Media Share 9/MEDIASHARE_09.ISO/private/mpc93mar.zip/BBSNEWS.DAT

Text File | 1993-02-14 | 10KB | 186 lines

                     All About Electronic Bulletin Boards
             It's No Longer Just Techno-Hobbyists Who Meet by Modem

     By JUDITH BERCK

     A communications explosion is under way across America, though about
     the only sound from it is the clacking of computer keyboards.  People
     by the tens of thouands are plugging their telephone lines into their
     personal computers and using them to argue Presidential politics,
     discuss scuba diving in underwater caves with experts or
     view satellite pictures of Jupiter's moons.

     Much ot this, of course, has been available for years to
     techno-hobbyists and to people willing to pay fairly high connection
     fees to linlt up with Compuserve and other on-line information
     services. But as the sheer number of people with computers has surged,
     so has the variety of electronic meeting places known as computer
     bulletin boards.

     "The roof has blown off the industry," said Jack Rickard, editor of
     Boardwatch magazine, the largest trade publication covering the
     bulletin board and on-line service industry. He organized the
     industry's largest trade convention, called the One BBS-Con,
     held Aug. 14 to 16 in Denver.

     Mr. Rickard, who estimates the bulletin board industry at nearly $500
     million, said there are nearly 60,000 public access bulletin boards in
     the United States, up from 3,500 five years ago.  These boards, most
     devoted to exchanging information about hobbies and vocations, are
     open to anyone with a personal computer, a modem to transmit and
     receive data via a telephone line and a communications program to
     dial telephone numbers.

     But the growth of boards operated by private companies like Seiko and
     Eastman Kodak has far outstripped growth of public ones, and they now
     surpass 120,000.

     Why such growth?  It certainly has helped that the prices of personal
     computers and high-speed modems have fallen drastically.  But the real
     force seems to be that people are inherently curious and sociable.

                           10 Million Users
                    Lots of Information And Most Is Free

     Industry expenrts estimate that about 10 million people are regular
     callers to public-access bulletin-board services, called BBS for
     short.  They find the numbers in magazines like BBS Caller's Digest
     and Computer Shopper.  A user anywhere on the globe can dial a board's
     phone number at his or her convenience, pick a topic of interest, read
     messages left by others and reply.  The replies provoke or inspire
     more replies, all readable in sequence by others.  Users can also
     trade private electronic message or E-mail.  Many boards belong to
     farflung international networks, like Internet, which passes
     messages between bulletin boards in dozens of countries, negating
     overseas telephone charges.


     Besides reading and leaving messages, users call bulletin boards to
     pull games, wordprocessing and graphics programs from their file
     libraries.  These can be copied at little or no charge.  Users can
      also transfer their own files to the library.

     The bulletin boards' abilities to catalogue messages, and to send,
     receive and store electronic files, make them large repositories of
     knowledge, with as many potential sources of information as there are
     callers.

                              Just a Sideline
                        Often, Profit Isn't the Point

     Many system operators, known as "sysops" (pronounced sis-ops), start
     public bulletin boards as a creative hobby.  A system with the
     computer hardware and software needed to work with a single telephone
     line costs about $3,000; most bulletin boards have one to eight lines.
     But in the last two years, to meet soaring demand, systems with 20,
     40, even 60 or more lines have proliferated.

     Kevin Behrens began the Aquila Bulletin Board in Chicago in 1988 as a
     hobby on a spare I.B.M. compatible computer with a single line.  "It
     just went nuts," Mr. Behrens said.  "We got more and more calls, put
     up more phone lines and built it up.  Now we have 25 lines and get
     over 2,500 calls a month."

     The largest bulletin boards, like Exec-PC with 230 lines, offer so
     many services that they are becoming almost indistinguishable from the
     giant on-line informatlon businesses like Compuserve and Prodigy.

     Unlike their larger cousins, though, more than 80 percent of bulletin
     boards are nonprofit; a third charge nothing at all. To cover costs
     for more sophisticated systems, some operators charge annual fees,
     typically $15 to $60.  Some boards make a profit by offering a mix of
     free and pay services.

