Web Browser Brings Prodigy Back To Life
Prodigy is back. After nearly succumbing to a severe case of boringness, the station wagon of online services has roared back to life.
Last week, Prodigy pulled the wraps off its World Wide Web browser, the biggest addition any network has made in the last two years. With that, Prodigy’s 2 million members become the first commercial network community to have access to the Internet’s hottest commodity.
Just to drive home the point that old ways are changing, Prodigy even introduced a new, colorful logo on the browser. Kiss that yellow star adios.
To be sure, the other big networks will follow suit. America Online recently shelled out $35 million for a company that created Web browsers. It’s promising to deliver the service to users by the end of the winter. But AOL’s track record of hitting target dates is spotty.
And CompuServe, well, is being CompuServe, the aging granddaddy of on-line services. Somewhere in the back rooms, they’re working on a new generation of the huge network, but there’s no innovation in sight.
While other networks were offering more for less, CompuServe finally got around to cutting its rates the other day. But it’s still charging members more to use 9,600- and 14,400-baud modems, $4.80 per hour.
AOL and Prodigy let consumers access their services for $2.95, regardless of modem speed.
Meanwhile, back at Prodigy, the innovations keep coming. P2, the new generation of the service’s interface, is just around the corner. It puts all the others to shame.
Finally Prodigy members can have multiple windows open at one time. The dreaded advertisements are reduced to a tiny strip in the lower right corner. The artwork looks like what you’d expect for an on-line adventure.
Then there’s Homework Helper, a new add-on for Prodigy developed with a company in Philadelphia. There aren’t enough good things to say about this service. It brings the dream of on-line research to reality.
Designed for junior and senior high school students, Homework Helper should be in every home with children or inquisitive minds. There’s no need to learn arcane commands or to decipher key words. Just type in a question like “Who invented the bicycle?”
In case you misspell a word, Homework Helper even has an automatic spell checker to tell you. But the real magic comes when you hit the “enter” key.
A database, larger than most libraries you’ll find, spits back newspaper and magazine articles, transcripts of radio and television shows, research papers, graphics and pictures. It’s all there for your use, no fees per article or per search.
The material is clearly identified, and a reading level is shown. For students doing papers, the material has footnote citing, and everything can be exported to a word processor to include in reports.
There’s no excuse for school libraries not to have Homework Helper. It’s that good.
It’s incumbent on me to admit all that Prodigy has done. Just over a year ago, I suggested it was time to bury the network and move on. Apparently the trusty old station wagon had a sports car hiding in there all along.