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Local editors leery of Microsoft's entry into publishing domain

By Niall McKay InfoWorld Electric

Posted at 12:48 PM PT, Aug 30, 1996 Microsoft Corp., perhaps the world's leading software provider, is closing in on the Internet content business for its next cash cow.

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates has often said that the Internet will be the medium of the future, but content will be king.

To build its urban-center-based content courts, Microsoft is recruiting editors and journalists in London, New York, and San Francisco for its online entertainment listings venture, Cityscape, due to go live early in 1997.

All this has editorial directors at such print publications as New York's Village Voice weekly newspaper, the San Francisco Bay Guardian free weekly newspaper, and London's Time Out Magazine worrying that the software giant will try to muscle in on their business.

"You're either with us or against us is the message we're getting," said Jon Maples, new media director of the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "That's a hell of a way to try and partner with somebody," he added.

Microsoft officials say that the company wants to work with existing listings magazines, providing the technical muscle to publish their local content and offer a compelling World Wide Web site for users.

The type of service that Microsoft hopes to offer will be vastly different from current publishing efforts on the Internet, according to Judy Gibbons, director of the Microsoft Network in Europe.

"We plan to offer services where you will be able to browse the cinema listings for a film, view a clip, book the tickets, and book a restaurant nearby, print out a map of the area and find out what time the last bus leaves for home," she explained.

Gibbons stresses that Microsoft has no intention of posing a threat to existing listings publications.

"We want to partner with these magazines and become their political ally," said Gibbons. "Our intention is to be first and foremost a technology and network provider," she added.

Editors are not convinced.

"Microsoft has approached us but not to partner with us but to poach our staff," said the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Maples.

Other editors have had the same experience. At the annual meeting of the Association of Alternative News weeklies (AAN) in Washington, D.C., in May, Microsoft was present and trying to recruit the cream of the listings press, according to Linda Nelson, the New York-based new media director for the Village Voice, the LA Weekly, and the Orange County Weekly newspapers.

"I have heard too that Microsoft is keen to work with the listings press. However, they have not approached us, or anybody I have been talking to," said Nelson. "Microsoft is crazy like a fox to succeed in the content business," she said.

Microsoft has approached Time Out magazine in London, a company with listings magazines in London and New York, guide books to 25 cities, and a well-developed presence on the Internet with weekly listings for more than 15 cities.

"We add the copy from local stringers to the content from our guide books and magazines to provide a guide to each city on the Web," said Peter Fiennes, managing editor for Time Out. "I suppose this is similar to what Microsoft wants to do," he added.

Microsoft approached Time Out in May to open discussions about how the companies could cooperate.

"Obviously Microsoft has enormously deep pockets and it makes sense for them to be talking to us because we're the only global player at the moment," said Fiennes. "Our next step is to offer customers online ticket sales and hotel and theater bookings. But we're not sure who we will partner with for that," he added.

It would be foolish for any listings magazine not to take Microsoft seriously, but the software giant has a lot of catching up to do before it becomes a significant threat, said Fiennes.

Microsoft is in the Internet business to offer online commerce solutions, links to travel services, and technological and network solutions, according to Gibbons.

"It's a bit like our CD-ROM ventures," said Gibbons. "We prefer to partner with people when it's possible but if they don't want to partner then we will create our own service," she added.

The Village Voice's Nelson believes that Microsoft is creating its own service anyway.

"I don't believe that they are not interested in creating content," said Nelson. "They have just hired Eric Etheridge, the one-time editor of the New York magazine Seven Days, and now our own writers are asking us why they should write for us when Microsoft is paying $1 a word for editorial," she added.

Niall McKay is a London-based correspondent for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate. [Image]

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Please direct your comments to InfoWorld Electric News Editor Dana Gardner.

Copyright © 1996 InfoWorld Publishing Company

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