     Tess Heder and her husband, Brian Miller, run the Channel 1 board in
     Cambridge, Mass., with 85 lines.  It has achieved wide repute for its
     breadth of topics and file collection. It receives about 2,500 calls
     a day, earning more than $20,000 a month in subscriptlon and access
     fees.

     Not surprisingly, the four largest sellers of operating programs for
     both corporate and hobby bulletin boards have really taken off.  The
     companies, all privately owned, are Gallacticomm Inc. in Fort
     Lauderdale, Fla.; Mustang Software Inc. in Bakersfield, Calif.; eSoft
     Inc. in Aurora, Colo., and the Clark Development Company in Murray,
     Utah.

     "Doing nothing particularly differently, these companies have doubled
     in size in the past year," said Mr. Rickard.  He estimated the market
     for their programs at more than $20 million annually.

     Philip Becker, president of eSoft Inc., said sales were "growing so
     rapidly the numbers are obsolete almost as soon as you say them."

     The biggest financial winners, though, are telephone companies, which
     effortlessly rake in more than $700 million a year from extra line
     installations and modem calls.

     "They make out like bandits and don't even know it," said Mr. Becker
     of eSoft.

     In fact though, Ameritech Services, a telephone company based in
     Illinois, includes a list of area bulletin boards in phone bills.

                        Some Are Really For the Birds

     Computer bulletin boards are almost perversely diverse, with topics
     ranging from birds and bees to the birds and the bees.

     Trouble hand-feeding your cockatiel?  Dial the Bird Info Network in
     Colesville, Md.  Seeking the latest research on Dante's Divine
     Comedy?  Dartmouth College's Dante Project can fill you in.  Want to
     dig up your family's roots?  Try the National Genealogical BBS In
     Arlington, Va.

     And, yes, there are many "adult only" bulletin boards.  After sending
     in proof of age, callers can acquire files of nude images, arrange
     dates with other consenting adults, or have uncensored chats in the
     privacy of their computer screen's glow.

     For computer-literate kids, there are boards that allow chlldren to
     play games wlth each other.

     Mostly, though, boards give out, receive and exchange information.
     The Weather Bank in Salt Lake City provides regional forecasts;
     Automobile Consumer Services in Cincinnati has the latest car prices.
     Dozens of boards are devoted to job, legal or tax information.  The
     Federal Whistleblower's BBS, run by the House Government Operations
     Committee, lets callers leave anonymous tips on abuse in government.

     Moat boards foster freedom of expression, though many have an
     ideological orientation.  Town Hall in New York encourages
     conservative debate.  The Greenpeace Environet in San Franciso covers
     peace and environmental issues.

     Then there is the Superdemocracy Foundation BBS in Davie, Fla.  In
     this election year, it has what seems like the perfect idea:  It wants
     to use electronic communications to filter out politicians as the
     middlemen between citizens and issues.

                                 Office Dialogue
                     Managers Can Reach Workers in Seconds

     Bulletin board software companies say that corporate sales now
     outnumber "hobby" sales three to one.  Some are used by industry trade
     groups, like the National Dairy Board in Arlington, Va. Its board is
     used by regional organizations for market research.

     Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois uses a bulletin board to
     collect and process Medicaid claims and then transfer them to the
     Government.  Doctors and other health-care providers can dial in to
     transmit their claims.  Many businesses use bulletin boards as 24-hour
     customer service llnes, where clients can get information, leave
     messages or place orders.

     But the biggest growth has been by private corporations that want to
     give their managers and employees more access to company information,
     policy messages, or even minutes of meetings.

     Nikon Precision Inc., a semiconductor equipment company in Belmont,
     Calif., uses a bulletin board to transfer data and information between
     corporate headquarters, 12 satellite offices and employees at home.

     "Purchases of group communications software is a huge trend," says
     Paul Johnson, Vice-President for Equity Research at the First Boston
     Corporation.