Online service with a vision for Europe

Date: 11/07/1996

By Tim Jones

REGULATORS have less to worry about on competition in the information society than they think, says the head of Europe's flagship online service.

Europe Online's Chief Executive Officer Jürgen Becker believes market developments will soon make the fears of the European Commission and their counterparts in the US obsolete.

When online services were first created, the big publishers tried to use them as exclusive outlets for their material as a way of avoiding the loss of profits caused by shrinking book and journal sales. All that has changed.

“If you look at it from the point of view of content providers such as Pearson or Burda, they want to use every distribution channel they can get hold of,” says Becker. “They want to place their content with us, with America Online, with CompuServe or anyone else, simply to access as many people as possible. In the old days, exclusivity was the whole idea, but there is no room for exclusivity any more.”

'Proprietory' services, accessed via exclusive software, are becoming a thing of the past, he believes. Europe Online abandoned the idea last year and opted to launch itself directly on to the Internet - the world's largest non-commercial online network linking three million computers to 50,000 networks in more than 80 countries.

“We are the first Internet-based online service, so whatever we do is based on Internet standards. You can access Europe Online using any browser, any piece of software which allows Internet access. Then you just type in our address. No proprietory software is needed,” says Becker.

“A subscriber is subscribing to the service: a content and service package. We focus, structure and navigate so that the Internet is easy to use. The mass market is not very familiar with the Internet. It is unstructured and chaotic, and they need some guidance. We provide that guidance with our navigation tools.”

This is why services such as America Online (AOL) are so popular. Instead of getting lost in the Internet forest, users use their exclusive software and go straight into a service filled with news, sport, games, home shopping and banking.

“AOL argues that the customer could not care less; they just want a great online service which they have. But what will happen if all the research and development and programming migrates towards Internet standards and nobody really touches their software any more?” wonders Becker.

The pressure will come from the publishers, he believes.

“The content provider wants to be everywhere,” he says. “The problem for him is that if he wants to be on AOL, CompuServe, T-Online and Internet, then he needs four different programming languages.”

The only common programming language, hyper-text mark-up language (HTML), is used for the Internet and now for Europe Online.

“If the content providers do their homework and find out that the standard for online is HTML, then they will soon ask why they should use any other language. If they then go to America Online, they have to reprogramme, which is burdensome and cost-intensive.”

Other online services are joining the trend, says Becker. “I think this will happen in 12 to 24 months.”

Of course, this could simply be self-justification. Europe Online switched to an Internet service after a slow and difficult birth for the company. Formed two years ago by publishers Burda and Pearson, US telephone company AT&T, Meigher Communications and Luxembourg banks, the service went through a series of metamorphoses. Only this week, Burda withdrew its shareholding.

French publisher Matra-Hachette quit the consortium in May last year and talk that Germany's Springer would sign up came to nothing. Its plans to launch as a proprietory service failed due to technical problems and AT&T recommended going on to the Internet. It is still in its infancy, with just 30,000 customers and full, up-and-running services only in the UK and Germany.

Once all the services are in place, they will be provided in the national language with nationally geared content.

“The only thing which is common is the navigation, as well as the look and feel of the design,” says Becker. “This will support the common brand Europe Online.”

By the end of the year he hopes to have 200,000 customers. “We are growing enormously, around 50-60&percent; a month.”

“Our vision is that Europe Online should be the preferred point of reference for information, news and so on about Europe on the Internet. This is the clear distinction between us and America Online,” he says.

“While everybody thinks this old continent is turning into a United States of Europe, there are still very clear and distinct differences between the countries compared with the American point of view.”