Juno launches America's first free Internet e-mail service; Initial advertisers include Lands' End, Miramax and Snapple

Business Wire, April 19, 1996

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 19, 1996--Juno Online Services L.P. announced today that Juno, the nation's first free Internet e-mail service, has completed its intensive nine-month beta test and will be available Monday to the general public.

Unlike other online services, which charge membership and usage fees in return for providing various forms of Internet access (including e-mail, by far the most popular form), Juno charges its members no fees of any sort. Instead, Juno will derive its revenues from interactive online advertising targeted to the needs and interests of its members, as well as online market research and optional billable services. Juno was developed and funded by D.E. Shaw & Co., a technology-oriented investment bank based in New York.

On Monday, Juno will begin shipping free copies of the proprietary software required to access the service, which runs on any personal computer equipped with a modem and Microsoft's Windows operating system, in the first phase of a controlled nationwide roll-out. Juno has already received nearly 100,000 requests for its software. "The demand has been tremendous," said Charles Ardai, Juno's president. "One of the things we've found most gratifying is that many people have been asking for extra copies for their parents, their friends, or people at the office. Because both the software and the service are completely free, our members are bringing the people in their lives online."

"I think Juno is a wonderful product," said Justin Reinstein, one of Juno's beta testers. "The design on a technical level is very efficient, user friendly, and simple to use. Plus, I think the idea of free e-mail is extremely cool."

Members of Juno can use the service to exchange e-mail with anyone, anywhere in the world, who has an Internet e-mail address, including all the members of the major commercial online services (such as America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy), and the major Internet access providers (such as Netcom and AT&T's WorldNet). Juno's members pay no monthly or hourly fees, and their use of the service is not contingent on their purchasing any other services. "Many access providers offer a free trial to attract subscribers, but ultimately either you end up paying them or they shut off your access," said Ardai. "Juno is not offering a free trial. It's free, period."

To use Juno, members dial into one of more than 200 local access numbers around the country. In regions where no local access number is available, members dial into a toll-free 800 number.

Juno's Interface: Powerful Features, But Unusually Easy To Use

Thousands of hours of user testing, including extensive focus group and laboratory usage studies, went into the development and refinement of Juno's interface, which was designed to meet the needs of first-time as well as experience e-mail users. "It was important to create a piece of software the novice user could understand at a glance, but which members would be satisfied using year after year as they gained experience," said Dr. Brian Marsh, the computer scientist who led Juno's development effort.

In addition to the basic e-mail functions, -- sending, receiving, forwarding, printing and replying to messages, for example -- Juno offers a full-function address book, customizable mailing lists, folders for storing mail, and a built-in spell-check feature. In a survey of e-mail software and services conducted recently by PC Computing magazine (April 1996), Juno was named best in its category.

Advertising: Added Value For Sponsors and Members

As part of Juno's sign-up process, all members are required to fill out a "Member Profile" that asks for information about their interests, hobbies and tastes, along with certain standard demographic information. Juno uses this information to select which advertisements are displayed on each member's screen while he or she uses the service. "As both our member base and our base of advertisers grow, it should be increasingly possible to match members up with the commercial messages in which they are likely to have the greatest interest," said Ardai. "This should make the advertising not only more palatable to our members, but more valuable and efficient for our advertisers."

Advertisers can select the segment of Juno's member base they want to target and then show their ads only to those members. After an advertisement has run, Juno can report exactly how many people saw the ad, how many "clicked" on it to learn more, how many chose to respond, say, by participating in a promotion or requesting additional information, and can provide the advertiser with data showing how each of those groups broke down along relevant demographic lines. Advertisers will be charged only for the number of times their ads are actually seen by Juno members.

"Neither traditional media nor the World Wide Web can offer the degree of targetability and accountability Juno provides," said Jed Savage, Juno's vice president, sales, (and until recently, the National Consumer Category Manager at BusinessWeek). "And unlike the Web, Juno can proactively place an ad on the screen of a given member. This means that an advertiser on Juno doesn't have to wait for a person to go to a certain Web site before he or she sees the ad."