THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 27, 1996 TAG: 9604270325
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By IAN ZACK, DAILY PROGRESS
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Stranded on the information superhighway? Snared in a World Wide Web of technology? Actually perplexed about virtual reality? A new Charlottesville-based magazine hopes to provide some answers.
Ping, which bills itself as ``a guide to emerging technologies, news and cyber-culture,'' landed in front of book and computer stores for the first time last month.
The free monthly magazine has yielded so much interest, its founders say, that they have taken it across the mid-Atlantic region, with drop zones in Hampton Roads, Washington, Baltimore, western Maryland, and central Virginia.
``We're really looking at something other than just another `techno' magazine,'' said James Arnette, a Charlottesville entrepreneur and Ping's publisher. ``Hopefully, this is a magazine that anyone who has an interest in technology can pick up and get something out of.''
The first issue included articles on getting connected to the Internet, policing cyberspace, medical technology, book reviews and such features as ``editors' bookmarks,'' which suggested interesting sites to check out on the World Wide Web, the vast vista of computer networks that pulses through computers all over the globe.
``It's not going to be the person at the Mudhouse (Charlottesville's `cyber cafe') every day, though we want them to read, too,'' said Ping's editor, Doug Lawson. ``We very much want to have straightforward features that are both interesting to read and easy to understand.''
Lawson, 28, graduated in 1995 with a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Virginia. He admits to being a ``geek sometimes'' but unlike some technology enthusiasts, he doesn't see computers as the be-all and end-all.
``I use them too much,'' said Lawson, whose office on the third floor of a house in Charlottesville has no desktop computer. ``I like to consider myself a writer first, an editor second and a computer user third.''
While at U.Va., Lawson founded one of the first on-line literary magazines. The Blue Penny Quarterly is now the only such electronic journal whose stories are judged as part of the prestigious O. Henry short story awards, he said.
Lawson hooked up with Arnette last year when Arnette was looking for an on-line magazine to complement his company, Comet.Net, a local Internet provider. The magazine now has a staff of nine full-and part-time employees, including Lawson's wife, Giselle Gautreau, a local sculptor who does Ping's illustrations.
As a magazine that asserts itself as an authority on technology, Ping could hardly claim eminence if it had no on-line version of itself. It does.
``We try to keep the two editorially pretty different,'' Lawson said of Ping and Ping.Interactive. ``You generally won't see the same stories in both.''
Unlike the print version, Ping.Interactive is updated not on a monthly basis but periodically as new stories come in and old ones garner less interest. Editors can tell when interest has ebbed when the number of user ``hits'' drops below a certain threshold. The on-line version of Ping also has interactive advertisements, something few print magazines can boast.
But the on-line version is not for everyone.
``There's a lot of fear, there's no question about that,'' Arnette said. ``We're kind of pro-technology here, but we're not rushing blindly into it. There are good and bad aspects.''
And, for those who believe that the humble printed page soon will be a thing of the past, Lawson doesn't see it that way.
``You hear a lot of talk about that print and newspapers are not going to exist,'' Lawson said. ``I don't think that's true. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS color photo
Doug Lawson, 28, is the editor of Ping, a new monthly magazine that
seeks to appeal to on-line computer users of all experience levels.
by CNB