Publisher's Strategies for CD-ROM/Internet Publishing

John O. Cole

EMedia Professional, January 1997
Copyright © Online Inc.

Publishers are altering their CD-ROM strategies to take advantage of the Internet, seeing that CD-ROM no longer needs to be thought of exclusively as a standalone product.

Five years ago, increasing visibility was among the greatest worries for consumer CD-ROM publishers in a then-fairly unknown market. Today, in a saturated marketplace, CD-ROM publishers' concerns have changed. With over 12,000 titles already available for sale and another several thousand due to be introduced during 1997, CD-ROM publishers face lack of shelf space, more competition, and less than spectacular market expansion.

And for those publishers who really enjoy anxiety, there is also the tremendous growth of the Internet to consider. Many publishers don't claim to understand the Internet, its culture, or its offerings, but they know they need to have a "presence" on the Web, and they think that part of that presence should be directly tied to their CD-ROM products.

Publishers are altering their CD-ROM strategies to take advantage of the Internet, seeing that CD-ROM no longer needs to be thought of exclusively as a standalone product. Whether to increase CD-ROM sales and create new types of relationships with their customers or to extend the content of the titles outward, solving CD-ROM's limits of space, interactivity, and timeliness, CD-ROM publishers are increasingly pursuing the Internet as part of their publishing program. Though a visit to any computer retailer, bookstore, or direct marketing catalog yields only a smattering of hybrid titles today--InfoTech, a market research house based in Woodstock, Vermont, has counted some 350 or more by mid-1996 alone--the projections in the growth of CD/online hybrid titles can be quite spectacular. In fact, InfoTech, which has covered the industry for most of a decade, projects that there will be 3,500 hybrid titles by the end of 1997; other research houses seem less sanguine--Cowles/SIMBA estimates 640 CD/online hybrid titles for 1997--but the trend is clear. Fortunately, there are a variety of newer CD-ROM/Internet strategies to help both mark and navigate this path.

The emergence of a sense of urgency only highlights the basic questions: Why are so many publishers focused on creating hybrid titles? What strategies are the hybrid publishers trying to implement? And what are some examples of their implementation strategies?

CD/ONLINE HYBRIDS: WHY THE RUSH?

Today's publishers seem to be reacting to one or more of the following stimuli: economic pressures, competitive pressures, product quality concerns, and strategic considerations.

Ironically, in these days of heightened responsiveness to customer requests by manufacturers, current customer demands have had little to do with publishers' motivations to add Internet components to their CD-ROM products. Nor have retailers' desires motivated the addition; in fact, retailers have put little pressure on publishers to make Internet connections part of their products or even to include phrases like "Internet Enhanced" on their packaging. As Dan Levine, president of Palo Alto, California-based publisher Books That Work, says, "Retailers view the Internet as a plus, but not a big one."

In as volatile a market as consumer CD-ROM titles, pressure from the distribution channels for the "Internet Ready" label could become a factor, of course. But today, publishers seem to be reacting to one or more of the following stimuli: economic pressures, competitive pressures, product quality concerns, and strategic considerations.

Economic Pressures Press On

Economic pressures--competing in the marketplace, balancing costs with revenues, and doing everything one can to make a buck--are abundant for CD-ROM publishers. Those that were publishing CD-ROM titles in the early 1990s thought that by the last part of this decade retail shelves would have lots of space devoted to CD-ROM titles. Though more space is available, there is much less space, relatively speaking, with more titles vying for a spot on the shelves. Because many good titles are not getting on the shelves or are being insufficiently promoted and sold by the stores, publishers are looking for ways to increase CD-ROM sales without having to depend on retailers. By having the phrases "Internet Enhanced" or "Links to the Internet" on the box, publishers hope that consumers will perceive extra value in the product, even if they are not current Internet users. Marni Ehrlich of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based AT&T Worldnet promotes the idea that having the AT&T logo on publishers' boxes gives customers a comfort level needed to sign up with an Internet service provider; hence, Ehrlich says, the product that features AT&T Worldnet as the access provider gains a competitive advantage.

Competitive Pressure Cooking

Competitive pressures--the simple equation of perceived value between like products--keep upping the ante for certain classes of titles, particularly games and general encyclopedias. Though CD-ROM publishers can be competitive in terms of discounts, allowances, and promotions, they most often define competitive advantage in terms of product quality/quantity and value. Encyclopedia publishers, for example, have taken to filling their discs, even to the point that any new content for a new edition requires that either some old content must be cut or a second disc must be used. For both World Book and Microsoft, adding a second disc to their encyclopedias is not enough. To stay competitive, these publishers have turned to an easier way to add new--and frequently changing--material.

