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By James E. Powell and Jim Forbes
First there was PointCast, the customized news and information Internet service. Instantly labeled as just what Internet fans had been waiting for-informative, customizable and free-PointCast has enjoyed success since its launch. And that has prompted other contenders to enter the arena. As they did with cable TV, special-interest "channels" are popping up all over the Web.
BackWeb Technologies, based in San Jose, Calif., is taking the idea a big step further. While PointCast users must work within its more limited menu, BackWeb's client/server software lets companies create their own Web- or intranet-based channels, each of which can be filtered by the free client software. Companies and their employees can "subscribe" to as many channels as they want. In essence, BackWeb lets you create your very own information service.
The company's client works in the background to download data, using idle browser time-typi-cally when you're reading what you've downloaded -rather than sharing bandwidth with a current task. Animated alerts or "flashes," tell you of new content.
Many are still waiting for the big guns. Microsoft may yet integrate the delivery of news and custom info right into Windows. Microsoft's demonstration of Internet Explorer 4.0 running under Windows 95 included a custom news delivery window.
And Netscape isn't quietly standing by. "You'll see a major metaphor shift within Navigator from pages to channels, similar to those used in PointCast," said Marc Andreessen, senior vice president of technology. Sources say the channel metaphor will arrive by year's end. Finally, the information doesn't have to come from the Net. For example, Cognisoft's IntelliServ retrieves it from internal and external sources; it arrives via customized intranet home pages, e-mail, pager or on-screen alerts.
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