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Conference gyro::internet_toolss

Title:	Internet Tools
Notice:	Report ALL NETSCAPE Problems directly to kdlucas@netscape.com.rnet? Read note 448.L for beginner information.
Moderator:	teco.mro.dec.com::tecotoo.mro.dec.com::mayer

Created:	Fri Jun 25 1993
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	4714
Total number of notes:	40609

4513.0. "Digital Launches Millicent Trial" by CALDEC::RJONES (Russ Jones, Internet Business Group) Mon Mar 03 1997 18:09

Corporate Research and Development (RAD) in Palo Alto is pleased  
to announce the internal availability of Millicent(TM), DIGITAL's 
microcommerce system. We would like your help in testing the
Millicent system. Please experiment with the system, give us 
feedback, and help us contact and attract additional partners. 

The Millicent system is the basis for a completely new way to buy
and sell content in very small amounts over the Internet. The
system supports transactions as small as 1/10th of a cent up to
$5.00 in size. Microcommerce transactions in this range are
important to online publishers that want to sell newspapers by the
article, cartoons by the strip, or music by the song. Software
providers targeting the Network Computer (NC) market can use the
Millicent system to sell Java applets and host-based applications
on a per-use basis. In an Intranet setting, Millicent software acts
as an Web-aware accountant that meters access to information
systems and to services inside the enterprise.

The Millicent system is being market tested with a trial deployment.
Initially, participation in the Millicent trial is restricted to 
trial partners and DIGITAL employees.  Feel free to demonstrate
the system to customers and potential partners.  Based upon acceptance 
testing and the maturity of the software, the trial will be opened up 
for unconstrained use on the Internet by both consumers and content 
providers.

Your feedback is vital to move DIGITAL into a leadership position
in Internet Commerce.


INSTRUCTIONS OF ENGAGEMENT

To use the prototype Millicent system:

  1. Go to the internal Millicent site at:

     http://millicent.pa.dec.com/

  2. Click on "Demonstration" to review the list of Millicent
     content providers.

  3. Click on any Content Provider on the Demonstration page
     to explore their Web site.

The system will prompt you to configure your wallet when it's first 
needed. This internal Web site also contains an overview of the 
Millicent system, a description of the trial deployment, and answers 
to frequently asked questions.


THE MILLICENT TRIAL

The private trial begins now. In this phase of the trial, as a
DIGITAL employee, you can configure your Web browser to use the
Millicent wallet and register to participate in the trial. When you
register, you will be given internal cybermoney that can be used to
buy Web server pages from a diverse group of content providers.
Don't worry, this money is not real and it won't really cost you, 
or your cost center, anything.

The initial trial content is business oriented and comes from many 
of the leading market research firms, courtesy of the DIGITAL 
Corporate Library Group, and from The Cobb Group, a subsidiary of 
Ziff-Davis Publishing. We've also included a few fun sites on 
the Web to show how the Millicent system can be used beyond 
traditional publishing to meter access to videos and music. To 
demonstrate the flexibility of the system, we have included a 
couple of sample ads that show how the Millicent system can be 
used in an advertising rebate model to pay consumers to read
advertisements.

As you use the Millicent system to buy value-added content for
yourself or demonstrate the system to customers and partners, you
will be spending down the initial funny money loaded into your
wallet.  That's ok. If you run out of fake money, we're happy to
give you more. Over time we will be adding additional content as
more partners come on-line as part of the trial. When the trial
enters its public phase, we will be using real money and beta
testing production software.

At this point in time, we are using a prototype system that allows
us to examine system usage patterns and underlying technical
assumptions. For the best experience with the Millicent prototype
system, you really need Netscape Navigator V3.0 and higher or the
Microsoft Internet Explorer V3.0 and higher. Although you can 
manually configure the wallet for use with earlier Web browsers, 
this might be a good time to upgrade your Web browser to current
production levels. You can get the latest Web browsers for internal
use from the IBG Software Server at http://ibgzko.zko.dec.com/sdk/.


HOW DOES THIS FIT WITH DIGITAL'S OVERALL CORPORATE STRATEGY? 

In September of 1996, DIGITAL introduced the 1-3-9 Strategy for
Growth; one mission, three high growth platforms and nine target
market segments. Within the Internet Commerce target market segment,
Millicent is positioned as a strategic research initiative that
addresses the needs of the emerging microcommerce marketplace.


FEEDBACK

We invite you to participate in the Millicent trial, to explore how
the technology might be deployed in other market segments, and to 
help us refine the system for market introduction. If you have 
support questions or have any problems with the prototype software, 
you can reach us at:

  millicent-comments@pa.dec.com

We look forward to hearing your ideas and general comments as well.
Especially if you have a potential customer that would like to 
participate in the trial.

Regards,

Stan Hayami
Millicent Business Development
Research and Development, MSO, DTN: 223-8088

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
4513.1		VAXCPU::michaud	Jeff Michaud - ObjectBroker	`Mon Mar 03 1997 18:37`	10
	Please let us know when you get some content worth reading (ie. like comic strips, recommended stock buy lists from major brokerage houses, etc!). It would appear everything available right now in this monopoly money trial is stuff I wouldn't read even if it were free :-( Even with some worthwhile content, I think it's still a ways off before pay-per-view on the WWW is going to take off. Right now, the way I see it, the only way to make money on the WWW with content is from selling ad space displayed along side the content.
4513.2	Critique of micropayment worth discussing	USCTR1::LEVINE		`Mon Mar 03 1997 21:50`	26
	Last month Slate published an article by Nathan Myhrvold on the topic of Internet payment systems. It's available at http://www.slate.com/CriticalMass/97-02-13/CriticalMass.asp He is negative on micropayment systems. This may be a good place to discuss the pros and cons of this approach so we can have the best possible positioning in the market. Myhrvold's objection is based on (no surprise) a publishing model. Basically, it's hard to price a service like Slate (Microsoft's on-line magazine) so you can both make more than you would by traditional subscriptions and not make the cost highest for your best customers (the ones who read frequently and widely). He suggests advertising as an alternative, along with making the service free to users. Two rebuttals come to mind right away: 1) not everything follows the publishing model. He admits this and allows for micropayment for things you won't use more than once (e.g., movies, he says). 2) He bases his comments on a model of the Internet as an extension of traditional commerce. What he doesn't take into account is a) unique kinds of content on the net (e.g., microprograms like ActiveX or Java applets), and b) different paradigms of commerce (e.g., Millicent apparently works in "reverse" in the sense that a provider can pay you to view their material). If anyone cares to discuss, please chime in. Or we can move the discussion elsewhere if this isn't the right place.
4513.3	browser envy?	BBRDGE::LOVELL	� l'eau; c'est l'heure	`Tue Mar 04 1997 02:44`	18
	Well I tried - I really did! A heap of friendly but nonetheless pointed remarks about me using the wrong sort of browser for this e-commerce stuff - why don't you just come right out and say - "we don't support MS Internet Explorer"? Anyway, the registration let me (nay, encouraged me) to proceed giving complete instructions how to re-configure the IE proxy setup and then produces the following message; ---------\| V "Now that you have configured the Netscape Navigator to use a Millicent wallet, you need to register for the internal Millicent trial." OK I get the picture - I'm off to find a recent copy of the Navigator (or is it "Communicator" these days) /Chris/
4513.4	proxy envy?	VMSNET::S_VORE	Smile - Mickey's Watching!	`Tue Mar 04 1997 08:03`	16
