Wall Street investment house D. E. Shaw & Co. gave Internet mavens a jolt this summer when it joined the already overcrowded list of businesses trying to establish a beachhead in the online world.
Until now, the secretive firm, founded in 1988 by former Columbia University computer science professor David Shaw, has made money by using mathematical techniques to look for profit in stocks, commodities, and foreign currencies. With an aggregate partners equity of around US$500 million, Shaw & Co. has begun a number of financial ventures dealing not only with securities trading, but with other industries that are being transformed by computer technology, especially personal communications.
Enter Juno Online Services. Set for launch in early 1996, Juno will offer a free e-mail account to anyone with a Windows-based PC and a modem (other platforms may be added later). In return for free e-mail, subscribers must put up with small banner advertising and might receive targeted junk e-mail.
The product is aimed at computer novices - at least initially, Juno won't provide links to other Internet protocols such as the World Wide Web. The interface is simple but graphically pleasing: an icon of an eye winks open when a user reads messages and closes when the user replies. Juno president Charles Ardai says most subscribers should be able to access Juno through a local phone call, but toll-free numbers might be used in some areas initially.
The concept has obvious appeal. "Free is free," notes online market analyst Phoebe Simpson of Jupiter Communications. "That is going to be an incredibly powerful concept with the American public."
Simpson believes the Juno model will also appeal to advertisers. "They'll be able to get a much better idea of who they're reaching than they do with existing Internet advertising," she says.
Admitting that no one can predict how the Wired world will evolve, Shaw says the object is to "have as many people as possible staring at a screen with our things on them, whatever those things may evolve into." Shaw sees the emergence of digital "shelf space," a commodity like the eye-level shelves of your neighborhood supermarket. With communication and commerce traveling digitally around the globe, Shaw wants to be firmly planted at the intersection between consumers and merchandisers.
Juno Online Services: (800) 654 5866, +1 (212) 478 0800, e-mail info@juno.com, or on the Web at www.juno.com.
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Digital Shelf Space
