MediaOne is the broadband services arm of US West Media Group (NYSE: UMG). MediaOne Express is the company's high-speed Internet access service that provides access to the Internet at speeds 50 times faster than conventional telephone dial-up services.

"By using our integrated turnkey solution, any online destination can bring their users the most comprehensive and up-to-date TV listings in a customizable, free and easy-to-use experience," said Stewart Ugelow, CEO and founder of Student Net Publishing. "Whether you want to know whether ER will be a re-run or plan a weekend movie marathon, TVGrid.Com technology brings users all the answers they need to make decisions about what's worth watching."

Powered by TVGrid.Com, MediaOne SearchTV combines comprehensive and accurate listings with advanced search capabilities, a built-in e-mail reminder system, zip code channel mapping technology, an easily personalized interface, and built-in show specific content and context. With just a few clicks, users can read reviews of movies from the nation's leading newspapers or search for relevant Web sites.

For example, a parent can easily search for shows featuring age-appropriate content, while sports fans can map out the game schedule for their favorite teams and set-up an e-mail reminder service so they won't forget to tune in.

"MediaOne is committed to providing our broadband customers with the latest technology to help simplify their lives and enhance their viewing experience. MediaOne Search TV is an innovative service that ties together our Internet and Cable TV offering enabling our customers to navigate through the many programming choices available to them," said Will Richmond, vice president of business development for MediaOne.

Student Net Publishing LLC, was founded by students at Yale and Columbia universities in 1995 to provide college students with high-quality online content. Today, it is a leading Internet publishing company led by a highly-regarded management team. The company derives revenue from multiple sources including advertising, electronic commerce, and content syndication.

Its award-winning Web site, Student.Com, is the first independent site with original daily content that serves all aspects of college life, produced by journalists who know what students want.

MediaOne, a unit of US West Media Group (NYSE: UMG), is the nation's leading broadband services company, providing more than 5 million subscribers in 19 states with entertainment, information, and communications services. US West Media is involved in domestic and international cable and telephony, wireless communications, and directory and information services. For 1996, Media Group reported proportionate pro forma revenues of $8.1 billion.

Media Group is one of two major groups that make up US West, a company in the connections business, helping customers share information, entertainment, and communications services in local markets worldwide. US West's other major group, US West Communications, provides telecommunications services in 14 states.

There's a saying in many of the newsrooms that I've worked in: "Every time we run an obituary, we've lost a subscriber."

The reason, of course, is that people my age are not reading newspapers anymore.

I realize many of you are still developing your online strategies, but in an effort to keep things from repeating themselves, I'd like to talk to you today about your future users and a phenomenon you may not be aware of.

There are currently 14.4 million two-year and four-year college students in the United States. And that number is projected to grow to 19.2 million in the year 2000.

The most important piece of advice I can give you is go visit a college campus and get to know these people. Because there is no better focus group for what the future holds than a college campus today.

Inspired by widely available grant money and student demand, colleges are racing to connect every dorm room to the Internet. College students have high speed connections and often receive their access for free. They don't have to tie up a phone line; fight with their spouse or their kids for use of the computer; or worry about their boss looking over their shoulder. Plus, they use the Internet 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

While they read fewer newspapers, listen to less radio, and watch less television, college students use the Internet more than any other demographic group.

While college students make up just five percent of the U.S. population, at least one in every five Internet users is a college student.

Indeed, 85 percent of college students are projected to use the Internet at least once this semester, 62 percent at least once per week, and 50 percent will use it every single day.

All told, college students will spend 70 million hours online this week alone.

And it's not hard to see why.

Online discussion groups are replacing face-to-face sessions with professors. Classwork is assigned and submitted online. Already, students are using the web to find out what's for dinner, what's showing on campus, how the football team did, and what the weather forecast is.

And best of all, why bother picking up the phone to call Mom & Dad when you can ask for more money by e-mail?

