In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII



On Fri, 14 Apr 1995 meyer@newslink.org wrote:

> 
> >Folks,
> >
> >My (potentially heretical) take on this is that an advertiser funded
> >on-line yellow pages system (which is what Yahoo is) is not likely
> >to fly for long. Intelligent agents, information filters, location
> >independent server addressing schemes such as URI/URN and such
> >technologies will enable people to navigate the net infinitely more
> >easily than they can now. When that happens, not many would use
> >directory/locator services interspersed with ads.
There are already many "index" technologies including X.500, WAIS,
DNS, NIS, archie, veronica, and many others.
The classic problem is that it is very difficult to come up with any type 
of service which is both current and expedient.  An archie search can now 
take up to 2 hours.  A WAIS search of multiple databases can take 2 minutes.
Even a simple whois can take 20 seconds.

A trivial task like indexing usenet news now requires 120 megabytes/day.
An indexed database of this will fill a CD-ROM every day.  Add to this 
the pages added to the web every day, the news feeds, edgar filings, SEC 
filings, IRS Filings, Census Filings...  There is about enough 
information to fill 1 CD-ROM for each person in the U.S.

> >A precedent for this is the way telephone operators' role was significantly
> >reduced when direct dialling became easy and affordable.

Directory Assistance is still very expensive and labor intensive.  Even 
with computerized voice response, it takes 18 seconds (average) to handle 
each call.  At 65,000 calls per/hour the quarters add up.

> Bad analogy but good point. However, what do you think a place like
> Yahoo will become if not an agent/filter site? Note, by the way, that
> it now costs 75 cents or something like that to make what used to be
> a free long-distance directory assistance call.

It's about 50 cents.  Cost to process is 25 cents.

A good rule of thumb is that you can make 100% profit on a per/call 
basis.  If you spending $4000/month (typical for index sites) you want to 
generate at least 400,000 hits/month to keep costs below 2 cents/hit.
That is about 600 hits/hour or 10 hits/minute.  Be prepared to support 30 
hits/minute peak time.

The typical web user should net about 3 hits/minute.  You would need 
about 2000 "subscribers" to get that hit rate.

A Linux machine over a local PPP link runs about $200/month.
200 subscribers would pay the rent.

 > ERIC K. MEYER                    meyer@newslink.org 

	Rex Ballard.

From rballard@cnj.digex.net Mon Apr 24 21:00:18 1995
Status: O
X-Status: