CompuServe gets a facelift
CompuServe Inc. -- the much-maligned but still-kicking online service -- just got a facelift.
On Wednesday, the company will debut an overhauled version of its flagship CompuServe Interactive service with content reorganized into 21 menu-driven "Communities," including news, personal finance, health, education, travel, sports, computing and games. It will also take a major step towards reinventing itself on the Internet by adding links to Web content within each Community menu, according to Denny Matteucci, president of CompuServe's Interactive Service Division.
Chat forums have been more closely integrated with the rest of the CSI content, enabling users to participate in moderated real-time discussions and post information on message boards, as well as link to file libraries of research materials, company officials said.
Later this year, the company will release an HTML-enabled version of CSI, allowing subscribers to access the service through their local Internet service provider as well as through the Web, Matteucci said. This move will allow each Community to become a stand-alone Web site that CSI members can access with a browser and a password.
Adopting Internet standards will allow CompuServe to "free [itself] from many of the traditional burdens of providing a proprietary service," Matteucci said. "Now we can license most of the technology we need off the shelf" instead of having to write proprietary versions, he added.
"By the end of the year, we will have expanded our potential membership base to include practically everyone on the Internet," Matteucci said.
Shares of CompuServe stock were up as high as $9.75 today on the news, after taking a rollercoaster ride recently on reports that the company might be taken over by rival America Online Inc.
While both AOL and CompuServe's parent company, H&R Block Inc., confirmed that talks were in progress at the beginning of this month, neither would release details, and reports in the past two weeks have indicated that the discussions may have hit a snag.
H&R Block reportedly was interested in selling off the entire CompuServe unit, but some analysts observed that AOL might be mainly interested in snapping up CompuServe's lucrative Network Services unit, which had $250 million in sales last year.
CompuServe is based in Columbus, Ohio.