Viewtron

Last updated
Viewtron
Viewtron main menu screen.jpg
Viewtron opening menu screen
Developer Knight-Ridder, AT&T
Type Videotex
Launch date1983;40 years ago (1983)
DiscontinuedMarch 31, 1986;37 years ago (March 31, 1986)
Platform(s) NAPLPS
StatusDiscontinued

Viewtron was an online service offered by Knight-Ridder and AT&T from 1983 to 1986. Patterned after the British Post Office's Prestel system, [1] it started as a videotex service requiring users to have a special terminal, the AT&T Sceptre. As home computers became important in the marketplace, the development focus shifted to IBM, Apple, Commodore and other personal computers. [2]

Contents

Viewtron differed from contemporary services like CompuServe and The Source by emphasizing news from The Miami Herald and Associated Press and e-commerce services from JCPenney and other merchants over computer-oriented services such as file downloads or online chat. Intended to be "the McDonald's of videotex," Viewtron was specifically targeted toward users who would be apprehensive about using a computer. [3]

Viewtron also offered airline schedules from the Official Airline Guide (OAG), real estate research from Century 21, e-cards from Hallmark, product information from Consumer Reports, educational software from Scott Foresman, online auctions, financial services from American Express and EF Hutton, as well as limited online banking services as part of a research program into the uses and costs of banking online that included 20 US and Canadian banks. [3]

At its height, Viewtron was operated in at least 15 cities by various newspaper companies. After six years of research and an investment reportedly in excess of $50 million, Viewtron never turned a profit, and, despite its developer's forecasts of breaking even in two years, Knight Ridder did not expect it ever would be profitable. AT&T had invested over $100 million in the project, but was forced to write off that investment as part of its court-ordered breakup. Viewtron closed on March 31, 1986, after an attempt by the Independent Commodore Users Group to buy the service failed. [4] [5]

A feature tying Viewtron to local newspapers was envisioned, with printed text instructing users how to access further information online, but it was never implemented. [6]

In 2008, PCWorld magazine named Viewtron to a list of the biggest project failures in information technology (IT) history. [7]

Technical details

Hosted on a fault-tolerant Tandem/16 minicomputer, Viewtron used the NAPLPS graphics language to provide a user interface that was graphically sophisticated by the standards of the time. According to Chip Bok, screens were crafted so as they loaded, elements would be drawn in sequence, "the way you would tell a story." [6] Unlike HTML, NAPLPS allowed screen elements that remained unchanged through different pages of a story to remain static, an important concern with the low bandwidth 300-2400 baud modems then in use.

Despite being initially restricted to the chiclet keyboard-equipped AT&T Sceptre terminal, Viewtron's developers foresaw that general purpose personal computers would soon become the preferred way to consume online content. The Viewtron software was written from the beginning to be easily portable, and the work was able to be completed within 24 hours after the decision to refocus on home computer development. [8]

Viewtron did not initially allow users to send private messages to each other, a conscious decision by Knight Ridder to exert editorial control. [9] Knight Ridder's vision for the service was offering products and services for users to consume, not in providing a medium for communication. [10] When interactive features were later added, Knight Ridder discouraged their use, fearing that users interacting directly with each other would lead to a "dystopia without newspapers." [11]

Service history

Known as "Bowsprit", Viewtron underwent a test period in 125 upper-income homes [12] in Coral Gables, Florida from 1980-1981, where it was determined that customers would pay up to $600 for the required terminal. [13] [14] The stability of the Southern Bell phone system that would carry the data was also a factor in the launch location. [15] The service went live in south Florida (Dade, Broward, Monroe, and Palm Beach counties) on October 30, 1983. [16] Viewtron expanded to include all of Florida in 1984 and to other U.S. cities by 1985. After Viewtron went national, its subscriber base quickly grew from 3,000 users to 20,000. [17] Despite its rapid growth, Viewtron soon learned that the majority of users dropped their subscriptions after six months, and the most used areas of the service among the remaining users were not Viewtron's news feeds, but the email and live chat. [18]