Darlene Stille, yearbook and online manager at World Book, thinks that although World Book will be including annotated Web links on its site, World Book Encyclopedia 97's competitive advantage in the 1997 edition will be the proprietary information included in its "Online Library" and "Our Century" Web site areas, which only owners of the CD-ROM will be able to access. The edition following Encyclopedia Britannica CD 2.0, from Chicago, Illinois-based Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, will also have an annotated Web-links feature as well as additional yearbook and other Britannica information, though its full-text Internet version will be kept separate and unlinked. Jim Oaker, Encarta's product manager, believes that what Encarta 97 will offer on the Web will help differentiate it from other encyclopedias: in addition to annotated Web links, Encarta offers an "Online Librarian" service, a Lexis/ Nexis-like service that Microsoft will be licensing from a third party; for a fee, Encarta owners can search for additional subject information in periodicals and other reference materials.

Product Quality Pressure Points

Product quality pressures are closely related to competitive pressures and economic pressures, even as some publishers want their products to be "the best," even if it means extra costs. But quality often comes at a cost.

Publishers have largely emphasized multimedia enhancements over the past three years, with some of the best examples coming from Corbis. But asking customers to download lots of multimedia files from a Web site doesn't make much sense at current baud rates, according to Nana Quo, publisher at Corbis.

Considering Strategies

Strategic considerations can drive a publisher's entry into the Internet arena. Many publishers want to keep their options open for new delivery platforms and need to learn how to manage the transition from CD-ROM to the Internet.

These same publishers may want their staffs to learn more about how CD-ROM and the Internet can work together and what their customers seek in an Internet site that complements a CD-ROM product. An early presence in the CD/online hybrid marketplace presents an alluring prospect to some publishers who are eager to position themselves for long-term gains from potential customers' anticipated expectations for CD-ROM/Internet links or Internet-only formats.

CD/ONLINE STRATEGIES, GREAT AND SMALL

The goal publishers most often talk about as being most important to their CD-ROM/Internet hybrid strategies is increased revenue, which, they hope, leads to increased profitability. Not that CD-ROM publishers are an unrealistic lot: most admit the goal of profitability remains all too unlikely in the near term.

That lack of near-term payoff is all the more reason to consider new strategies. Publishers are increasingly turning to the CD/online hybrid title approach to amplify revenue, whether through selling more CD-ROM products by virtue of Internet enhancement, adding Internet-based ad revenues, developing partnership revenues, extending title shelf--and sales--life, building a franchise, or enriching the title value and experience in the hopes that the title with the higher perceived value will help enrich the publisher.

Selling More CD-ROMs

The simple way to make more money through CD-ROM--sell more titles--is clear to many more publishers than actually do so. But, the most immediate revenue strategy related to CD-ROM/online hybrids is not so obvious in its execution.

For example, many companies think they can sell more titles if the products are hybrids that include an Internet link, believing consumers perceive hybrid products as inherently better or more valuable than any CD-ROM-only counterpart. Some publishers who include an Internet component with their CD-ROM titles use their Web sites for selling more products; Discovery Channel Multimedia's www. beerhunter.com site enhances company sales through its connection with Discovery's Michael Jackson's World Beer Hunter CD-ROM title.

An interesting marketing twist for selling more CD-ROM titles is to use the Internet to induce, encourage, and seduce Web surfers into buying the CD-ROM. One mechanism is offering teaser information about the CD on the Web site. The Books That Work Home Improvement site, for example, offers some--but not all--of the information available to buyers of the CD-ROM/online hybrid title; in fact, if consumers want access to the full site, they must buy the Home Improvement CD-ROM.

An Interest in Internet-based Ad Revenues

How to make money is a question for Internet-only offerings, as well as for CD-ROM and CD-ROM/Internet hybrid titles. One area of intense speculation for Internet publishers--and a much more modest achievement, at least to date--is advertising revenues. Increasingly, CD/Web title publishers are taking on this intensity.

Not that publishers in either the disc or the online camps necessarily think alike. Dave Arganbright, president of Danbury, Connecticut-based Grolier Electronic Publishing, the company behind The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, believes that putting ads in his company's CD-ROM encyclopedia could hurt the perception of objectivity, a key criterion for customers choosing reference titles. Ads on an encyclopedia Web site, however, might not threaten the perceived objectivity of the product.

