CHARLES H. LUNDQUIST COLLEGE OF BUSINESS
The Business and Industrial Sales
Program Presents
Meier & Frank
A DIVISION OF MAY COMPANY
Ms. Michelle Ford
RECRUITMENT AND PLACEMENT MANAGER
Ms. Ford will discuss internship opportunities,
UO graduate recruitment for Meier & Frank, and
their executive training program.
Tuesday, January 14
4:00-5:30 128 Chiles
University of Oregon
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Netcom to charge hourly rate
■ RATES: A leading Internet
service provider moves away
from unlimited access to
alleviate busy signals
By Elizabeth Weise
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Time is
running out for Internet users who
go online under an unlimited, flat
rate plan.
The problem is that people are
doing the computer equivalent of
pulling their chairs up to the buffet
table at an all-you-can-eat restau
rant, costing Internet providers
money, tying up phone lines and
making it difficult for others to log
in.
Netcom On-line Communica
tions Service Inc. of San Jose, a pi
oneer of the flat-rate price, plans
to announce a return to hourly
rates next month. Other Internet
providers, while still allowing un
limited usage, are charging double
the going rate.
In the next few years, other com
panies are expected to discontin
ue flat rates and return to some
form of an hourly charge.
America Online, with 6.5 mil
lion members, started offering a
flat $19.95-a-month rate a few
weeks ago, a step some blame for
the current logjam.
“Like anything that’s a great val
ue, consumers are flocking to it,”
said David Gang, vice president of
product marketing. He said the
company is upgrading its systems
to handle the crush.
Patsy Northcutt, who runs
Northcutt Productions, a video
and multimedia production com
pany in Sausalito, uses America
Online for her business. But she
has gotten so frustrated with de
lays that she is planning to open a
second account with an Internet
only provider.
“Sometimes I’ll actually go into
the setup and change the number
I’m dialing in to get a better line. I
can always get on, but it can take
three or four tries,” she said. “So
far it’s been inconvenient but nev
er disastrous — but at the wrong
time it could be horrible.”
The average Internet user is on
line about 16 to 18 hours a month,
said Eric Paulak, an analyst at
Gartner Group.
Flat-rate can easily be a money
loser for online companies. At a
cost of 90 cents to $1.80 an hour to
connect a user, Internet providers
who charge no more than $19.95 a
month start losing money after as
little as 11 hours.
Zilker Internet Park, an Austin,
Texas-based Internet service
provider, offers its customers a
flat-rate monthly fee — at $39.95
instead of $19.95. But at that price,
the company can insure cus
tomers get more than a busy sig
nal.
“It’s similar to those specialty
airlines that only have first-class
seats: You’ll always have a few
who will pay more for leg room,”
said president Smoot Carl
Mitchell.
A top executive at the Microsoft
Network, which has about 2 mil
lion members, said he doesn’t
foresee MSN abandoning flat
rates. “But that’s as far as I can see
and that’s about a year,” said Jeff
Sanderson, marketing chief.
Web site creators moving into book publishing
■ ONLINE: Though Web
enthusiasts poke fun at the
print world, web publishers
know books make money
By Elizabeth Weise
The Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Folks on
the Wide World Web are apt to
disdain the print world, deriding
it as painfully slow and old-fash
ioned.
The reign of the dead tree is
over, they chortle via e-mail. The
printed page will fade away, we
are assured, and all information
sharing will be instantaneous and
two-way.
Case in point: HotWired,
among the sharpest of all cutting
edge Web sites, which is the off
spring of San Francisco-based
Wired Ventures Inc., publisher of
the online world’s influential
Wired magazine.
“HotWired,” says Michael
Kinsley of Microsoft’s own Web
magazine, Slate. “Don’t they all
believe that the medium changes
the nature of the message?”
Change it may, but not to any
thing unrecognizable to a 16th
century reader. For earlier this
year, Wired launched that most
tired of tired endeavors — a pub
lishing house. For, you know,
books.
And not only that, but every di
gerati worth his silicon is racing
to get a book out.
Just some of those already out
of the gate include Nicholas Ne
groponte of MIT’s famed media
lab (Knopf), Steven Johnson, edi
tor of the Web magazine Feed
(HarperEdge), HotWired colum
nist Jon Katz (Hardwired) and
“Cyber-pundit” David Shenk
(HarperEdge).
All are writing words to be
printed on leaves of dried wood
pulp embossed with lampblack.
Non-digital. Un-electronic. About
as far from interactive as you can
get.
So why are all these cyber
brights flocking to one of the old
est media? Someone asked Negro
ponte, “Mr. Digital Sensibility,’’
that same question, noted Peter
Rutten, publisher of Hardwired,
Wired’s book division.
“His answer was, ‘Because it’s
the interface that my audience
has. It’s still the prime interface
that people consuming informa
tion have.’ ”
Writing a book is the mark of le
gitimacy. The only way to truly be
a part of this country’s intellectual
give-and-take. And the hottest
thing going.
Turn to ONLINE, Page 7
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