At the service's introduction, customers could buy the AT&T terminal but after May 1984 it was only offered for rental at $39.95 per month, which included a subscription to the service. Other customers paid $12 per month, plus a $1 hourly charge for access. After October 1985, Viewtron was carried nationally over the Tymnet, Telenet, and Uninet time sharing networks in the US, and by Datapac in Canada at a surcharge of 9 cents per minute on nights and weekends, and 22 cents per minute on weekdays. [19]

Demise

Shortly after Viewtron's launch, Vice President Reid Ashe circulated a memo noting slower than expected sales and infrequent usage patterns. The memo drew the conclusion that people saw the service as a "toy" and weren't integrating Viewtron into their daily news routine. A crossed out statement in the memo discussed the differences between the newspaper business and online information delivery, noting the latter's lower cost of entry, lower profit margins, and likely increased competition. The act of crossing out this statement has been taken as a sign of Knight Ridder's unwillingness to recognize the changes in the news business that new technology was bringing and called into question Knight Ridder's intentions for Viewtron. [20] [21]

On March 31, 1985 the group within Knight Ridder responsible for developing Viewtron wrote Knight Ridder's board of directors advocating a new direction, one that pursued business and personal computer applications. The memo recommended lowering the monthly price of the service, discontinuing the AT&T terminal to concentrate on home computer development, and conducting another review in six months. The memo pointed out that this direction was preferable because it would compete with the newspapers less than the existing service. [22]

Viewtron's downfall came when Knight Ridder discovered at the end of 1985 that, despite the bulk of its expenses going toward the service's news feeds, users were spending most of their online time using Viewtron's less-profitable email, message boards, and educational areas. [23]

Instead of effectively becoming an online service provider, Knight Ridder decided to concentrate on its core news business, [24] and Viewtron was discontinued on March 31, 1986. [25] According to Philip Meyer, director of News and Circulation Research for Knight Ridder at the time, "We made the mistake of thinking in newspaper analogies. Thus the central computer was like a printing press in our minds, and telephone wires were the delivery trucks... . As newspaper people, we were looking for a community-based natural monopoly, like a newspaper, but without the variable costs of paper, ink, and transportation." [6]

Reception

Ahoy! praised Viewtron in its November 1985 issue, citing e-commerce, chat, news, and games as strengths and adding that the service had "the best customer service department it has ever been my pleasure to call." [26]

Related Research Articles

NAPLPS is a graphics language for use originally with videotex and teletext services. NAPLPS was developed from the Telidon system developed in Canada, with a small number of additions from AT&T Corporation. The basics of NAPLPS were later used as the basis for several other microcomputer-based graphics systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telidon</span> Videotex/teletext service

Telidon was a videotex/teletext service developed by the Canadian Communications Research Centre (CRC) during the late 1970s and supported by commercial enterprises led by Infomart in the early 1980s. The CRC referred to Telidon as a "second generation" system, offering improved performance, 2D colour graphics, multilingual support and a number of different interactivity options supported on various hardware. With additional features added by AT&T Corporation, and 16 other contributors in North America and supported by the Federal Government, Telidon was redefined as a protocol and became the NAPLPS standard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Videotex</span> End-user information system

Videotex was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television or a dumb terminal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minitel</span> French videotex service

The Minitel was a videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and was the world's most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was invented in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes in Brittany, France.

An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider, a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup.

<i>The Mercury News</i> Daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, US, since 1851

The Mercury News is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiary of Digital First Media. As of March 2013, it was the fifth largest daily newspaper in the United States, with a daily circulation of 611,194. As of 2018, the paper has a circulation of 324,500 daily and 415,200 on Sundays. As of 2021, this further declined. The Bay Area News Group no longer reports its circulation, but rather "readership". For 2021, they reported a "readership" of 312,700 adults daily.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knight Ridder</span> American media company

Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brands sold. Its headquarters were located in San Jose, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bildschirmtext</span>

Bildschirmtext was an online videotex system launched in West Germany in 1983 by the Deutsche Bundespost, the (West) German postal service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prestel</span> British viewdata system

Prestel, the brand name for the UK Post Office Telecommunications's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979. It achieved a maximum of 90,000 subscribers in the UK and was eventually sold by BT in 1994.

