Little-Known Journal Adds Well-Known Names

IntellectualCapital.com brings Paul Simon, liberal, and Peggy Noonan, conservative, into its "vigorously bipartisan" political Web site.

IntellectualCapital.com, a relatively little-known political and public policy Web site, announced Thursday that former liberal Democratic presidential candidate Paul Simon and Reagan-Bush speech writer Peggy Noonan have signed on as contributing editors. The "vigorously bipartisan" site is edited by former Delaware governor and Republican presidential candidate Pierre du Pont.

Noonan and Simon aren't the only marquee names in the IntellectualCapital stable. The site announced that Anne Applebaum, political columnist and associate editor of the London Evening Standard, and Lisa Schiffren, contributing editor to American Spectator and former speech writer for Vice President Dan Quayle, are also joining. Already listed on the masthead were Carter administration national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and George McGovern, a liberal Democrat who ran for president against Richard Nixon in 1972.

Du Pont said IntellectualCapital.com is looking to capture a mainstream audience, "slightly less intellectual than Slate."

Although IntellectualCapital.com is trying to follow an ad-based revenue model, du Pont said that the site, which went online last June, just sold its first ad Thursday. "The advertising is going to take several years to break even on the Internet. The Web is a new medium, and advertisers are a little uneasy about it, but we're in it for the long haul."

Parent company A2S2 Digital Products is using venture capital to fund the site, du Pont said. A2S2, though mostly involved in digital production and video animation, is trying to "develop new brands and looking for new platforms to market those brands," said a company spokeswoman.

The first of A2S2's brands to go online, Policy.com, is a "comprehensive public policy information service" that brings together a collection of research from think tanks and advocacy groups. IntellectualCapital.com is A2S2's second Web site.