ONE-BILL, UNIVERSAL-PASSWORD ACCESS TO INTERNET INFORMATION 
AVAILABLE BY SUBSCRIPTION OR "BY CLICK" EARLY NEXT YEAR 
VIA NEWSHARE CORP.'S "CLICKSHARE" PUBLISHING SYSTEM; 
ADVERTISERS CAN TRACK SYSTEMWIDE VISITS BY ANONYMOUS USER;
PARENT CONTROL OPTION ENABLED BY PUBLISHERS/USERS
 
     WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Sept. 15 -- Internet users will 
be able early next year to purchase information "by the page" 
from a wide selection of independent publishers with one-bill, 
one-password simplicity under a system announced Friday by 
Newshare Corp. 
 
     The system, called Clickshare(sm), requires no special 
consumer software and runs on a publisher's Internet 
server. It handles third-party usage tracking sought by
advertisers, without violating user privacy. It allows
users to invoke automatic "parental control" and does not transmit 
credit-card information across the Internet.

    "Much of the publishing world has held back from participating
in the Internet because it lacked a way to charge for information 
and a way to verify viewership to advertisers," said Bill Densmore, 
Newshare Corp. president and cofounder. "Clickshare(sm) presents a 
solution to both problems."

    "Clickshare(sm) addresses the issue of how to obtain revenue from
per-query access to content or databases," said Bill Densmore, president
and co-founder of Newshare Corp.  (http://www.newshare.com) "We think this
is breakthrough technology. It combines the convenience of an online
service with the openness of the Internet." 

Benefits to publishers, advertisers, users

    Clickshare(sm) provides benefits to publishers, advertisers and 
users, said Densmore. It allows independent publishers to maintain
content on their own computer systems, yet exchange per-query 
activity among their respective subscribers in a way not possible
through proprietary online services. "If a publisher puts their
information on a proprietary online service, they effectively 
wall themselves off from millions of World Wide Web users," said 
Densmore. "This Hobson's Choice is not required with Clickshare(sm)."

    At the same time, Clickshare(sm) accumulates by anonymous but
unique ID the Web-surfing activities of individual users, 
throughout the Clickshare(sm) system, allowing advertisers and 
publishers to demographic reports of what users are reading.
 
    "And users can have a single billing relationship with a
publisher or Internet service provider yet surf the net 
freely, purchasing words, sounds or pictures from any Clickshare(sm)
-enabled site without having to constantly reregister or recall
multiple passwords," Densmore said.

Beta members sought

   Clickshare(sm) will begin alpha testing after Sept. 29 and is 
accepting applications from publishers and ISPs for beta testing 
commencing in late fall. Selected partners will be able to 
evaluate the system at no charge for three months and 
receive a 50 percent discount on their first-year member fees.
 
    The beta group will initially use Clickshare(sm) to register 
users, validate them during each Internet "session" and track their 
usage patterns for advertising and demographic purposes, the 
company said. Actual transaction processing for "by the page" charges
to users, royalties to publishers and commissions to referring 
sites won't begin until early 1996, the company said.
 
   "While the system as introduced at beta will be capable of
handling payment transactions, we want to give it a workout
before doing so," said David M.  Oliver, managing director/
technology for Newshare, and the principal architect of the 
Clickshare(sm) service.  

   The Clickshare(sm) server software will be available publicly
under license at no charge for handling single-site registration
authentication and validation of users. Use of the multi-site, 
third-party  tracking and transaction-processing features will 
require a Clickshare(sm) publishing membership priced tentatively
at $795 per publisher plus $1.00 per year, per user enabled, up to 
10,000 users. The per-user fees scale down as a site's number of 
subscribers increases and as transaction volume grows.

    Consumers enter the Clickshare(sm) universe by registering with a 
single, independent publisher (or more if the user desires multiple 
account relationships). Any publisher with the system might then sell a 
hypertext "page" of information in response to a user's click for a price 
of 10 cents or less. A range of higher charges are fully supported, as 
well, if desired by the publisher. The Clickshare(sm) system will then 
charge the home-base publisher of the remote user the 10 cents and will
distribute a portion as a royalty to the selling publisher, a
portion as a commission to the referring publisher and will retain
a portion as a transaction fee.

    "Some Internet users say information wants to be free," says Densmore. 
"But that does not mean all information has no value. At Newshare Corp.,
we believe journalism adds value to raw information and we're 
creating a free market for that process -- a digital information exchange."

