Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!bridge2!ngg
From: ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: American Online vs. other Services
Message-ID: <1336@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM>
Date: 15 Feb 90 18:17:53 GMT
References: <519@janus.Quotron.com> <38488@apple.Apple.COM> <1195@pmafire.UUCP> <1328@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> <63@playfair.STANFORD.EDU>
Organization: 3Com Corp., Mt. View, CA
Lines: 41

In article <63@playfair.STANFORD.EDU> barry@playfair.UUCP (Barrett P. Eynon) writes:
>Sounds like the prices of the two services are converging. Glad to hear 
>Genie is now accessible at 2400 baud. The Compuserve price is the same
>at any time of the day, but Genie used to charge very high prices during the
>daytime. Is is now accessable 24-hours at the price you quote? 
>I'd also note that I find the Compuserve Navigator program (a batch session
>agent) of great utility in getting my money's worth out of CIS. Is there a 
>comparable program available for Genie? 
>And of course I am interested in seeing both services offer 9600 baud access
>now that there is a common hardware standard (V.32). Is this in the works? 
>Barry Eynon

While Genie is has gotton cheaper, CI$ is staying pretty much the same.
The Mac Forums on CI$ are numerous, 6-7 of them with different focuses 
for each forum, communications, developer, beginner to name a few. GEnie
on the other hand has the Mac RT, and its mac Developer RT. It is my opinion
that CI$ with its multiple forums is making more money because even with
Navigator, you are still spending more time online looking thru the many forums
for what you need or want because you can never be real sure in which forum
what you are looking for resides unless someone tells you. 

While I'll agree that learning GEnie without something like Navigator can
take a little time and money, I think once you've made than initial
investment you can get more Mac stuff from GEnie faster and easier. There
are some scripts for aiding in GEnie navigation and downloading, but nothing
to really compare to Navigator. There has been discussion of some sort of
GEnie Navigator, but nothing has appeared that I am aware of. There is a
program called Alladin for GEnie on the PC side that has also been dicussed
as being moved to the Mac eventually.

No one that I am aware of has invested in 9600 for their network. Though its
probably only a matter of time. GEnie still has its day rates, though now
at $18 an hour not the $35 it used to be. Non-prime hours are 6PM to 8AM
in the local time zone your acct was setup in.


-- 
Norm Goodger				SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862
3Com Corp.				Co-SysOp FreeSoft RT - GEnie.
Enterprise Systems Division             (I disclaim anything and everything)
UUCP: {3comvax,auspex,sun}!bridge2!ngg  Internet: ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM