The Push For Internet News Services
When determining which service is best for desktop news delivery in your organization, don't underestimate the importance of content. It's easy for a network manager to get hung up on update mechanisms and multimedia frills and select a service that is a technological wonder but a real deadbeat when it comes to delivering the news and information your users need. As you might suspect, some of the more cutting-edge technological solutions, like BackWeb and Castanet, are content-constrained and don't yet offer the breadth, depth and selection of information sources that many corporate users want.
Pushing the E-mail Envelope
Most technology managers have content pushed into their mailboxes via l
istserv subscriptions. Services like Seidman's Online Insider, the Voice-on-the-Net Digest and the Edupage technology news summary have been filling our in-boxes for more than a year now. But the Netscape In-Box Direct service does text e-mail push one better by providing HTML-based news stories from nearly 50 providers, including 18 technology services. A typical In-Box Direct news summary includes links that whisk you away to Web sites for additional information or service.
The beauty of In-Box Direct and other e-mail news services is the ease of support they offer network managers. A simple set of instructions on subscribing to a useful news service may be all that's needed (for In-Box Direct you also must have users running the Netscape 3.0+ client for e-mail). On the downside, with In-Box Direct, your users will not be able to keep up with the latest breaking news and information.
Pushing the Technology Envelope
Both BackWeb and Castanet are brand new client/server technologies, where
the client not only provides an interface to news and information, but also coordinates with the server to transmit updates in the background, keeping the desktop stocked with the latest news and information while continuously updating multimedia frills and
application programs.
Neither BackWeb nor Castanet appears ready for enterprisewide news service deployment, given their limited content and track record. But this technology is strategic when it comes to the emerging net-centric computing paradigm, and one or the other may well develop into a preferred approach for pushing multimedia content and applications to Internet and intranet clients. You may want to consider BackWeb and Castanet if you're an information and applications provider with a fairly sophisticated base of users who are willing to stray from the well-beaten Web browser path.
BackWeb's scripted multimedia files are transmitted from BackWeb Channel Servers across the Internet to the BackWeb client on a subscription basis (over UDP;
an update for the CheckPoint FireWall-1 is available). Data is packaged in InfoPaks, which include information, graphics and programs. An InfoPak can be a screen saver, wallpaper, animation (called an InfoFlash), or Web plug-in (Java applets will soon be supported).
Marimba's Castanet pushes not only news and information, but also complete Java applets across the Internet using the same channel metaphor. The Castanet Tuner is easy to use, and the ability to unobtrusively disseminate applications and content with it has obvious appeal to network managers. Castanet uses a differential updating scheme so your information and applications can evolve, and clients will be continually updated; they never have to download software updates.
Marimba plans to integrate its Castanet Tuner into Netscape's Constellation software, which bodes well for the future of this technology and its content. Marimba and Macromedia also jointly announced Castanet support for Shockwave, which should result in some fantastic mu
ltimedia Internet experiences.
Pushing the Enterprise
Between the relatively staid e-mail push services and the cutting-edge but content-limited Infopak and Java applet delivery schemes of BackWeb and Castanet are two services that are ready-for-prime
-time enterprise news and information delivery: PointCast and First! Intranet. PointCast's intranet caching server, I-Server, and First! Intranet are tied to a comprehensive set of news sources that can fulfill most any business news interest. Additionally, both will ensure one-time delivery of a particular news item across the firewall.
The I-Server facilitates PointCast on the intranet with its two noteworthy main features: It receives all client requests for news updates and caches documents retrieved from the PointCast Data Center, so that any single item is retrieved only once through the firewall. Also, the server has tools for easily creating and maintaining a channel for disseminating news and information through the intranet to corpora
te desktops. Creating corporate content is as easy as filling out some forms and then entering textual news stories or pointing to Web URLs.
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