The 1/10/94 New Yorker has an interesting email interview with Bill Gates ([email protected]). [[email protected], 1/6/94.] (Reporters on CARR-L expressed interest in interviewing via the net. One warned about forged identities, though.)

The Los Angeles Times will be posting Tom Petruno's thrice- weekly Market Beat investment column to the net, as an experiment. Send a "SUBSCRIBE" subject line to [email protected], or send comments to that address or to Dan Akst ([email protected]). [sci.econ, 1/19/94. Chuck Morefield.]

Bill Drew has assembled gopher links to over 240 electronic journals, excluding "sexually exploitive literature" such as BLOO-BALLS. Point your gopher to snymorva.cs.snymor.edu port 70, "Electronic Journals". [[email protected], PACS-L, 11/12/93.] For an even larger list of electronic serials, try gopher.cic.net, port 70. [Billy Barron ([email protected]).]

Steve Yelvington says that the Star Tribune tried a fax service to provide news summaries to business people. It lost money, mainly because it was labor intensive (for summarization and layout), lacked detail, and competed with radio news. "It's one thing to filter and organize, and another to choke off the flow. ... Offering a *subset* of the printed newspaper is a waste of effort." A new Star Tribune service offers fax retrieval of specific data: corporate quarterly reports, real estate transactions, court sentencings, etc., often in more detail than the newspaper could carry. This public service requires only one clerk and is much more profitable. [[email protected], CARR-L, 1/5/94.]

The Miami Herald runs a FactLine service charging $5 for simple requests and $30/hour for complicated searches and reports. 3-4 staff members are involved, and the service is apparently making money. [Steve Doig ([email protected]), CARR-L, 1/13/94.]

Public access to reporters can be popular, but publishers don't want reporters discussing unpublished information. There can be solid legal reasons for editing out part of a story. Random email also takes away from reporting. The same is true of phone calls, but most newspaper offices have ways to screen calls. Incidentally, book authors also have these problems. Daniel P. Dern ([email protected]) says that Cliff Stoll got over 15,000 messages about his "Cuckoo's Egg." [CARR-L, 1/12/94.]

"Exploring the World of Online Services" (Sybex, 1993) is a how-to guide for small business owners and professionals. It's by business writer Rosalind Resnick, who is setting up a company to help publishers go online. Contact her for market research, contract negotiations, online editorial development, bulletin board management, and journalistic and technical training. Interactive Communications ([email protected]), Hollywood, FL; (305) 920-5326. [CARR-L, 1/2/94.] (I'm not implying any endorsement, of course.)