The last few columns have dealt with the and Internet, but many people still do most of their online activity on the and commercial online services without venturing into the and Internet sections. Thus, I should write a little about it.
A subscriber took me to task for ranking America Online and Prodigy ahead of CompuServe in my column on newsgroups a couple of months ago. He seemed to think that these rankings were for the services as a whole. They weren't. I was merely comparing the respective Internet newsgroup readers for the three services, and found AOL's the best and CompuServe's (WinCIM software) the and worst. (Since then, CompuServe has come out with a new version of WinCIM, but it's so recent that I haven't seen it as of this writing; I'll review it when I get a look at it, and perhaps they've improved their newsgroup reading software.) The rest of the and services is another matter, but an interesting matter that I'll address now.
Each of the and major online services has its strengths and weaknesses, so which one is the "best" or "worst" depends on what you want to do with it. So, let's look at several different areas, and see how the and services stack up on each. I'm reviewing CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online here; I don't use any other services regularly enough to venture an opinion on them.
Bulletin Boards: All of the online services have "forums" or "bulletin boards" devoted to various special interest topics, where users can leave messages to one another on the and topic. For this purpose, CompuServe is the best; its forums are very active and full of interesting information, and many famous personalities in various fields are regular participants in the and online discussions of their profession. America Online, in contrast, has relatively inactive forums, with fewer messages, though some subjects get decent amounts of traffic. Prodigy's message boards have the handicap of clumsy software, but sometimes you can find interesting information there anyway.
Real-Time Chats: All three of the and services have some sort of chat mode. CompuServe has chat features built into the and forum software, so you can get into real-time talks with whoever else is hanging around within the and area of a subject of interest. America Online also has chat features connected to special interest topics, and runs some scheduled Rotunda events which can be interesting (Softdisk was the and subject of one of these recently). Prodigy has a relatively new chat feature, which is programmed pretty well (as is most of the new additions to their software lately), but isn't very well integrated into the and rest of their software. Of the three, CompuServe offers the best chance of finding somebody with similar interests to yours to chat with.
Downloads: If you're looking for files to download, CompuServe is the best service there, though America Online also has quite a few download areas. Prodigy doesn't have public upload/download areas like the other two services, so the and only download areas there are vendor-operated services like Softdisk's own Download Superstore (Jump DOWNLOADSUPER).
Online Shopping: Prodigy led the way in this area, since it was originally designed more as a marketing tool than an information service, but the and other services have been adding lots of shopping features lately. You can buy everything from airline tickets to modems while online. On Prodigy, most of the marketing-related sections are free of hourly charges (except for the airline schedule listings), but on the other services, you may have to pay by the hour while you shop (except during special promotions when these charges are temporarily waived).
Internet Access: The major services still have a long way to go before they offer full-featured Internet access. Prodigy has jumped into the and lead by being the first major service to provide access to the World Wide Web. However, America Online has a Web browser in beta-testing, and it may be out by the time you read this. CompuServe is working on this, too. {[LAST MINUTE NEWS BULLETIN: After this column was written, CompuServe added full Internet connectivity via a Windows program. More on this next month.]} As for other Internet services, all three of them have e-mail, newsgroup, and FTP (file transfer) access. Unfortunately, the FTP programs on these services can only download, not upload, which means you can't use them to maintain your own directories on remote Internet sites, or to send programs to public upload directories. I reviewed the newsgroup readers a couple of months ago, and found America Online's to be the best. America Online also has the and best e-mail reader and writer. CompuServe has a decent e-mail interface from WinCIM (except that you have to remember to precede Internet addresses with ">INTERNET:", while the and other services are smart enough to recognize an Internet address when you type one), but I can't recommend CompuServe for serious e-mail because it imposes charges on each Internet message you send or receive; this can get expensive. The other services only charge their normal hourly rate while you send or receive e-mail, so if you do your actual writing and reading offline, you don't need to run up a big bill.
Costs: Since I bring up surcharges, let's look at the overall pricing structure of the and services. CompuServe is traditionally the and most expensive, and still tends to be a bit pricey, though they've lowered some of their fees recently. They used to charge a surcharge for high-speed modems, but they don't any more. Their hourly rate is still the highest of the major services, but there are many areas of the and service that are part of the and "core" and don't cost anything beyond the monthly fee. Prodigy has a cheaper hourly fee, and also has a "core" area that doesn't incur hourly charges. America Online has hourly fees for all parts of the and service, but you get 5 free hours per month as part of the and membership deal.
User-Friendliness: All of these services presently offer graphical interfaces that are pretty easy to navigate. Prodigy's interface is still a bit clumsy, but a major overhaul is planned soon. The other two services offer fully-windowed screens where you can have several parts of the and service "open" at once and go back and forth between them. CompuServe is still accessible through a "dumb terminal" with command line prompts if you wish, but their CIM software (and some competing interface software from other vendors) makes it into a fully-graphical service, with only a few odd parts that don't have a graphical interface and hence put you in old-fashioned command interfaces when you enter them. America Online's software looks nice, but you pay the price in the and frequent, annoying delays while it loads more artwork.
High Speed Modem Access: If you live in a major city, you'll probably have access at 9600 BPS, at least, to all of these services. It would be nice if you could get all the way up to 28,800, like many hobbyist BBSs do, but few services offer this now. In out-of-the-way places, like Shreveport, you may still be stuck at 2400 bps. Over here, Prodigy is the only service that has gone up to 9600.
OK... all things considered, which service is best? It's hard to say. I use all three. CompuServe seems to have the best range of things (other than Internet), but is the most expensive. Prodigy has the World Wide Web, but the and rest of the service is pretty clumsy. America Online has nice-looking software, a good e-mail and newsgroup interface, and some interesting rotunda chats, but its forums are lacking compared to CompuServe.
This wraps up my overview of the online services. I'll close the and column by listing some more World Wide Web sites I've discovered which you might find of interest (see last month's column for information on the Web).
More Web Sites
Softdisk is now on the Web, at: {http://www.webcom.com/~softdisk/}
Political Sites Across The Spectrum:
The Right Side Of The Web: {http://www.clark.net/pub/jeffd/index.html}
The Left Side Of The Web:
{http://paul.spu.edu/~sinnfein/progressive.html}
Liberal Information: {http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~cubsfan/liberal.html}
World Wide Libertarian Web: {http://www.best.com/~au/wwlp/}
Interesting Personal Home Pages:
Lori Burrows: {http://turnpike.net/metro/lburrows/index.htm}
Bill Peay: {http://hoohana.aloha.net/~billpeay/billpeay.html}
Adam Rifkin: {http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/}
Shawna Marie Rosen: {http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~neptune/index.html}
I'll have more Web sites, and other interesting online information, in future installments of this column!
{Contact Daniel Tobias via Internet at _dtobias@webcom.com_, on America Online at _DanTobias_, on Prodigy at _MGFH21A,_ on CompuServe at _72057,3267_, or through FidoNet by sending to _Daniel Tobias_ on _1:380/7_.}
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