"Can Compuserve Be Saved?": Mr. Media Essay Classic

Originally published May 19, 1997

My first experience with the online world was back in the mid-1980s. A CompuServe disk came in the box with my first Apple computer, a IIc, and as geeky as the company's name was, I couldn't wait to try it out. The brochure promised a world of information, discussion groups and new friendships from the security of my own home.

Assembling the computer and turning it on, I put in the CompuServe disk and waited for the magic.

Nothing.

Can't remember how I expected it to work, really -- over power lines, maybe? This was before everyone and their grandmother knew about modems. I certainly didn't, so it was back to the store for another high-tech, 2400 bps gadget.

When I finally connected, I was enraptured. My new computer sent me messages from the distant land of Columbus, Ohio, prompting me for information and assigning me a CompuServe member number -- 76377,306 -- which I proudly bear to this day. Although a 2400 bps modem seems slow in this day of 56.6 bps, ISDN and cable TV connections, it gave me time to savor every download of software, archived news stories or just typed messages back and forth between electronic pen-pals.



Over the years, any time I needed research materials for an article or book, I turned to CompuServe. It's fast, reliable and offers an incomparable depth of source materials. We've also used it to order coffee, flowers and holiday gifts without fear of our credit card number being lifted -- unlike doing business on the Web, where security is far less reliable.

CompuServe is also a wonderful way of making new friends:

I remember reading the complaints of a would-be cartoonist in a comics forum. He grumbled about how no one gave his work a serious look. The next response in the string was from -- I kid you not -- Garry Trudeau, creator of "Doonesbury." He told the message writer that he'd gladly have a look -- and he did.

My wife spends more time in the various CompuServe forums than I, which is where she made the electronic acquaintance of several writer/producers for the innovative HBO series "Dream On." Being able to ask questions or comment on just-aired episodes was like being given a backstage pass.

An exchange of forum messages with one "Dream On" writer led to another pen-pal. Bob Alper read Mrs. Media's messages and wrote her, wondering if she was a scriptwriter. He explained that he was a Vermont-based rabbi-turned-standup comedian. Ironically, we had just returned from a vacation in Vermont where we read about a rabbi-turned-standup comedian. Sure enough, it was Alper, whom we've since dined with and seen perform several times.

This column was first electronically distributed over CompuServe, being sent to many members of the service's popular journalism forum. One of the first fan letters I received of any kind was from former Reagan speechwriter and CompuServe member Peggy Noonan. And when CompuServe temporarily blocked email delivery of this column to its members, I was overwhelmed by the supportive protests of some very well-known members of the media community.

The CompuServe of yesteryear was populated inside and out with pompous intellectuals and blinders-wearing techno-nerds, few of whom likely envisioned the plugged-in, tuned-in Internet free-for-all of the late 1990s. They spoke in jargon deliberately excluding less technical-minded folks, which no doubt explains, at least in part, why CompuServe is still struggling to grasp the way the world around it has changed while it stood still.

A decade ago, CompuServe was king of the online world, followed by GEnie and Delphi. America Online and Prodigy were barely blips on the radar. Today, of course, the situation is completely different. GEnie and Delphi are still around but skeletons of their past promise. Prodigy is, well, what the heck is Prodigy today? The Microsoft Network is making inroads but isn't exactly setting phone lines ablaze.

Both America Online and CompuServe long resisted giving their private parties access to the World Wide Web for a long time, knowing the headaches it would bring. For too long, they insisted the benefits of their closed communities were great enough to thwart defections to the wide open and free resources of the Web.

Wrong!

When they finally realized that sticking their heads in the sand was not an effective business strategy, AOL plunged into the Web head first but banged its head on the diving board on the way down. CompuServe, on the other hand, moved toward the Web kicking and screaming, but avoided the bad press of its top competitor.



On the other hand, CompuServe's myopia and slothishness toward the brave new world of Internet communications and commerce cost it dearly. Today, parent company H&R Block can't give CompuServe away. Rumors of a possible merger with AOL drove down the latter's stock and apparently stalemated talks.

In the last decade, I've gone through periods when I was more or less enamored of CompuServe for one reason or another. I tried America Online three or four times, ever frustrated by the inability to connect or receive help from customer support. But I always stuck by CompuServe. And now I'm worried about its future.

Rooting for CompuServe's survival and renewal reminds me of my other favorite "lost" cause, Apple Computer. Both are based on proprietary technology and unique personalities that are not for everybody. Their futures, if they have futures, will not be in being all things to all peoples but in carefully attending to a particular niche of wildly supportive paying customers -- like me.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

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Scott Woelfel, "CNN Interactive" editor-in-chief: Mr. Media Interview Classic

Originally Published November 18, 1996

CNN is one of the world's most recognizable brand names. If you need a news fix, it's the television channel to which everyone in the global village turns.

What about when there's no TV around?

