Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 22:48:00 -0400 (EDT)
I don't know if anyone caught the announcement excerpted below from PR
Newswire, but it looks like an effort to dictate a new standard.
Essentially, Individual, Inc. designed a format and invited up to 15 or so
other organizations to join them in declaring it a "standard."
I'd be interested in what other providers and recipients of information
think of this.
^bc-MA-Individual-Inc.< TO BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY EDITORS:
FOUNDING OCPS COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND INDIVIDUAL, INC. INVITE IN-
DUSTRY TO JOIN COMMITTEE TO DEFINE OPEN STANDARD FOR ELECTRONIC
CONTENT PUBLISHERS
New Standard Will Pave the Way for the Creation of a
Cyber Market for Knowledge
BURLINGTON, Mass., May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Individual, Inc.
and a group of leading publishers, distributors and technology
vendors announced today the formation of an open committee for
defining a universal format based on existing industry standards
used to deliver electronic information. The committee believes
the new standard, called the Open Content Publisher Standard
(OCPS), will make information more affordable and accessible to
users of a broad variety of electronic services. The committee
being formed includes 14 founding members: Business Wire, CMP
Publications, COMTEX, Cowles Business Media/SIMBA Information,
Folio Corp., **Gartner Group**, Individual, Inc., International
Data Group's (IDG) Reality Factory, Jupiter Communications Com-
pany, Los Angeles Times, Netscape Communications Corp., Phillips
Business Information, PR Newswire, and Ziff-Davis Interactive.
The founders invite representatives from other content publish-
ers, distributors and technology companies to join the OCPS com-
mittee to fill the remaining up to four vacancies.
Encompassing not only text, but also multimedia graphics and
sound, video, conceptual hypermedia links, multimedia advertis-
ing, universal resource locating and more, the OCPS is currently
being defined. It will be released royalty-free into the public
domain within 90 days of the initial organizational committee
meeting.
OCPS committee members believe the work currently required to
build bridges between content providers and consumers is prohibi-
tive. As a result, knowledge workers are prevented from full ac-
cess to relevant information in cyberspace. Through OCPS, one
common format will enable publishers to quickly host their con-
tent on numerous distribution channels. It will also open new
revenue opportunities and increase brand exposure through flexi-
ble pricing and relevance-based advertising opportunities. Mul-
timedia advertisements may include pointers to the advertiser's
home site where prospects can receive additional information and
transact business thus shortening the cycle time from customer
awareness to purchase.
- comments from founding members -
The OCPS Advantage
One clear advantage offered by OCPS is flexibility. Based on
existing standards such as standard generalized markup language
(SGML) and hypertext markup language (HTML), OCPS opens up new
multimedia publishing opportunities. This includes interactive
"relevance-based" advertising where a publisher can "attach" ad-
vertising to each content element. This advertising can be mul-
timedia in nature pointing users to the advertiser site for on-
line transactions thus shortening the cycle from awareness to
purchase. Concept-based hyperlinks are also supported which con-
nect various parts of a publication together or to content pro-
vided by other publishers. In addition, publishers will be able
to control the look and feel of their services, as well as set
the pricing of intellectual property.
Electronic distributors of information will also realize a
cost savings from receiving content in a single format. As a
result of OCPS, distributors will be able to add content more
easily to their services and increase the accessibility of the
information consumers need.
Technology companies pursuing the **e-mail** and groupware
markets stand to benefit as well. OCPS will bring a wealth of
new content quickly to these platforms, potentially serving to
increase market size overall.
The OCPS committee is looking for feedback from interested
parties. For more information write to ocps@individual.com or
call Ted Eveleth at 617-273-6000 X325.
- About The Founders
-0- 5/10/95
/CONTACT: Ted Eveleth of Individual, Inc., 617-273-6000,
ext. 325, or Beth Winkowski of WTM, Inc., 617-337-3633/
CO: Individual, Inc. ST: Massachusetts IN: CPR SU:
DP-JL -- NE020 -- 7580 05-10-95 17:54 EDT
=======================================================================
Mark Berns Product Development Director The Associated Press
Phone: 212-621-7808 Fax: 212-621-1512
=======================================================================
From rballard@cnj.digex.net Tue May 16 01:15:21 1995