Some companies, such as Seattle, Washington-based Multicom Publishing and Books That Work, include ads, or "infomercials," in their do-it-yourself CD-ROM/online hybrid titles. Advertisers such as General Electric and Armstrong Carpeting view this kind of participation as a way of increasing traffic at their Web sites as well as stirring up interest in consumers, according to Brad Grob, vice president for custom publishing at Multicom. Grob points out that users of Multicom's Better Homes and Gardens Remodeling Your Home can see an "all GE" kitchen in 3D. Multicom even has an Index page ad for Equal sugar substitute--or at least a sponsorship, with the message, "This Index screen sponsored by Equal"--for its Better Homes and Gardens' Healthy Cooking. Multicom's Web site connection is only a connection point to its sponsors--no added content.

Books That Work provides connections to various supplier and handyman-helper Web sites with annotations made by the editors, and the company updates their Visual Home CD-ROM quarterly, always adding new sponsors. The Web links themselves, however, are not advertising-sponsored, (nor, seemingly, are other publishers' annotated links).

For some publishers, the challenge to determine what type of ad may be most appropriate and least intrusive. For others, the primary ad question may simply be whether to include any, given that CD-ROM buyers are not used to having ads on entertainment and information discs. Although Internet surfers are getting very used to encountering ads on the Web, many CD-ROM publishers are afraid of potential customer backlash or remain unsure about what to charge for what type of ad, placement, and frequency. It remains to be seen if most CD-ROM/online hybrid title publishers will have ads on their sites, assuming a clear business model emerges.

Partners in Revenue

CD-ROM publishers' quest for revenues from online hybrid products has led some pioneers to form partnerships with companies not traditionally part of the multimedia world. Creative Multimedia, for example, in a venture with CDNOW, a music and video Internet retailer, has created the MusicMatch Web site, where buyers of Creative Multimedia's Billboard Music CD-ROM can order audio Cd titles directly from the site.

Creative Multimedia has been creative in its choice of partners from fields much further away than music. In their forthcoming Family Doctor 5, Creative Multimedia, through an agreement with Access Health, a medical insurance provider, will offer users the opportunity to buy an emergency health policy for about $6 per month. Creative Multimedia will benefit from each policy sold, although it remains to be seen if the medical insurance-on-a-disc does much to sell more CD-ROMs.

Capture the Customer Flag

Customers who buy CD-ROMs through retail usually neglect to register their products, a poor state of affairs for the publisher, who could use these names not only as a source of future revenue for selling product updates but also as a direct channel to sell new products and services. Having an Internet site linked transparently from the title itself gives publishers the opportunity to capture names through an "online registration" mechanism or by having at the site certain "members-only" areas that would require "signing up" before accessing. Today, most CD-ROM/online hybrid publishers are not very demanding about title registration, and most of the still-new online components of hybrid titles do not require signup.

This loosely structured access strategy is likely to change, if for no other reason than that publishers understand the advantages of online signup with email addresses. Assuming consumers come to accept the practice of email advertising and marketing, this could allow publishers to send product updates and new title information via email, with a great cost savings over direct mail and telephone marketing. Microsoft, with their Bookshelf title, attempts to capture user names through its subscription sign-up service. Bookshelf customers are guaranteed a low price on the following year's edition if they register for the service; when the next version is ready to ship, customers will be sent a direct email piece notifying them and asking for confirmation, after which the disc--and the bill--will be sent.

Extending Shelf Life

For CD-ROM publishers of time-sensitive content, turning to an online hybrid approach can mean extending the title's shelf life while expanding its appeal to customers. Potential purchasers of a title on a presidential election, such as Virtual Entertainment's Vote America, for example, might justifiably think the title could be out of date in short order, hurting sales. With CD/online hybrids, the hope is that package banners proclaiming the likes of "free Internet updates" with information from the latest polls and news will reduce buyer reluctance. In some products, purchasers are encouraged to log online as soon as they get the CD-ROM loaded so that they can download the latest information, be it a movie review, an analysis of a political event, or a sports record.

One of the first consumer titles to supply online updates--albeit at a price--was Microsoft's Complete Baseball, which rolled out in 1994 with the promise of daily baseball statistics. The reality--which was no fault of Microsoft's--was the longest Major League Baseball strike in history, proving that not even the strongest strategies can guarantee success.

