Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!hoptoad!dasys1!wfp From: wfp@dasys1.UUCP (William Phillips) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Magazine Distribution (was Re: Allen Holub on DDJ & C-Chest) Keywords: DDJ, C-Chest, magazines Message-ID: <6638@dasys1.UUCP> Date: 26 Sep 88 00:43:27 GMT References: <22873@amdcad.AMD.COM> <14047@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <75@unet.pacbell.COM> <5550@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <3961@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> Reply-To: wfp@dasys1.UUCP (William Phillips) Distribution: na Organization: This Techie For Hire (tm) Lines: 38 In article <3961@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM> keithe@tekgvs.GVS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) writes: |An article appeared detailing the problems with distributing the |equivalent of a magazine on floppy disk. I have no argument with the |points made therein. |But you might consider the potential of electronic distribution via |television or FM broadcast subcarrier. You have your computer |connected to your FM or TV set which decodes the stuff, filters it |for you and has it stored, waiting for your perusal the next |morning. If you pay extra you can skip over the advertisements; on |the cheap you get ads included with the "useful" stuff. |This is not a new idea. The guy who started Dr. Dobbs'... presented |this - not for the first time - at the SOG in Bend last July (damned |if I can recall his name: but it will come to me as soon as I ship |this note off, I'm sure :-)). |I whould think newspaper publishers would be real nervous about this |if they're foresightful (huh?) enough to know about it. I think this is essentially how Lotus Signal works, though I believe you have to buy a special receiver as part of the package -- probably works better than some haywire hookup to your FM set. Signal is a stock market quotation service. I don't know what kind of coverage it has, or even whether it still operates, but I didn't hear of any publishers getting worried about it. It would be interesting to know how much data (text and graphics) such a system could move overnight. Of course, considering that many of us hackers are using our machines for other things (like Usenet) till the wee hours, perhaps a daytime feed would be more appropriate :-). I wonder whether Signal operates 24 hours a day, and if not, whether stations equipped to broadcast it would like to generate some additional revenue by transmitting other stuff during off hours. -- William Phillips {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\ Big Electric Cat Public Unix {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wfp New York, NY, USA !!! JUST SAY "NO" TO OS/2 !!!