Date: Fri 24-Jul-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Fast-Layne

Full Text:

GENNEWS / LIBRARY

Internet Info for Real People: In The Fast Layne

by Bob Brand

NUTTY MAYOR: I'LL GIVE AWAY FREE VIAGRA screams the headline that fills

computer screens across cyberspace. Welcome to the wacky world of Ken Layne's

Tabloid E-zine.

With a writing style characterized as Maureen Dowd meets Denis Leary, Layne

personifies the newest element on the periodic web-table - the

cyber-journalist. In an homogenized world of teleprompted news where print

journalists have their stories shoveled onto narrow column cybersites by

clueless webmasters, Layne (and his partner Charles Hornberger) put out a

daily stream of provocative pieces to 55,000 unique visitors (from June's

website log). Once at the site, surfers inhaled 620,000 page views.

Tabloid.net is hot.

The E-Zine Scene

E-zines (electronic/online magazines) have cluttered the Net landscape since

the earliest days of packet transfers over phone lines. Like seagulls at a

garbage dump, they often appear for brief periods and become quickly displaced

with a new flock from a wind shift. Yet in the face of heavy churn, a handful

of standouts has emerged. Currently, Salon Magazine enjoys top billing.

(Clinton and Gore allegedly read this administration-friendly cyber-pub). In

the premiere issue of Brill's Content, Rachel Lehmann-Haupt reports a monthly

readership of 165,000.

Layne told me that The LA Times pegs the figure closer to 60,000 per month. I

buy the Layne/LAT number.

Salon provides pasteurized content with a $6 Million annual budget and a small

army of handsomely paid journalists. Tabloid.net offers heavily dosed irony

underwritten with a $48,000 annual expenditure. Layne and Hornberger manage a

part-time militia of international keyboard guerrillas. Currently, with the

site surviving solely on banner ad revenue, Layne plans to supplement

Tabloid's meager cashflow with modest e-commerce offerings (such as t-shirts,

coffee mugs) to its cult-like following.

Take It Or Leave It

Tabloid.net evokes a strange reaction in mouse-drivers. Either you immediately

laugh out loud at its outrageous, yet carefully crafted content, hit the

bookmark/favorites icon and drill deeper into the site OR you hit the BACK

icon and move to the sub-R rated side of cyberspace.

My favorite Tabloid segment is Layne's column. (He, also, writes for the

highly regarded e-zine: Online Journalism Review ) . When India exploded a

trio of nukes in early May, Layne unleashed an article befitting the outrage.

It's vintage Layne. He writes for the not-too-easily offended. It carries a

cyber-R rating.

To date, the Internet has not produced many high profile journalistic

super-stars. Only Matt Drudge, the mass media's lightning rod, comes to mind.

Layne could be the next Cyber-Sam-Donaldson. A mirror website in Europe is

under way. The international flavor of Tabloid pieces, often provided by

Agence France Presse, the world's oldest international news agency and a

Tabloid partner, opens the site to a global audience.

Layne/Hornbergers' international journalistic experiences shine through their

writing. Incidentally, Layne on Drudge

(http://olj.usc.edu/sections/departments/98_stories/citizen_060898.htm) makes

a good read.

How Will We Know?

Tabloid.net is not the type of hype found alongside the supermarket checkout

counter. Do not be taken in by its raucous style and oddball topic mix. The

information is mostly factual and many of the subjects get treated in a

serious manner. However, often, the pieces emerge bent from passage through

the cracked prism of Layne's psyche. Here is your clue that Layne's popularity

is about to go super-nova. Denis Leary will perform his COFFEE schtick (from

Lock 'N Load) wearing a Tabloid.net t-shirt on cable. Stay tuned!

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.tabloid.net/

http://www.ojr.org/

http://www.salonmagazine.com/

http://www.cjr.org/

http://www.brillscontent.com/

(This is the 113th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, E-commerce is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until next week,

happy travels through cyberspace. Previous issues of Internet Info for Real

People (including links to sites mentioned in this article) can be found:

http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to:

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)