Building a Franchise

Lack of retail shelf space and high development and promotion costs are forcing many publishers to create fewer titles and to put more money into building a franchise for each title. Some children's writing programs, such as Sunburst's Easybook and Davidson's Kids Works Deluxe, for example, have sites where children can upload their stories, have them read and judged by other kids, and have chats. They also can download new material. Why buy a competing product if yours is continually being "refreshed" and if you have developed some online "friends" in the company's Web page chat room? Brøderbund has enhanced its Carmen Sandiego franchise by creating a special Web site area and including such material as Internet annotated references to geography-related sites.

Game publishers are particularly eager to expand their franchise games and are now moving to CD-ROM hybrids as the next evolutionary step. Mass market consumer title publisher Electronic Arts (EA), in fact, is creating its next Ultima title, Ultima Online, as a CD-ROM-based game that can only be played on its "virtual world" Web site, which they plan to populate with eight kingdoms and thousands of simultaneous players. By having a chat function integral to the program, EA hopes to continue to build loyalty and camaraderie among its customers, as well as to create a game that can be expanded with additional kingdoms as needed. EA spokesperson Pat Becker says the company will charge for the disc and may also charge for online time--with additional revenue possibly funneled into the site through advertisements--when the product is released in early 1997. Consumer publisher Starwave introduced another hybrid title, Castle Infinity, at $9.95 with four hours of free online playtime included in the basic price. Castle Infinity players then pay $30 for unlimited game access.

Enriching the Product Value and Title "Experience"

Some publishers seem particularly concerned that their customers not just receive an informational or fact-filled CD-ROM, but that they have as rich an experience as possible, including interaction with the information or the individuals and causes associated with it. These publishers' primary aim seems to be adding value to the core product.

The Voyager Company's forthcoming Witness to the Future not only features content that documents environmental activism, it also promotes actual participation in supporting the cause by incorporating links to Web sites such as Greenpeace, according to Trisha Bowers, spokesperson for Voyager. MECC enhances its children's title, Mayaquest, with real-world links allowing kids to email travelers actually taking the trip simulated in the title. This type of engaging activity adds to the overall experience of the product by encouraging active involvement with the subject.

One of the most element-rich hybrid products is Dorling Kindersley (DK)'s 1996 release, Eyewitness Virtual Reality Dinosaur Hunter. Bror Saxberg, DK's publisher, is not intimidated going into a popular category already populated by several commercially available CD-ROMs. DK is not only creating a CD-ROM with a Web site devoted to it--with a mind to "keeping options open in both mediums," Saxberg says--but is also including multiple-media elements in the product's package, among them a 27" long Stegosaurus model and a book. In addition to the disc's core material about dinosaurs and their environments, DK also includes such "extras" as the "Dino Store," where kids can copy various graphics for dinosaur envelopes, invitations, masks, and "keep out of my room" doorknob hangers. On the Dinosaur Hunter Web site, DK includes a retail Dino Store (dinosaur material to purchase), Dino news and puzzles, and other dinosaur-related learning activities.

IMPLEMENTATION: THE AVENUE TO ACCESS AND REVENUE

The key implementation issues involved in developing CD-ROM/online hybrids are how to provide Internet access and what Internet features to include. Because a low--albeit increasing--percentage of current CD-ROM buyers are regular Internet users, publishers assume that they have to provide Internet access, whether a browser such as Netscape's Navigator or Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and a hosting service that will connect the browser to various Web sites. The service provider/browser hook-up strategies publishers choose fall into three categories:

Exclusive use
Preferred use
User's choice

In the exclusive use strategy, publishers make customers use the service provider included on the disc, even if they have another service provider. The early hybrid discs frequently had sites on America Online, and that was the only place to get additional online information. Few publishers now, however, want to force users either to a proprietary service like America Online or a particular Internet service provider. Publishers with early hybrid experience also realized that this narrow approach alienates customers who already use other service providers with whom they are satisfied. These customers will not sign up with a new service in spite of the fact that they know they are missing out on some relevant ancillary material. They also will feel somewhat slighted because they can't get access to this material through their current Internet service provider. Publishers such as Macmillan Digital are moving from a total reliance on AOL's content to information from their own Web site. Macmillan's dog-oriented Best of Breed, for instance, has tie-ins to AOL's pet forum but also has links to the American Kennel Club's Web site.

In the preferred use strategy, publishers include a browser and service provider such as AT&T's Worldnet, Concentric, Netcom, or Earthlink. Although publishers taking this approach claim it is easier to hook up to the site using the pre-made solution which has been optimized for it, they acknowledge that customers might not want to change providers and therefore allow full access through another browser and/or service provider. On some discs, the software actually looks for existing browsers and asks users if they want to use the one found for the connection.

In the user's choice strategy, publishers provide no pre-made solution, though they usually supply a browser and service provider. These publishers assume that customers who would go on the Internet have probably already signed up with a hosting service. The Windows 95 version of Mindscape's Chessmaster 5000, for example, has a discrete and easy-to-use Internet installation routine. Microsoft's Cinemania 97 provides an Internet "wizard" to make the Internet setup trouble-free if the user has already configured Windows 95 correctly. As Jeff Kumins, Cinemania's product manager explains, the title's product team only wanted to make changes to the product that "the consumer could notice," and one of the key ones was easy installation of the consumer's own service provider and browser.

Internet service providers give publishers a small bonus and/or royalty if their CD-ROM hybrid customers sign up and stay on their services for a given period (generally two to six months, depending on the provider). Both publishers and service providers acknowledge, however, that the potential profits from this type of arrangement are small. Revenues from service providers are not the driving force; providing easy access to value-added materials is. Hence, publishers are not sticking to an exclusive or preferred choice strategy for revenue considerations but rather for the technology challenges and customer support needed to provide access to such difficult customer setups as AOL and its early browsers.

Additional Challenges to Easy CD-ROM/Internet Integration

Although publishers are now beginning to offer easy configuration setups for Internet access by a variety of Internet hosting services and browsers, these publishers assume that users have set up Windows 95 in particular, though apparently undocumented, ways. For example, a user can be using Internet Explorer 3.0 going through a local access provider and experience no problems whatsoever.

Users find out, however, that when they want to make automatic downloads, the routines will look for a designated primary DNS string five levels deep in the TCP/IP settings page. Many publishers will probably face a steep technical support curve for implementing totally seamless integration.

Links Only or a Specially Created Web Site?

Some publishers have links to others' sites and provide no updates themselves. Random House's Children's Encyclopedia CD-ROM, for example, links to the Electronic Library, a site consisting of hundreds of publications that serve as updated and enhanced material to their encyclopedia.

Other publishers have gone to the other extreme by providing a dedicated site to the title. DK's Dinosaur Hunter, for example, wants to have its site as the center for exploring the Web for dinosaur material. Byron Preiss, in Timetables of Technology, a new title created with Intel using Intel's MMX technology, will have its own Byron Preiss/Intel managed site.

Implementing a Seamless CD-ROM/Internet Connection

Companies with the more sophisticated hybrid products want users to be able to move easily from the CD-ROM to the Internet areas with as little fuss as possible. Publishers also want information that has been downloaded to be smoothly integrated into the CD-ROM product even though it resides on the user's hard drive.

To achieve this end, reference publishers who offer new or updated articles online sometimes include an automatic alert button that is placed on the CD-ROM product's interface after the material has been downloaded. Other publishers make "new material on your hard disk" buttons at the article level.

Sybil Parker, a publisher at McGraw-Hill, for example, says that some forthcoming CD-ROMs will have buttons connected to Web sites. Voyager has article-specific buttons indicating the URLs in its forthcoming Witness to the Future. Both Microsoft's Encarta 97 and Cinemania 97 have buttons at the article level which can appear or disappear depending on what has been downloaded or changed at the Web site. Encarta's buttons even indicate whether the new material is an updated article or yearbook material.

The Super-Site Solution

Graphix Zone, Inc. is one publisher that has announced plans to create a "super site," in its case a mega-music site that will have home pages devoted to all of the company's numerous music-related CD-ROMs which feature such performers as Willie Nelson, Herbie Hancock, and the artist formerly known as Prince. The sites will have information about the performers' tour dates, biographical information, and more. Norm Block, chief operating officer, said that the site would also contain a licensed section of the Lycos Web search engine devoted to Arts and Entertainment. The site could also have classifieds, ticket sales, and ads for the company's music-oriented CD-ROMs as well as other Graphix Zone products.