That's the idea behind CNN Interactive, yet another brand extension from the house that Ted Turner hacked together with baling wire, spit and grit more than 15 years ago. CNN Interactive takes the company's video content and resources and makes it available via a hugely popular World Wide Web site, a CompuServe kiosk and even alpha-numeric pagers.

"While CNN is right up there with SuperStation TBS in most households in the United States, there are times you're not near a TV or cable," says Scott Woelfel, 37, vice president and editor-in-chief of CNN Interactive. " 'Interactive' provides another way to access us."

CNN Interactive has been a regular Web hangout for newshounds since its inception on
Aug. 30, 1995. It's a place for finding up-to-the-minute news, sports, weather, business — even Elsa Klensch's fashion reports. During an average week, the site logs 14-million visits.

But that volume paled compared with Election Day, when it seemed liked more people visited CNN.com for election updates than actually voted. "I thought, 'Anybody who ever bookmarked this site will go online tonight,' but I had no idea how many people that really was," Woelfel says. "By early afternoon, we already went beyond any previous count per minute."

The network logged at least 50-million hits that day. Maybe more — they turned off the counters to conserve computing power.

All afternoon, CNN.com computer wizards juggled Web servers, trying to keep up with demand. Graphics on the most heavily accessed pages were temporarily dropped to speed the process along. The weakest machines, anything that might crash the system, were turned off and additional servers were put online to handle the crushing demand.

Prior to the election, the biggest sustained period of hits for CNN.com came during the Summer Olympics, held in the network's hometown of Atlanta. Other big events drawing a crowd included the Yitzhak Rabin assassination, the TWA and ValuJet crashes and the latest U.S. attack on Iraq.

The CNN Web site actually has more recommending it than the TV version. For instance, if you're watching CNN or even CNN Headline News, you have to wait for them to get around to the sports, weather or business news. But by accessing CNN.com, you get what you want when you want it. Freshness guaranteed, 24 hours a day. It's sometimes even more up-to-the-minute than its TV counterpart. Thanks to automated programming, CNN.com updates its stocks, sports scores and weather every second, around the clock.

"Broadcast is a linear medium," Woelfel says. "For the last 70 years, radio and TV have been one story followed by another story. There's no reason that's necessarily the best way to tell a story. The linking way the Web works is probably
best."




Online producers can draw material from 30 worldwide CNN bureaus and 600 affiliates. And while some local TV stations, which post their reporters' scripts on their Web sites, CNN's producers rewrite stories specifically for surfers.

"It's not print or TV, it's something in between," Woelfel says.

Text is supplemented by photos, QuickTime movies and RealAudio soundclips. And while CNN probably seems a natural candidate for the kind of live, simultaneous Internet audio broadcasts that many radio stations are experimenting with, Woelfel says it doesn't work for the news channel — yet.

"It's a bit of a sore point with us," he admits. "We get a thousand e-mail letters a day and the No. 1 question is, 'Why don't you have RealAudio?' But we don't because we're too successful. When we have tens and hundreds of thousands of people coming to our site at the same time, it gets frustrating because it doesn't always work."

The CNN Interactive staff of 120 rarely originates reporting at this point, but Woelfel expects that will change in the future. "There are needs of the online area that won't be met by traditional TV-style reporting," he says. "We'd like to figure out what those are and put our people on them."

For the folks who run CNN.com, one lesson from TV news has come through loud and clear: keep it short, stupid.

"People don't want to scroll a lot," Woelfel says. "On television, everybody's got a remote control. If their attention wanders from one show — click! — they're gone. Same thing on the Web — they can click a link and be gone. We need to be short and interesting. Our articles are shorter — we're not trying to do analysis. It's best to be direct and let our readers sort it out."

In its 15 months online, CNN.com has amassed nearly 80,000 pages of content. Unlike most daily newspapers' Web sites, everything CNN produces online stays there, archived and searchable. It has an enviable track record in another department, too: CNN.com is a profit center for Turner.

"We're making more money than we're spending," Woelfel says. Not many Web sites -- heck, hardly any Web sites -- can make that claim.




One important skill that Woelfel mastered is sustaining interaction between the online site and the TV channels.

"We try to capitalize on people who have access to both," he says. "If it's a plane crash, during the broadcast, we'll get the anchor to promote the Web site by saying, 'Go there to see a complete list of survivors.' We've also got a Java news ticker on our home page that says, 'Turn on your TV to see live coverage of the Whitewater press conference' or we'll have a promotion for whoever is on 'Larry King Live'
tonight."

All well and good. But what if you're not near a TV or a computer with Internet access? No problem.

More than 800,000 news addicts carrying PageNet's alphanumeric pagers receive updates every 30 minutes direct from the CNN newsroom all through the business day.

"You literally can put CNN on your hip," says Woelfel, who is one of the PageNet Army. "I look at it constantly to see what's going on. So does Ted Turner, I hear — it puts CNN within arm's reach of the consumer, no matter where they
are."

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.