First reaction: CD ROM, great! Online, hey that's super!
Second reaction: Wait a minute, I thought CD ROM was an electronic publishing medium to replace online. What's this all about?
The fact is, online communications serve as an effective delivery medium for information about any number of subjects. And CD ROM is a new product category to many consumers who need as many effective ways as possible to get information about drives, about new titles, about the whole industry.
As most publishers are discovering, no medium is a panacea. Paper will always be useful for certain kinds of publications. CD ROM has a great deal of flexibility in the way it can deliver everything from textual databases to full-blown multimedia productions. Online telecommunications retain their main positive attribute of immediacy and personal contact for information distribution.
Now we come full circle and bring the three media together for mutual benefit and support. If you have been looking for the ultimate resource on CD ROM and multimedia, give it up! But if, since you already regularly use CD ROM, you want to get as close as possible to the people who are actually making the industry happen, and want to see how each medium works its magic to transfer information to you in the form and time frame you require it, get online!
Both CompuServe and AppleLink provide communications services for the broad spectrum of individuals and companies interested in exploiting and using new optical publishing technology.
If you have access to CompuServe, and an interest in CD ROM, check into the CD ROM Forum.
Get to the CD ROM Forum by typing GO CD ROM (sounds rather like a football cheer, doesn't it?) and you will connect with hundreds of similarly interested consumers, as well as current publishers, technology and service vendors, distributors and sales outlets, and more.
Message sections cover every conceivable aspect of the business. Consumers seeking new products, seeking help on installing equipment and software, making connections with distributors through the Marketplace. Conversations range from the marketing theory behind CD-I, to discussions of good products and not-so-good products. Vendors provide support, advice and expertise on their products directly to the consumers who need the information.
Library sections contain files that you can use to be a more efficient customer or producer. Recent new files include a list of CD-I titles, a list of CD ROM drives compatible with Kodak's Photo-CD, a bibliography of nearly 100 book and newsletter/journal titles related to the CD ROM business, a list of 70 vendors/distributors of titles and CD ROM hardware, and much more.
And Nautilus support is also available.
In addition, you'll find a folder marked OPA (for the Optical Publishing Association) which will contain much of the same information -- in the form of resource directories and other lists -- provided by OPA on the CompuServe CD ROM Forum.
A new bulletin board opened on November 17 on AppleLink. It is the "Multimedia in the News" board under the Worldwide Multimedia icon. There you will find a variety of folders from well-known publications like New Media, Seybold's Digital Media, and Multimedia and Videodisc Monitor.
(The CompuServe CD ROM Forum is a service operated by METATEC/Discovery Systems and the Optical Publishing Association. The OPA section of "Multimedia in the News" on AppleLink is a program of the Optical Publishing Association.)
