PC Week Article

	*PC Week, Oct 10, 1994 v11 n40 p130(1) Startup promotes commerce on the Internet.* (MecklerWeb Pres Christopher Locke) (Interview) Kimberly Patch. Abstract: Christopher Locke, president of new Meckler Media Corp subsidiary MecklerWeb Corp, an online information service dedicated to commercializing the Internet's World Wide Web, says his service will let companies get their feet wet in the Internet without much risk or investment. The primary business transaction Locke sees his customers performing on MecklerWeb is just exposing themselves to the entire Internet community and advertising their availability for informational intercourse. Locke sees the Internet as a kind of Yellow Pages without bottom. Companies can put everything that might possibly be interesting about there companies on a series of web pages that lure visitors into the hypertextual labyrinth they create. An E-mail button would allow those caught in a company's web to transmit a message asking for more. Full Text: COPYRIGHT Ziff-Davis Publishing Company 1994
	MecklerWeb Corp., a subsidiary of Meckler Media Corp., was recently formed with the intent of carving out a place to do business in the vast reaches of the global Internet. The service officially came on-line late last month at the address http://www.mecklerweb.com. Christopher Locke, president of MecklerWeb, in Westport, Conn., recently talked about his plans with PC Week Senior Editor Kimberly Patch. PC WEEK: What are you trying to bring to the Internet? LOCKE: The hurdles to business -- which seem very interested and ready to get onto the Internet -- have been way too high. We're an easy entree -- companies can dip their toe in these waters ... without huge investment and huge risk, to see what's really going on here. PC WEEK: Give me a sense of some of the business transactions you see going on over the Internet.
	LOCKE: The first and most important is the positioning -- [showing] that you exist and that you' available in this medium. Just having the technological ability to be on the Internet doesn't guarantee you intersection with the audience that might be interested. We're bringing audiences together; we're bringing markets together with companies. PC WEEK: The arrangement of information is quite a bit different -- and also the way you access information. LOCKE: It's irrespective of time and space. This is kind of like a Yellow Pages with infinite depth. You can click on the page, and it opens up to more pages and it keeps going. Everything that might be interesting about your company, you can put there. PC WEEK: So, you're going to have information from the companies, which will include pretty extensive spec sheets and things like that? LOCKE: Whatever they want. It's [also] easy to gateway these things back into the company with an E-mail button saying, "tell me more." [That's how] you can get direct one-to-one conversations going with people coming in from MecklerWeb with people in the company. PC WEEK: So, you're adding another doorway into their electronic storefronts, and with the information organized in a logical way, it offers a lot of potential traffic? LOCKE: Yeah. Let me make an analogy. The difference is between buying a raw list to do direct mail and getting a bingo card stream coming back with your company name on it from a publication saying, "We are definitely interested in what you're doing; tell us more." The MecklerWeb audience is like the prequalified bingo cards, but they're live. PC WEEK: What are you going to do about security? LOCKE: We're looking to our partner, Enterprise Integration Technologies. PC WEEK: Tell me exactly what that technology will provide and when it's due. LOCKE: Secure, [Hypertext Transport Protocol], encryption, and the authentication of buyer and seller. EIT is promising delivery in the fall. But we are not planning to run that Web server until it's been put through its paces. Christopher Locke BORN 1947, Newton, Mass. EXPERIENCE In 1993, Locke was the founding editor of the Internet Business Report, and in 1994, he signed on as president of MecklerWeb Corp., a subsidiary of Meckler Media Corp., pioneering new terrain in on-line commerce.
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