nization it gave us the
possibility to communicate with thousands of people, which
would have been economically impossible if we had published a
paper magazine. I think the internet is going to become the
essential means of communication and of information exchange in
the coming years."

= Print magazines go online

The first electronic versions of print newspapers were
available in the early 1990s through commercial services like
America Online and CompuServe.

In 1996, newspapers and magazines began offering websites with
a partial or full version of their latest issue, available
freely or through subscription (free or paid), as well as
online archives.

For example, the site of The New York Times site could be
accessed free of charge, with articles of the print daily
newspaper, breaking news updated every ten minutes, and
original reporting only available online. The site of The
Washington Post gave the daily news online, with a full
database of articles, with images, sound and video.

In United Kingdom, the daily Times and the Sunday Times set up
a common website called Times Online, with a way to create a
personalized edition. The weekly publication The Economist went
online, as well as the daily Le Monde and Liberation in France,
the daily El Pais in Spain, and the weekly Focus and Der
Spiegel in Germany.

The computer press went logically online as well, first the
monthly Wired, created in 1992 in California to cover
cyberculture as "the magazine of the future at the avant-garde
of the 21st century", then ZDNet, as a leading computer online
magazine.

"More than 3,600 newspapers now publish on the internet", Eric
K. Meyer stated in late 1997 in an essay published on the
website of AJR/NewsLink. "A full 43% of all online newspapers
now are based outside the United States. A year ago, only 29%
of online newspapers were located abroad. Rapid growth,
primarily in Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Brazil and
Germany, has pushed the total number of non-U.S. online
newspapers to 1,563. The number of U.S. newspapers online also
has grown markedly, from 745 a year ago to 1,290 six months ago
to 2,059 today. Outside the United States, the United Kingdom,
with 294 online newspapers, and Canada, with 230, lead the way.
In Canada, every province or territory now has at least one
online newspaper. Ontario leads the way with 91, Alberta has
44, and British Columbia has 43. Elsewhere in North America,
Mexico h