Putting Highlights for Children Online

Christine F. Clark
Computers in the Schools, Vol 15 No 1, 1999, p. 39-45

As the 1990s began to unfold, so did consumer online services. As publisher of a half-century-old children's magazine, we looked askance at the emergence of this new medium. We were, after all, traditional editors raised on text. We were linear thinkers who preferred the quiet elegance of a printed magazine to the glowing and beeping computer screen. We preferred the feel of ink and paper beneath our palms to the cold plastic of a mouse. We preferred the rich, painterly illustrations we commissioned each month for the magazine, shuddering at the color-reduced, compressed graphics viewed on screen. "Who wouldn't?" we asked. Millions of kids, our marketing department countered. Quoting startling statistics and forecasts, they argued that the Web world would increasingly become our readers' world. While no one believed that digital publishing would replace traditional publishing, they noted that technology was developing at a dizzying pace, and predicted that it would forever change the industry as we knew it. If we were to survive to serve future generations of children, they submitted, we needed to learn as much as we could about electronic publishing, and now was the time, early in the game. The argument was compelling. Just as we were growing interested in online services, they were growing interested in us. The many consumer online services that existed at the time were all vying for a bigger market share. Adding content for children was seen as one way to attract customers. As a well-known children's brand, we were courted by several suitors, and in the end we agreed to partner with one that had a strong consumer focus and a seemingly genuine commitment to kids and families. We set out.

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Howard J. Bender, Ph.D.
President
The Education Process Improvement Center, Inc.
P.O. Box 186
Riverdale, Maryland 20738
hjbender@epicent.com