Yet for all their numbers online, college students are dramatically underserved by today's online content offerings. Our company is working to fill that void.

We publish a site called Student.Com that combines the writing of the nation's top collegiate journalists with innovative uses of Internet technology to create a comprehensive, in-depth site devoted to college life. Many of the lessons we've learned will be applicable to you in your efforts.

Our site currently has four main concentrations:

1. A daily newsmagazine written by college journalists from around the country. We cover everything from financial aid policies to new movies and music to how to brew beer in your dorm room. If you're 21 or over, of course.

2. Community enabling features that help to facilitate interaction between our members. Among the most popular is "Yenta, the Student.Com matchmaker." An early version of Yenta allowed users to indicate whether they were a "prince" or a "princess" and whether they were searching for a "prince," a "princess," or an &quot artist formerly known as Prince."

3. Information services that help students to organize their lives. For instance, our site is the only place on the Internet where you can search television listings for up to six weeks and get e-mail reminders before a show airs.

4. Entertaining interactive features like the "Rejectomatic" which sends fake rejection letters to your friends. If any of you were rejected for the position of "coffee filtration technician," that was us — and we're sorry.

Over time, college students will get their news from us, meet new friends through us, buy their course books through us — and maybe even land a White House internship through us.

So what does this mean to you? A number of things:

1. Be ready for a world when your site is "always on."

College graduates will be a driving force in the deployment of broadband Internet access to the home. News cycles will increasingly have less meaning.

2. Allow users to shape their own experience and help them manage their lives.

How many of you are putting school lunch menus into databases that will let parents know when a meal their child won't eat is being served?

Or what about geomapping your crime reports so users can see where the dangerous parts in their neighborhoods are?

Or what about something simple, like letting users post the locations of pot holes and street signs that need fixing?

3. Experiment with story forms and conventions.

You're not going to attract young readers by doing the same types of writing as in your print editions.

4. Build context into whatever you do.

Give people access to the tools they need to make the decisions in their lives.

Finally, I'd like to leave you with one thought: For all the bells and whistles, the Internet is still at its heart a medium of words. If we as an industry can get college students to read online, there just may be hope for newspapers yet.

“This story tells the truth about Ritalin abuse, that for some college students, it has become as popular as Coca Cola and coffee as a study aid,” said Chris Johnson, Student.Com managing editor.

Ritalin is the brand name for methylphenidate, a prescription drug manufactured by Novartis that helps to alleviate the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder.

The Student.Com article, written by University of Wisconsin at Madison sophomore Chris Tennant and based on interviews with dozens of students across the country, reveals:

* A “black market” for obtaining Ritalin without a prescription has developed on some campuses. “People will pay $5 or $6 for one pill,” says a sophomore at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

* To increase its potency, some students have started to crush Ritalin pills and sniff the drug like cocaine.

* Health officials are growing concerned about Ritalin abuse on campus. The director of university health services at Harvard University says that he is “sure” students at Harvard abuse Ritalin.

* Novartis sent information to several hundred thousand doctors and pharmacies last spring alerting them to “incidents of improper use and abuse” of Ritalin.

The article is available on the Student.Com Web site (http://www.student.com).

Student Net Publishing LLC was founded by six students at Yale and Columbia universities in 1995 to provide college students with high-quality online content. Today it is a leading Internet publishing company, led by a highly regarded management team and backed by US WEST Media Group.

The company publishes Student.Com (http://www.student.com), a critically-acclaimed Web site that combines the writing of the nation’s top collegiate journalists with some of the most innovative uses of Internet technology to create a comprehensive, in-depth site devoted to college life.

Through the partnership, college students living in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and the Twin Cities now have available a wide range of local entertainment, information and communications tools tailored to them. Users can participate in online campus discussions with fellow students, or link to their college newspaper to find out about the latest campus events. For a study break, the localized version of TVGrid (http://divein.tvgrid.com), a feature which creates customized television schedules, helps plan a night of entertainment. Or, access DiveIn’s comprehensive calendar of events to find out what’s happening around town.

