Beta testing Apple's eWorld online service is a bit like walking through a multimillion dollar mansion that is still under construction. You can tell the rooms are going to be beautiful (and functional) when they're finished, but at the moment there's still a lot of work to be done. So far, the GUI is incredibly cool – eWorld is going to force America Online and other online services to upgrade both the graphics and ease of access to their information if they want to remain competitive.
eWorld is, well, both hip and cute. It looks like a cartoon town (complete with traffic sounds), containing the eMail Center, the Community Center (right, that's where you can talk to your friends), the Computer Center, the Business and Finance Plaza, the Learning Center (which at the moment contains only Grolier's Encyclopedia), the Arts and Leisure Pavilion (where you can find reviews of the latest albums, arts-related discussion groups, Hollywood gossip, and the like), the Newsstand (beyond news updates from Reuters and USA Today not a lot has hit the racks – yet), and the Marketplace (hardware and software will be available from MacZone and Apple).
It's a bit too soon to get a true fix on eWorld culture, since only beta testers could log on when this was being written. At this point, the level of discussion in eWorld Live, one of the five chat rooms currently available, is on par with an America Online discussion. There was a guy making semi-obscene remarks who had to be reprimanded by an eWorld staffer – hey, this is like America Online! The best place to get pizza was addressed for about fifteen minutes one evening. Someone wanted to know how to fix a broken reverb unit. In other words, there are a lot of folks killing time.
If you're not already online, eWorld looks to be a great place for newcomers to get a taste of eLife. If you are already online, you might want to check it out for a month to compare it to the service you're now using. Of course if you're already an experienced net surfer and prefer your information "raw," you probably don't even want to bother with a commercial service like this one.
Apple expects eWorld to be commercially available by the time you read this.
eWorld: $8.95 per month with two hours evening and weekend use. Apple: (800) 775 4556, +1 (408) 974 1236.
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