StarText was an online ASCII-based computer service run by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Tandy Corporation and marketed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex newspaper circulation area from May 3, 1982 until March 3, 1997. Its name was derived from Star and Text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex (videotex service)</span>

Alex was the name of an interactive videotex information service offered by Bell Canada in market research from 1988 to 1990 and thence to the general public until 1994.

The Acorn Communicator is a discontinued business computer developed by Acorn Computers. Mentioned in the computing press in late 1984 as the C30, previewed in early 1985 with estimated pricing between £500 and £800, in late 1985 with a built-in LCD display, and subsequently unveiled in a slightly different form, the system sold in very low numbers to companies requiring a computer with a built-in modem.

Beltel was the name and trademark used by the South African Department of Posts and Telecommunications for its Videotex system between the mid eighties and 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Meyer</span>

Philip Meyer is professor emeritus and former holder of the Knight Chair in Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He researches in the areas of journalism quality, precision journalism, civic journalism, polling, the newspaper industry, and communications technology. Meyer was a Nieman Fellow in 1966–1967.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Aldrich</span>

Michael Aldrich was an English inventor, innovator and entrepreneur. In 1979 he invented online shopping to enable online transaction processing between consumers and businesses, or between one business and another, a technique known later as e-commerce. In 1980 he invented the Teleputer, a multi-purpose home infotainment centre that was a fusion of PC, TV and Telecom networking technologies. In 1981 he developed the concept of interactive broadband local loop cable TV for mass market consumer telecommunications.

The AT&T Sceptre was a graphical terminal launched by AT&T in October 1983, used for the two largest deployments of videotex in the United States: Knight Ridder's Viewtron service in Florida, and the Los Angeles Times' Gateway service in Southern California. The Sceptre was the basic bit of home kit needed for the services, to paint NAPLPS-standard geometrically-specified pages to the screen.

Started in 1983, Boston CitiNet was a local online service developed by Applied Videotex Systems, Inc. of Belmont, Massachusetts. The service allowed modem-equipped personal computer users to dial-in and access a range of information and messaging services including chat, forums, email and a variety of content. There were several other companies offering paid/subscription services as the time like The Source, CompuServe and Boston-based Delphi. Boston Citinet was unique since it was free to access and was supported by advertising. Messaging services such as email and chat required registration and a monthly fee of $9.95 - an early example of the now popular freemium business model.

Mutual shaping suggests that society and technology are not mutually exclusive to one another and, instead, influence and shape each other. This process is a combination of social determinism and technological determinism. The term mutual shaping was developed through science and technology studies (STS) in an attempt to explain the detailed process of technological design. Mutual shaping is argued to have a more comprehensive understanding of the development of new media because it considers technological and social change as directly affecting the other.

Zip2 was a company that provided and licensed online city guide software to newspapers. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California as Global Link Information Network in 1995, by Greg Kouri and brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk. Initially, Global Link provided local businesses with an Internet presence, but later began to assist newspapers in designing online city guides before being purchased by Compaq Computer in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Fidler</span> American journalist and designer (born 1943)

Roger Fidler is an internationally recognized digital news media pioneer and journalist. He is best known for his prototypes of digital newspapers and mobile tablets, which he first described in a 1981 essay he wrote and illustrated for an Associated Press Managing Editors special report titled Newspapers in the Year 2000. In 1994, he produced a video at the Knight Ridder Information Design Laboratory, titled “The Tablet Newspaper: A Vision for the Future,” that demonstrated how tablets might be used for reading newspapers early in the twenty-first century. After Steve Jobs launched the Apple iPad in 2010, a digital copy of his video went viral on the web and embroiled Fidler in a global patent war between Apple and Samsung.