How Clickshare(sm) works for users

   How does Clickshare(sm) work for the consumer? 

   Imagine returning to a day when making a long-distance 
telephone call required that you talk to an operator. Or 
suppose each time you wanted to chat with an aunt in 
Popperville you had to give credit-card information to three 
different phone companies to handle your call. 
 
   Right now, that's the way things work on the Internet if you
want to buy information. At each publishing site, you must
give your credit card to subscribe.

   Clickshare(SM) users can avoid such inconvenience, 
with a one-bill, one-standard system for the purchase 
and sale of information electronically which protects privacy 
and copyright. A subscriber to one Internet publisher's service
can "click" on a link to a completely different information
resource and seamlessly purchase information without registering
at the new location. Clickshare(sm) charges the purchase to his
home-base subscription.
   
   "It is truely the first step in creating a worldwide information
exchange," said Densmore "Our system introduces the concept of a user
session to the World Wide Web, permitting one-time validation during a
session and a single credit- or debit-card relationship to serve as a
gateway to potentially thousands of independent sources of news and
information, timely or archival," said Densmore. 
 
No credit-card transmission

    The Clickshare(sm) system does not transmit credit information across
the Internet. This information is stored securely by individual publishers
who use the service and who are the only entities who know the actual name
and address of an information purchaser. Instead, Clickshare(sm) employs
only alphanumeric user and home-base IDs. Charges are aggregated
and applied monthly to a credit-card via a non-Internet facility. 

   "Clickshare(sm) is also designed to provide information about user 
preferences -- including parental-control requests -- to all
information providers so that these preferences and interests
can be respected and used to personalize information delivery," 
said Densmore.
 
 "Clickshare(SM) is not just for large publishers. It is also 
ideal for free-lance writers and other small content providers
to sell their work direct-to-users via the emerging concept of a
so-called digital syndicate," said Densmore.
 
Key points about Clickshare(sm)
 
   1. USER CONVENIENCE -- The user maintains one account 
relationship and must only remember one password yet has 
unimpeded access to a universe of information from Clickshare-
enabled publishers -- whether free, by subscription or charged 
by the page.
 
   2. PUBLISHER INDEPENDENCE -- Independent 
information providers each maintain their own base of 
customers/subscribers and physical control of their copyrighted 
information. This makes updating, pricing, user tracking and 
personalization simple and locally based. 
 
   3. ADVERTISING VALIDATION -- The Clickshare(sm) system 
collects records of visits by specific users to all Clickshare-enabled 
information, whether print, audio or visual and can provide 
this sorted, aggregated information to advertisers as a form of third-
party validation of publisher viewership claims. However, advertisers
may only obtain the actual names of Clickshare(sm) users from
and only then with the individual user's consent.
 
   4. PERSONAL PRIVACY -- Sensitive name, address and credit 
information is stored at the user's home-base publisher only.
This information never traverses the Internet during information-
browsing sessions. The Clickshare(sm) system knows users only by 
their "home" Publishing Member and a randomly-generated user ID 
number. There is no central database of user names and only the 
user's home-base publisher can associate a name with a user ID.
 
   5. NO SPECIAL SOFTWARE -- Standard web-browser software from any
of several vendors is all a user needs to enroll at a Clickshare(sm)-
enabled Web publishing site. And Clickshare(sm) works within 
official standards, thus imposing no proprietary modifications 
to the Internet environment.

   "Our aim is for Clickshare(sm) to be completely open at the
publisher and user level and to even consider licensing its 
application at the system level to several different transaction 
processors," said Densmore.

   Newshare Corp., privately held, was founded in September 1994 by
Densmore, a veteran wire-service journalist and publisher; Oliver,
technical director of a University of Massachusetts-Amherst research
laboratory; and Bernard Re Jr., a print marketing expert. Clickshare(sm)
is its first product. The words Clickshare(sm) and Newshare(sm) are
U.S.-registered servicemarks of Newshare Corp. 

   For more information about Clickshare(sm) and Newshare Corp., view 
the company's World Wide Web home page at: http://www.newshare.com
or send E-mail to info@newshare.com. The company's headquarters are at: 
One Bank St., Williamstown, MA 01267. 

                           ------------

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: Bill Densmore or Lynn Duncan of Newshare 
Corp., at (413) 458-8001  (nights: (413) 458-8667)


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From rballard@cnj.digex.net Tue Sep 26 02:58:52 1995
Status: O
X-Status: