Prodigy's interest and discussion areas are currently only available to Prodigy members, Mike Darcy, Prodigy spokesperson, told Newsbytes. But in an effort to attract more people to the discussions, "The areas are handled by moderators who have a passion for individual areas, ranging from accounting to Egyptian mythology," he said. "The areas provide linkages back to Prodigy content" and content on the Web, he said. "It's a community unto itself," he said.

The news mailing lists are used by the moderators to send out regular updates about what's happening within the community, along with bringing members together in the mailing lists so they can communicate with each other. With the Goodstuff site, anyone who has Web and e-mail access can now get in on the discussion, officials said.

Currently about 50 mailing lists are available. But Darcy said eventually all 175 interest groups will have their own list.

When Newsbytes surfed to the site we found the aforementioned sumo wrestling ballerina -- and an invitation to enter the site. The sight was intriguing enough for us to click on the "tell me more" box. We were taken to an area where we could look at some of the topics from the various mailing lists, as well as being able to download Prodigy access software.

All of the full interest areas behind the mailing lists are Web content, but they exist behind Prodigy's firewall -- meaning that Web surfers must be Prodigy members to access those Web areas. Darcy said one of the goals of the new site is to sign up more people to the Prodigy service.

Prodigy's Goodstuff Web site is located at URL (uniform resource locator) http://www.goodstuff.prodigy.com/ .

(Bob Woods/19960621/Press Contact: Mike Darcy, Prodigy, 914-448-8846)