A LINE ON THE CD-ROM/ ONLINE HORIZON

While some of the CD-ROM/online hybrid implementations that have appeared in titles to date are executed rather clumsily, or lack much depth in the additional material the connection provides, many of the titles show a strong awareness of the Internet's particular strengths and of how customers using CD-ROMs can greatly benefit from the connection. CD-ROM publishers seem to be way out ahead of the majority of their customers, in terms of understanding how the Internet can add information value to the CD-ROM.

But the customers will catch up quickly, and by the end of 1997, CD-ROM/online hybrid titles will likely have made great strides beyond most such products available today, both technologically and content-wise. And the questions of why a publisher would pursue CD-ROM/online hybrid projects, or why so many in the industry are rushing to do so, will have been rendered largely moot. As John Mayo-Smith, programming manager at publisher Byron Preiss says, "A year from now, we won't be having this conversation."

Few would have guessed in the early 1990s that some good might have come as a by-product of CD-ROM's well-publicized and much-lamented lack of retail space and title market glut. But as the latest wave in electronic publishing approaches its crest in the coming years, publishers, retailers, and consumers alike will have much to gain from this strategic migration as an ever-increasing number of CD-ROM titles are enriched by Internet connections.

Types of Internet Materials/Features

Internet links can add value to commercial CD-ROM titles in a variety of ways. The most common enhancements such links provide typically include the following:

Downloads of updated material
Downloads of material related to the CD-ROM's subject
Annotated links and references to other Web sites
Games and puzzles
"Chat rooms"
Ability to email the editor, author, or a person mentioned in the CD-ROM
Places to publish works created with the CD-ROM product
Catalogs of products related to the subject
Catalogs of the publisher's other CD-ROMs
Ads for a publisher's other products
Ads for related products

--John O. Cole

Companies Mentioned in This Article

Books That Work
2595 East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303;
415/326-4280; Fax 415/812-9700;
http://www.btw.com

Byron Preiss Multimedia
24 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10010;
212/989-6252; Fax 212/989-6550;
http://www.byronpreiss.com

Corbis Corporation
15395 SE 30th Place #300, Bellevue, WA 98007;
206/641-4505; 206/643-9740;
http://www.corbis.com

Discovery Channel Multimedia
7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814;
301/986-0444; Fax 301/986-4827;
http://www.multimedia.discovery.com

Dorling Kindersley Multimedia
95 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016;
212/213-4800, 800/356-6575;
http://www.dk.com

Electronic Arts
1450 Fashion Island Boulevard, San Mateo, CA 94404;
415/571-7171; Fax 415/570-5137;
http://www.ea.com

Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation
310 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60604;
312/347-7952; Fax 312/347-7903

Graphix Zone
42 Corporate Park, Suite 200, Irvine, CA 92714;
714/833-3838; Fax 714/833-3990;
http://www.gzone.com

Grolier Electronic Publishing
90 Sherman Turnpike, Danbury, CT 06816;
800/285-4534, 203/797-3536; Fax 203/797-3835;
http://www.grolier.com

InfoTech
Box 150, Woodstock, VT 05091;
802/763-2097; Fax 802/763-2098;
infotech@valley.net

Macmillan Digital USA
1633 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10019;
212/654-8500; Fax 212/654-4844;
http://www.macdigital.com

McGraw-Hill, Inc.
11 West 19th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10011;
212/337-5904; Fax 212/337-5038;
http://www.books.mcgraw-hill.com

Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052;
206/936-1260; Fax 206/883-7329;
http://www.microsoft.com

Mindscape
60 Leveroni Court, Novato, CA 94949;
415/883-3000; Fax 415/883-0337;
http://www.mindscape.com

Multicom Publishing, Inc.
1100 Olive Way, Suite 1250, Seattle, WA 98101;
800/850-7272, 206/622-5530; Fax 206/622-4380;
http://www.multicom.com

SIMBA Information
11 Riverbend Drive South, Stamford, CT 06907-0234;
203/358-9900; Fax 203/358-5825

Virtual Entertainment, Inc.
200 Highland Avenue, Needham, MA 02194;
617/449-7567; Fax 617/449-4887;
http://www.virtent.com

The Voyager Company
578 Broadway, Suite 406, New York, NY 10012;
212/431-5199; Fax 212/431-5799;
http://www.voyager.com

World Book
525 West Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60661;
312/ 258-3700; Fax 312/258-3950

John O. Cole is president of Cole & Associates, a Stockton, New Jersey-based firm which helps publishers plan, develop, and market CD-ROM and Internet products. He has been in the electronic publishing business since 1982, when he helped form Grolier Electronic Publishing.

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