By Mary Eisenhart

Chaos, The Next Generation

Jerry Pournelle Experiments With Member-Supported Web Sites

Last spring the industry at large was startled by the news that BYTE, the grandaddy of computer magazines, was shutting down. The news was quickly amended by an announcement by new owner CMP that a new, reinvented BYTE would emerge in the fall. Meanwhile, however, the entire staff was pink-slipped, the offices closed, and much uproar generated.

Few were more startled than long-time columnist Jerry Pournelle, whose Chaos Manor had been a BYTE mainstay for most of the magazine's life. Returning in May from a two-week trip to Israel, he discovered BYTE shuttered and his email box full of digital howls of outrage from his readers.

Pournelle put up a Web site (www.jerrypournelle.com/fiasco.html) to answer the ongoing questions, muse about what came next, and, eventually, detail the restoration of good relations between himself and CMP.

Meanwhile, about 1,000 readers had offered to send ten bucks apiece if it would induce him to keep the site going. While this outpouring of support didn't trigger serious get-rich-quick plans on the part of the veteran technology and science fiction author, it did suggest interesting possibilities. "If every one of them actually sent money, it would be a start," wrote Pournelle. "Not a fabulous start, but at least enough to pay the expenses of getting this thing going."

Jerrypournelle.com

The site (www.jerrypournelle.com/default.htm), clearly marked Under Construction, is a mixed bag, containing (in addition to what he calls the BYTE Fiasco) plugs for his latest science fiction book Starswarm, tech musings, travel photos, info about wife Roberta's reading program, reader mail, etc.

Says Pournelle: "My column was always eclectic--the only game coverage in BYTE, for instance. And books on history and politics and simulations and--well, you get the idea.

"The site is what I feel like now. If there were money in it I would focus more. The Chaos Manor column was not as easy as I made it look--it took work, both in writing and in fooling around with computers.

"My column, though read by the hard core computer people who really understand this stuff, wasn't pitched so much to them as to the reader at a level below that. But I had to be pretty well right, or I'd get it from the people who did know."

Since his career in science fiction ran along more or less in parallel with the BYTE column, it's natural to inquire about the size of the audience overlap, and the possible attractiveness to advertisers of such a demographic. At this point, Pournelle has no detailed knowledge. As historical info, he offers: "BYTE had a million readers a month at one time. Larry Niven and I have sold six million copies of Lucifer's Hammer. How many were overlap I can't say.

"People who can afford computers can afford books, and vice versa. BYTE readers liked computers. BYTE's problem was convincing the ad agencies; and since we were only one book whereas Ziff and CMP had a big spread of them, we couldn't be the Big Cheese at COMDEX after about 1987 or so. McGraw Hill never gave us enough money to promote the magazine. We were a good little cash cow, and we were milked pretty dry, I am afraid. But it was a great run while it lasted."

As far as the site's future content, he says: "I will definitely do games for the fun of it. And I will probably continue doing software reviews for the influence. I started in this in part to drive the field where I want it to go, and I see no reason not to continue with that.

"I do get a lot of hits on the site. Astonishing numbers considering that we have not advertised. We just put it up."

While the jury's still out on the site's ad-magnet potential, the financial response of readers so far has been gratifying, though Pournelle candidly admits he knows of no existence proof for a reader-supported site actually working. Some years ago in the early days of Web fever, he and John Dvorak launched a site called Discontinuity.com on EarthLink, based on the expectations that micropayment-enabling technology was imminent. It wasn't, and while the two still own the domain name, the site itself is cryonically suspended until the advent of enabling technology. Similarly, The Strategy of Technology, a shareware text book Pournelle's offered on his site since last year, has so far earned about fifty bucks.

Frankly, he says, "I don't think the reader-supported concept will work. In my case I have been donated a bit more than a thousand bucks, and that includes two payments of over a hundred from people who really want me to continue. I don't expect a lot more, but I could be pleasantly surprised as I learn more about this."

Meanwhile, he's exploring the differences between print and online publishing. In print, he says, you have editors correcting your mistakes. "Online, you can't sell in book stores. You don't have the people playing safety net. And a lot of places don't think you are really press if you don't have a hard book."

On the other hand, online has the advantages of speed and interactivity: "You can get something out and have feedback in an hour. You can also correct mistakes before many have seen them, if you have a lot of loyal readers."