Welcome to the StarNet Sneak Preview!

Important notice about the beta test!

StarNet will feature:

News and daily hotlinks from The Arizona Daily Star's reporters and editors
Live feed from the news wires, updated constantly
Access to the Star archives and, in a few weeks, special features that let you create personalized news
Full SLIP and PPP access to the Internet, at speeds up to 28,800 baud
An array of community and Internet resources, including all the standards: the World Wide Web, ftp, gopher, e-mail, Internet Relay Chat, the works.
Local discussion groups that will interest, entertain and likely change life in this community
Reasonable rates for individuals and families
An exciting vision of how commerce can work on the net by focusing on content rather than spamming
And much, much more....

Notice!

We are doing a great deal of work on our computers to prepare for public dial-up testing next week. StarNet might be up and down unexpectedly over the next three days as a result.

If you've already read the notice below and want to go right to StarNet, you can do so here.

Note: In order to optimize throughput on dial-up lines, we use inline JPEG images in the news sections. Thus to get the most out of StarNet you need to use the following browsers: Netscape Navigator from Netscape Communications, the upcoming version of NCSA's Mosaic browser or BookLink's Internetworks browser.

The Beta test signups are now closed. Thanks to all those who sent in requests. We will contact you over the next few days.

The StarNet vision

The goal of StarNet is to create a powerful mix of information and communication. At the same time we want to take some of the mystery out of using the Internet by adding News Links to the bottom of stories. This means that each day is a changing surf of the Internet, based on what's happening in the world.

In the following pages you'll find many of the stories have links to outside Internet resources. The hope is that by extending our "newsgathering" mission, we'll allow you to drill straight through the vastness of cyberspace to find information that will enlighten, stimulate and amuse. At the moment, only few dozen of the daily stories have these links while we're on our shakedown cruise. By by the end of the week, expect to find almost all stories in the paper with a News Link attached.

Access to the full wire feed -- for paying subscribers -- puts thousands of stories that never appear in the printed newspaper at your fingertips. In a few weeks, you'll be able to use full text searching tools to cull the wire. Shortly after that, we'll introduce an exciting method of having both our local feed and the news wires searched automatically for you. The stories that meet your criteria -- based on keywords you select -- will be set aside and ready for you the next time you log in. This way you'll never miss stories that matter to you.

We're under construction, so keep checking back

The purpose of this Sneak Preview is to allow you to sample what's coming. But keep in mind that this is a work in progress. Certain areas have been disabled altogether for the moment. Others will come to life over the coming weeks. In particular, we have a remarkable set of community resources that we'll be bringing on line over the next few weeks. Some regular features of the newspaper aren't up now. Some will arrive in radically altered form. The point of StarNet is not to mimic the printed paper, but to become a new presence in its own right.

Please bear with us as you come along for the ride. Understand that no other newspaper in the country is attempting what we're doing here. While there are other papers on the web, most simply use it as another means of distribution. What we're after is changing nature of online newspapers by building those daily links, by allowing you to customize the news to fit your needs, by stressing a new dynamic form for communication and by... well... let's leave it at that for the moment because we have a few other tricks up our sleeves.

Suffice to say this: when Walter Bender, head of the MIT's Media Lab News in the Future program was briefed on StarNet he christened it the most advanced approach to electronic publishing tried to date. StarNet goes way past the web, as you'll see in the coming weeks and months.

Distributing publishing power in the community

Part of the StarNet initiative is to allow members of the community to "publish" in this medium. We'll have a number of dedicated newsgroups. This means if you don't like a movie review in the paper, you can post your own to the movie group. Whether it's community networking, or complaining about the Star itself, you'll find the forum here for the free exchange of ideas.

More, we're offering free web pages to all non-profit groups with a budget of less that $1 million. Our hope is we can use this medium to permit organizations new ways of reaching the public. In addition to a web presence, we'll also set up free newsgroups for outfits like clubs and neighborhood associations that want to keep in touch with each other and the public. For more information about this program, please e-mail StarNet's daddy, Robert S. Cauthorn (cauthorn@azstarnet.com) or StarNet's editor Walt Nett (wnett@azstarnet.com).

A new vision of commerce on the net

You won't find the commercial areas of the StarNet active at the moment. That's because we're designing a powerful new vision of how commerce might work on the net that will debut in the coming months. All content, no spamming. Whether you want to buy a house or a houseboat, we'll have a new way to find the information, and merchants, that will be most valuable to you.

So what happens when the sneak preview is over?

Good question. We decided to open ourselves up to the web while we are working out the kinks. However, in a few weeks when the beta period for dial up access is over, we'll shut down pieces of StarNet to non-subscribers. The daily news, the wires, access to our archives, the discussion groups will all be for subscribers only.

Commercial content, including our classified ads will continue to be available to all visitors. However, in order to be good net.citizens, we'll also have large pieces of our community resources areas available to the net as a whole. So even if you don't subscribe, there will still be plenty of good things to find on StarNet.

But, why not spare yourself the anguish and just get on the pre-subscriber list?

Absolutely. If you like what you see, if you want SLIP and PPP access to the Internet, you can pre-subscribe by sending e-mail to members@azstarnet.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. In the body of the message, please include your full name, address and a daytime telephone number. Our customer service department will contact you when StarNet goes live for dial-in.

Also please include the user name -- up to seven characters -- you'd like on the system. That's one of the advantages of pre-subscribing: You stand a better chance of getting just the user name you want. Tell the truth, haven't you always dreamed of being known as elvis@azstarnet.com?

Because all user names on a system must be unique, they'll be given out on a first come, first serve basis.

The rate schedule for individual StarNet subscibers is now available. But the basic rate for an individual, non-commercial SLIP or PPP account paid by credit card is $20 a month. There are no hourly usage fees and no time limits. The only catch is this. Because we're committed to affordable Internet access without the meter running, we are vulnerable to people logging in and never logging out. For this reason, people who routinely connect for more than 3-hours straight will be assumed to be commercial accounts. In other words, if you hang up every couple of hours -- it's hard, we know, this stuff can be addictive -- you'll never have to worry about usage fees.

Commercial accounts and high speed connections up to T-1 are also available. More information will be posted posted soon.

Oh, and one last thing. Subscribers who come over from existing commericial Internet providers won't have to pay our $25 start-up fee.

We will soon have pricing available for subscribers who choose not to sign up for our SLIP and PPP service and prefer to continue with their existing online service. Specifically, people from commercial providers such as Prodigy have asked for this. Those prices will be posted soon.