adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) (02/13/91)
{Middlesex News}, Framingham, Mass., 2/12/91
By Adam Gaffin
NEWS STAFF WRITER
Nynex Corp. said yesterday (Monday) it will pull the plug on a
computer information service that has lost several million dollars.
The company says judicial restrictions on its ability to provide
information, coupled with the Northeast's declining economy, made it
impossible for its Info-Look gateway service to succeed. It will seek
regulatory approval to end the service by May 10, spokeswoman Janine
Mudge said yesterday.
Ratepayers will ultimately pay for the losses, but Nynex
spokeswoman Janine Mudge said the impact on Massachusetts residents
will be relatively small, because Info-Look was launched here only
last year, a year after it began in New York, and two years after its
debut in Vermont. Karen Nelson, who follows the online industry for
Link Resources Inc. in New York, estimated total losses of $5 million
to $10 million.
Info-Look offered computer users access to dozens of information
and entertainment services, everything from airline reservations to an
electronic version of {USA Today}.
Mudge said that although more than 12,000 people called into
Info-Look, only 3,000 used it on a regular basis.
She said the system was extremely confusing for users, because
each information provider had its own set of keyboard commands. She
blamed this on on a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Harold Green
that bars regional phone companies from directly providing online
information to consumers - even something as simple as this.
Greene is currently re-evaluating his ban. Richard Koch, who had
to fold his own Citinet online service last summer because of losses
incurred through the Nynex gateway, said he agreed the constraints
imposed by the court made success difficult, but added it was
interesting that Nynex decided to cancel the service at this point.
Mudge, however, said the issue was finances, not Greene.
At least two other regional phone companies have abandoned
similar services after heavy losses over the past 18 months.
Nelson said Greene's original intent was to keep phone companies
from establishing information monopolies while letting them establish
information ``gateways.'' He based his model on the French Minitel
system, in which the government phone company provides access to
hundreds of information and entertainment services. But the French
phone system was able to impose standards on providers so that users
could navigate the service easily, she said. It also gave away or sold
at low cost millions of simple terminals.
Nelson said she felt Nynex could have done more to convince
information providers to agree on a common interface and promote the
service.
Koch said the online industry is still far from a viable mass
medium.
``It's easier to look in a newspaper right now for information,''
he said. ``It's much easier right now to just watch CNN.'' He said
providers are still simply throwing services at users, rather than
trying to figure out what they really want.
Similar phone audiotex systems have fared much better, in part
because they are far easier to use, Nelson said, adding that while
virtually every home has a telephone, only about one in four have a
computer.mjm@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Andy Behrens) (02/16/91)
> Nynex Corp. said yesterday (Monday) it will pull the plug on a computer > information service [Info-Look] that has lost several million dollars. I doubt it'll be missed. Here's one of the services offered, as described in a flyer that Nynex sent me last year: --------------------------------------------------------------- G O T A R O T Type GO TAROT to see your future with Sphinx Tarot Card Reader on the NYNEX INFO-LOOK Gateway! * General Tarot gives an overview of the next 8 weeks of your life (6 themes). * Astrological Tarot describes the next 12 weeks of your life in detail (12 themes). * Focused Tarot offers insight to a specific current issue of your choosing (6 themes). Our unconscious is a natural psychic, somehow capable of choosing a card which addresses our questions, even if the "card" is electronic, so to speak. The TAROT cards in this service match those used by professional psychics! [You will need Minitel emulation software to access this service] --------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe they should have done a reading to find out if the stars and planets were favorably aligned for starting up a bulletin-board system. Andy
johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) (02/16/91)
Although NYNEX would no doubt like us all to believe that their
Infolook gateway failed because of excess regulation, the fact that in
most cases it was more expensive than calling the providers directly
had a lot to do with it. Citinet, for example, was a free BBS
available for the price of the call. Delphi/BOSTON, which provided
many of the other services, has a flat rate of $10/month. Infolook's
lowest price, for the initial directory, was $3/hr and the rates went
up from there with typical rates being 25 cents/min, or $15/hr.
Would you pay those rates? I certainly didn't.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnljohn@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) (02/16/91)
adamg@world.std.com (Adam M Gaffin) writes: > Greene is currently re-evaluating his ban. > [...] > At least two other regional phone companies have abandoned > similar services after heavy losses over the past 18 months. I hope Judge Greene thinks long and hard about lifting his proscription on information providing. Why did these regionals have heavy losses when offering information services? I suspect it is because they used the time-honored monopoly tradition of doing THEIR way with no regard to that nasty gremlin -- competition. It does not take a crystal ball to predict what would happen if telcos were allowed to freely participate in on-line information providing. The first order of business would be to get rid of all those interlopers who have the gall to provide FREE on-line services: the BBS operators. We have already seen some of the tactics such as regrading service to "business" on the one hand to trumping up charges and having operators arrested Craig Neidorf-style on the other. Then to kill off the succesful commercial services, such as Compuserve, the various PUCs would be pressured into allowing surcharges and other bogosity to price them out of the market place. Hell, a telco could get the PUC to authorize escalating local charges for all subscribers, but make calls to the telco info line "free" using a special prefix. What I am trying to say here is that telcos should never, but NEVER, be allowed to compete in an industry that depends on telephone service. To do so would put all of the competing players on the endangered species list. I am rooting for the Judge to hold his original ground on this one. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
mpd@anomaly.SBS.COM (Michael P. Deignan) (02/18/91)
adamg@world.std.com (Adam M. Gaffin) writes: > Nynex Corp. said yesterday (Monday) it will pull the plug on a > computer information service that has lost several million dollars. [much more deleted...] Perhaps now the Baby Bells will start to get the idea that running a BBS generally isn't a business, it is usually a hobby ... Michael P. Deignan Domain: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com UUCP: ...!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!mpd Telebit: +1 401 455 0347