	Well, I tried - I really did. You want me to change my proxies, which are working just fine, to use your automatic proxy file? Geez, well, sure, I'll give it a go... Netstape /^\ The proxy automatic configuration file has errors: / ! \ http://millicent.pa.dec.com/millicent/pac/alf.pac /_____\ No proxies will be used ...or not, as the case may be!
4513.5		VMSNET::S_VORE	Smile - Mickey's Watching!	`Tue Mar 04 1997 08:04`	10
	Ah, and there's another window hidden behind the others... JavaScript Error: http://millicent.pa.dec.com/millicent/pac/alf.pac missing operator in expression. car altdirect = ""; ....^
4513.6	system down?	STARCH::shr-dhcp-16-107.shr.dec.com::whalen	Rich Whalen	`Tue Mar 04 1997 08:29`	4
	Well, I tried (MS IE for those of you keeping score on browser usage), but got no response. Maybe their fixing the problems listed above. Rich
4513.7	Re: Digital Launches Millicent Trial	QUABBI::"steveg@pa.dec.com"	Steve Glassman	`Tue Mar 04 1997 19:19`	28
	> > Well, I tried - I really did. You want me to change my proxies, which > are working just fine, to use your automatic proxy file? Geez, well, > sure, I'll give it a go... > > > Netstape > /^\ The proxy automatic configuration file has errors: > / ! \ http://millicent.pa.dec.com/millicent/pac/alf.pac > /_____\ No proxies will be used > > > > ...or not, as the case may be! > > Our mistake. We messed up that .pac file in our most recent edits. Sorry. We believe that our .pac files are an improvement over manual proxy configuration (when they work). They provide failover to multiple external proxies if the primary one for your site is unavailable. Give us another try. Steve [posted by Notes-News gateway]
4513.8	Re: Digital Launches Millicent Trial	QUABBI::"steveg@pa.dec.com"	Steve Glassman	`Tue Mar 04 1997 19:29`	33
	> Well I tried - I really did! A heap of friendly but nonetheless > pointed remarks about me using the wrong sort of browser for this > e-commerce stuff - why don't you just come right out and say - "we don't > support MS Internet Explorer"? Anyway, the registration let me (nay, > encouraged me) to proceed giving complete instructions how to > re-configure the IE proxy setup and then produces the following > message; > > ---------\| > V > "Now that you have configured the Netscape Navigator to use a Millicent > wallet, you need to register for the internal Millicent trial." > > OK I get the picture - I'm off to find a recent copy of the Navigator (or > is it "Communicator" these days) > > /Chris/ > Good :-) We will fix the message right away. We recommend Navigator 3 because it supports pac files (automatic proxy configuration files) and they are a more efficient way for you to try out Millicent. (It also has some cool JavaScript stuff we use, but that is secondary.) We include the IE instructions because we want to support as many users as possible. We did warn you that it is not our first choice.... Steve [posted by Notes-News gateway]
4513.9	Re: Digital Launches Millicent Trial	QUABBI::"steveg@pa.dec.com"	Steve Glassman	`Tue Mar 04 1997 19:29`	15
	In article <4513.6-970304-082918@networking.internet_tools>, "shr-dhcp-16-107.shr.dec.com::whalen"@starch.enet.xyz.com (Rich Whalen) writes: > Title: Digital Launches Millicent Trial > Reply Title: system down? > > Well, I tried (MS IE for those of you keeping score on browser usage), > but got no response. Maybe their fixing the problems listed above. > > Rich We had a machine failure this morning about 8AM your time. The server is now back up. Steve [posted by Notes-News gateway]
4513.10	fwiw, MS has a patch on its website...	SMURF::PBECK	Paul Beck	`Wed Mar 05 1997 13:29`	4
	Well, per the current flap over the MSIE security bug, you could always configure the site so that if it's accessed via MSIE, you automatically load Netscape on user's computer and configure it to be the default browser...
4513.11		VAXCAT::LAURIE	Desktop Consultant, Project Enterprise	`Wed Mar 05 1997 14:06`	5
	RE: .10 ArfArf! Cheers, Laurie.