be able to move as technology changes. Documents today have
to be marked with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to be put
on the World-Wide Web today. But what if there's a new technology
down the road? Huge documents and databases are not easy to plow
through and convert.
- Partner well with advertisers and technical partners who
are committed to Internet publishing, preferably for the long
term.
- Do it now. Put the documents you intend to publish on the
Net at once rather than piecemeal to avoid turning users off.
"Once you put your billboard on the net, people will have expectations,"
Gilliat said. "If you have only one or two links from there,
people probably won't come back."
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.