Launch addresses  "cannibalization" - Privacy, and Credit Card Security

SIOUX CITY, Iowa, Dec. 5, 2000 - The Sioux City Journal, putting a price tag on some parts of its website, has launched a program designed to test the willingness of print subscribers to pay for additional or enhanced content. Setting this program apart from other sites, Journal subscribers will purchase globally from a single local account, while their privacy remains protected and their credit-card numbers are kept off the Internet.

The newspaper believes the pilot will allow it to emerge as a multimedia, multi-site content resource to its readers, and avoid losing print subscribers to its free web service.

As of today, the Journal is using customer exchange technology provided by Clickshare Service Corp., of Williamstown, Mass. The exchange allows consumers to have one account at the Sioux City daily newspaper, yet anonymously purchase music, text, videos, software at other websites without having to repeatedly pass around a credit-card number, fill out forms or give up personal information.

"We've been waiting for a way to extend the local service we provide our print readers, without losing control of the customer relationship," said Ron Peterson, Journal publisher. "Clickshare allows us to become our readers' info-mediary in cyberspace as well as on Main Street, protecting their privacy and their credit card numbers. We're proud and excited to be the first online publisher to offer Clickshare membership to our subscribers at no additional charge, as part of their paid print subscription. In this launch, we have Clickshare-enabled our Gateway Computer story archives. In the months ahead, we hope to extend this subscriber-only, Clickshare-protected content."

The Gateway Computer Resource Center archives are at http://www.siouxlandbusinessjournal.com/.

Among contributors of content to the pilot is Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News (KRT). Current KRT stories from more than 100 daily newspapers will be available to Sioux City subscribers priced at $2.95 per article, said Robert L. Harris, director of the news service.

Clickshare President Nell Fields said, "It's ironic that one of the country's longest-standing traditional industries, newspaper publishing, is leading the way towards a 21st century business: Internet sales of enhanced content, as well as selling articles a-la-carte to non-subscribers. We are delighted to be working closely with such forward-thinking organizations as the Sioux City Journal and Knight Ridder/Tribune."

Under the system, 30,000 of The Journal's 48,000 Sioux City subscribers are eligible to register at the newspaper's website, and provide credit-card information a single time across a secure link. The user's name is verified against print-subscriber records using software developed by Clickshare and Advanced Publishing Technology Inc., of Burbank, Calif.

As a result, Sioux City subscribers can read local premium content as part of their print subscription and purchase national Knight Ridder/Tribune articles. At the same time, Clickshare consumers from elsewhere can access and read Sioux City articles for 50 cents, in addition to the KRT stories, which sell for $2.95.

"It's a wonderful experience for the subscriber. Now they have the benefit of delving deeper into research where the possibilities are endless," says Karla Merrick, new-media manager at The Journal.  "Our subscribers will benefit greatly by having the opportunity to search in these special areas we are developing. They will also have the advantage of being able to explore a wide range of information from many other 'Clickshare-enabled' resources. This allows our subscribers to embark on an educational yet enjoyable adventure."

Fields said that Clickshare brings to the Internet a form of clearinghouse that is typical of traditional transactions. "It's become trite to say that the Internet changes everything, but nowhere is that statement more true than in the commerce for digital goods."

Clickshare is establishing an exchange concept for digital content, analogous to exchanges that serve other focused communities ranging from stocks to auto parts. Such exchanges, Fields said, can have benefits to both sellers and buyers of digital content. Far beyond enabling the purchase of individual articles or enhanced content, she explained, customers can use the exchange to purchase digital content from other businesses, including books, audio, video, even movies. "Using Clickshare keeps the local publisher in total control of the registered membership/subscriber relationship, yet will eventually provide local customers anonymous, secure access to a world of content and commerce from a single account."

Fields said Clickshare picked the Sioux City daily newspaper as its first pilot for two reasons. First, the paper's parent, Hagadone Corp. of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, was agile enough to move quickly. Second, The Journal was launching a new publication, Siouxland Business Journal, which would be developing content the company did not want to make available for free.

With the Sioux City site operational, Clickshare is accelerating discussions with larger content sites and web-customer aggregators such as portals, ISPs, wireless providers and e-retailers, especially in the music field.

"We're a win-win for websites whose primary asset is the customer, and also for websites whose primary asset is content, because sites with customers like banks, phone companies or major publishers can make money when their users click elsewhere," said Fields. "And ultimately the consumer wins because they get one ID and one password that they can easily use at any Clickshare-enabled website."

ABOUT CLICKSHARE

The Clickshare Service is a customer exchange platform for privacy-protected purchasing of text, music, video, software and potentially - physical goods. It allows a consumer to have one account at a most-trusted website and buy from other websites without having to pass around a credit-card number, register or give out personal information.

Based in Williamstown, Mass., Clickshare is backed by Sawgrass Seacoast Investments Inc. and private investors, including the founder/chairman and former COO of PeopleSoft Inc., former executives of Knight-Ridder, Times-Mirror Co., Harris Corp. and The Reader alternative-weekly group. It has raised over $2 million in seed capital.

Clickshare licenses its technology free to content- and user-owning websites, much as credit cards work through banks and merchants, making money by taking a small cut of each sale that it brokers. It will point consumers to "home bases" where they can
establish their single Clickshare-enabled buying account. To demonstrate the service, Clickshare has set up its own temporary "home base" service at http://home.clickshare.com.

Clickshare is not being marketed directly to consumers but rather to publishers and other content owners and to companies that want to offer a new service to their existing customers.  These include banks, phone and wireless carriers, portals and other e-commerce websites.

For more information contact: Rob Kritzer, rkritzer@siouxcityjournal.com Sioux City Journal, 712-293-4329