References

  1. ↑ InfoWorld Sep 15, 1980. 15 September 1980.
  2. ↑ Finberg, Howard I. (2003-10-29). "Before the Web, There Was Viewtron". Poynteronline.com. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
  3. 1 2 "Script of The New Tech Times Program Number 113".
  4. ↑ "Viewtron". University of Florida Interactive Media Center. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
  5. ↑ Negotiations to buy Viewtron fail: Knight-Ridder shuts down service, InfoWorld , April 7, 1986, p. 16
  6. 1 2 3 "Viewtron Remembered Roundtable".
  7. ↑ Widman, Jake (October 9, 2008). "Lessons Learned: IT's Biggest Project Failures". PCWorld. Retrieved October 23, 2012.
  8. ↑ "Viewtron Remembered Roundtable". Because my staff had planned from day one that this was likely to happen, we needed about 24 hours to tweak our code to work in the new system. Not so with other departments. The "vision" wasn't very far out.
  9. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology". Like letters to the editor, people can enter frames for everyone else to read. There will be editorial control. We'll read the messages first and not let anything through we consider libelous or obscene
  10. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology". Discussion about users always centered on what was being offered for them to consume rather than what they might do with the technology to share information once it was in their possession
  11. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology". Bulletin board contributors were held at arm's length when they tried to converse. In the rare case where individuals' innovative uses were recorded, they were derided, and the picture of a dystopia without newspapers was painted.
  12. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology". It was always assumed early adopters would be welloff
  13. ↑ Floridians Experiment with Videotex Buying. 9 April 1984.
  14. ↑ "REPORT FROM CORAL GABLES: THE KNIGHT-RIDDER/AT&T VIEWTRON TEST".
  15. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology". The memo described the general stability of the Southern Bell phone network that would provide Viewtron data connection.
  16. ↑ "Viewtron".
  17. ↑ User Group Offers to Buy Viewtron. 31 March 1986.
  18. ↑ "Creating Community-Connection Experiences". People bought it. We delivered. They were satisfied. But they quit using it because they didn't really want it. It wasn't more news or more information that users wanted, it was communication—interaction not with a machine, but with each other.
  19. ↑ InfoWorld Oct 7, 1985. 7 October 1985.
  20. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology". A crossed out section of the memo reads: "Don't expect videotext to follow the newspaper model. It will probably become a much more competitive business, with much lower barriers to entry and exit." Recognizing the low barriers to entry and crossing that statement out of the memo suggests an unwillingness to recognize the shaping of the technology that was happening before VCA's eyes. This also speaks to the nature of the project itself as an experiment in a technology by a company who viewed that same technology as a threat. At times it seems as though KR was content to build a $50 million technological straw man just to watch it burn.
  21. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology". In fact, internal documents show a strong understanding of the challenges of providing a product that could potentially create its own market and an understanding of the new market emerging as people shaped the technology. It was not ignorance that led VCA to shut down; it was a fully conscious decision not to pursue the technology that, when fully developed would have low profit margins and low barriers to entry. Rather than continuing to develop online media, they chose to kill the project. They began to envision a world beyond proprietary electronic media. They did not like it, and KR got out after losing $50 million, which was, after all, the price of a midsized newspaper at the time...It often seems at though the project was an expensive exercise in proving that the newspaper was a superior information delivery format.
  22. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology".
  23. ↑ "Viewtron Remembered Roundtable". Viewtron was spending about 80 percent of its budget to create news, which generated less than 20 percent of the revenue. That's when KR executives decided that this was NOT a news medium and they wanted to continue to be a news company.
  24. ↑ "Viewtron Remembered Roundtable". The more closely we approached a viable service, the less it looked like a newspaper.
  25. ↑ "Denying Destiny: Viewtron and the refusal to recognize mutual shaping of technology".
  26. ↑ Behling, B. W. (November 1985). "Viewtron". Ahoy!. pp. 83–84. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.