Student.Com helps students stay connected with each other. Find the perfect date for the next social through “Yenta, the Matchmaker,” one of the site’s more popular features. Mom complaining you never call or write? Send her an e-mail through Mom-o-Matic, an electronic form letter that is easily personalized. Stay in touch with old friends at nearly 500 schools through a network of over 200,000 student homepages.

Users can easily toggle back and forth between DiveIn and Student.Com to collect the most useful information from each service. Through DiveIn users can find out more about what’s happening in city sports, entertainment, news, and more.

“Student.Com is a great addition to DiveIn’s broad range of content,” says DiveIn marketing director Kelly Ruebel. “Many college students are new to the city, living away from home for the first time. Together, DiveIn and Student.Com provide information about what’s happening at school and in the new city they are living in.”

“Now, Student.Com is the only major college life site to offer local information and content,” said Stewart Ugelow, CEO and founder of Student Net Publishing LLC. “We are always striving to be one step ahead and offer students what they really want, and this partnership with DiveIn brings our new localized content to more students.”

Student.Com is the first independent site with original daily content that serves all aspects of college life, produced by journalists who know what students want.

Student Net Publishing LLC was founded by students at Yale and Columbia universities in 1995 to provide college students with high quality online content. Today, it is the leading Internet publishing company led by a highly regarded management team. The company derives revenues from multiple sources including advertising, electronic commerce and content syndication.

Launched last April in ten U.S. cities (Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and the Twin Cities) DiveIn is a one-stop resource for everything from local news, weather and TV listings, to tips on parenting and education, from restaurant listings to an extensive calendar of events.

DiveIn is a free Web service from U S WEST Interactive, a unit of U S WEST Media Group. U S Media Group (NYSE: UMG), one of America’s largest broadband communications companies, is involved in domestic and international cable and telephony, wireless communications and directory and information services. For 1996, U S WEST Media Group had proportionate pro forma revenue of $8.1 billion.

Each of Student.Com’s 45,000-plus members will receive a $25 credit from Northern Light. Using a co-branded Northern Light/Student.Com Web page, Student.Com members can use this credit to access information quickly and easily on any topic from the Web and from Northern Light’s Special Collection of over 2,900 books, magazines, databases, and newswires.

“Through a promotional program with Student.Com, Northern Light will reach tens of thousands of students, a demographic with a voracious appetite for information,” said David Seuss, Northern Light CEO. “Student.Com members can now get quality research information online right from the World Wide Web. Student.Com is a site that resonates with students, providing compelling content of high quality.”

Stewart Ugelow, CEO of Student Net Publishing, said “Northern Light is one of the best information sources on the Web for students in need of relevant, reliable, organized, inexpensive, information fast. Student.Com members will clearly benefit from Northern Light; this partnership will aid them in their late-night term-paper research and in their general pursuit of knowledge.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Northern Light, the world’s first research engine, enables users to search the entire World Wide Web and its Special Collection of two million articles from over 2,900 publications–including business and trade publications, magazines, newspapers, newswires, academic journals, and more–not available from any other search engine. Results are prioritized by best match and sorted into Custom Search Folders, which are generated on the fly, to help users narrow their searches. Northern Light’s business model is based on users purchasing Special Collection articles on a pay-per-document basis for a typical cost of one dollar per article. Subscriptions are also available. All searching, Web documents, and premium document summaries are free. Northern Light Technology LLC, headquartered in Cambridge MA, introduced its research engine in August 1997.

Student Net Publishing LLC, was founded by students at Yale and Columbia universities in 1995 to provide college students with high-quality online content. Today it is a leading Internet publishing company led by a highly-regarded management team and backed by U S WEST Media Group. Its award-winning Web site, Student.Com (http://www.student.com) , is the first independent site with original daily content that serves all aspects of college life, produced by journalists who know what students want.