Web Consolidations Drive Tech Changes
by Andrew Bowser
Media companies are busy consolidating their online efforts into discrete operating divisions. While it’s too early to tell whether such moves will wow Wall Street or Main Street, they already are driving changes in technology.
At Belo Interactive, an entity incorporating the online assets of Belo’s television stations, cable-news channels and newspapers, a project team with wide representation is evaluating new text, audio and video tools. In addition, Belo Interactive is developing a "technology approach" to managing and delivering all the company’s data, says President James Moroney.
To that end, late last year Belo Interactive forged several alliances. It will develop multimedia content-management and e-commerce tools with the Sun-Netscape Alliance, and work with World Wide Web developer Strategy.com to broadcast Belo content via the Internet, e-mail, fax and handheld devices.
Roping together Belo’s Web sites "allows us to pursue some investments in technology or product development that probably would not have happened–or at least would have been very difficult given the newspapers’ and TV stations’ own operating priorities," Moroney says.
Belo Interactive also could potentially shake up existing vendor relationships. Moroney intends to "unify" operations so its 25-plus interactive businesses aren’t dealing with 25 different vendors for tools that could be developed once and shared.
Unifying disparate media properties also carries technology implications, as print-based systems must be able to communicate with their counterparts at interactive units overseeing broader, community-based sites. That’s the focus of Freedom Interactive Media, encompassing online ventures at Freedom Communications Inc.’s 27 daily newspapers, 35 weeklies and eight television stations. One of those papers, The Orange County (Calif.) Register, is now moving publishing systems to an Oracle database, viewed internally as a good platform to communicate with the interactive division.
"We’ve been trying very hard to make sure that we maintain an open-database structure so we can accommodate growth," says Jack Abbott, the paper’s vice president of print operations.
Consolidation also could give newspaper sites a chance to focus on online competitors, argues new-media consultant Steve Outing. "You have all these Internet companies going off at light speed, and newspaper companies in particular really need to do something to catch up," he says. "This will allow them to concentrate more on original content."
However, it may prove more difficult to coordinate print and online efforts once operations are separated by both physical and organizational walls. "We still have to face the same sort of decision-making in terms of what technologies to adapt," Outing cautions.
Backers argue the capital needed to acquire such technology could be generated by spinning off Internet business units, perhaps through the same public-stock offerings that have filled the coffers of many Internet companies. Indeed, at presstime, The New York Times Co. was planning to issue a new class of stock for its Times Company Digital unit.
How Wall Street will welcome newspaper spinoffs remains unclear. "Dot-com" fever has subsided somewhat. Outing also cites the dead-tree factor as a possible chiller: "The market perception might be that because it’s connected to an old-media company, a newspaper spinoff might not be as hot as some of the pure new-media plays."
Bowser is a New Orleans free-lancer. E-mail, andrew@bowser.com.
Future Present
The futuristic predictions of paper-like electronic displays and smart houses weren’t the big surprises at the SuperConference. No, those surprises dealt more with the speed at which such technologies could become commonplace.
Nick Sheridon, senior research fellow at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California, boldly predicted that within three years, major publishers will market some form of news product displayed on e-paper. He demonstrated Gyricon, an electronic "paper" made up of tiny balls. Black on one side and white on the other, the balls are suspended in oil within the sheet and react to electronic charges that direct their placement. The technology’s current 110 dot-per-inch resolution will soon be improved to 220, he said, and could eventually increase to 300 dpi.
Recognizing that the new material is three-to-five-times heavier than conventional paper, Sheridon also demonstrated a wand that captures data and delivers it one page at a time. The wand costs less than $100 to manufacture, and a single sheet of paper, which can be used over and over again, costs less than $5.
Similar technology under development by E Ink Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., also was demonstrated (TechNews, January/February 2000, p. 28). Along with offering the legibility, flexibility, portability and relative light weight of paper, both technologies offer the real-time advantages of electronic-delivery systems and use far less energy than current display technologies.
David E. Nash offered a future vision closer to home–or, to be more specific, of the home itself. The family home will offer automated services as well as shelter, said Nash, director of marketing for the Connected.Home Initiative of Intel Corp., housed at the Intel Architecture Labs in Hillsboro, Ore.
When you discard a milk carton, for example, a wireless device will scan a code and transmit it to an electronic grocery list, which automatically will be dispatched to the grocery provider. Such technologies already exist, Nash said, though high prices still keep them out of the home–but not for long.
"People will pay for compelling lifestyle enhancements," Nash said, and the market will see prices fall as competition opens up.
Nash sees technology advances paving the way. For instance, residential broadband is about to explode, he noted, saying the nascent service boasts 3 million users in 2 million households.
Once broadband reaches critical mass, Nash expects major behavioral changes. With the barriers to ’Net access down, Nash said, expect people to use online services many times a day for shorter time periods.