Esther Dyson, Techno Age Thinker, to Write Release 3.0 for the New York Times Syndicate

Business Wire, Jan 18, 2000

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 18, 2000

Esther Dyson, one of the world's foremost authorities on emerging digital technology, is writing "Release 3.0," an every-other-week column for The New York Times Syndicate.

"Release 3.0," distributed in English and Spanish, charts the impact of technology on daily life, and on the world's social, political and financial fabric.

"I want this column to be full of 'for instances' -- a running commentary on the wonderful, alarming, funny, curious things that technology leads to," Dyson says. "It won't tell you what products to buy or how to use the technology, but I hope it will make you think about it -- to examine your own choices, to consider the consequences on politics, business, education."

The title "Release 3.0" follows Dyson's practice of naming her projects like new computer-product iterations: Release 1.0, the highly influential monthly newsletter Dyson has edited for nearly 20 years, and "Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age" (Broadway, $26) published in 1997 and translated into 20 languages. (The paperback edition, published in 1998, is "Release 2.1.")

"Esther Dyson's word on something is what computer industry insiders everywhere wait for," Joan Nassivera, executive editor of the Syndicate, says. "She has a well-deserved reputation as a critic, a seer and a matchmaker who brings together the pioneers who are creating the future."

Wired magazine called Dyson a "one-woman think tank." Fortune magazine named her one of the 50 most influential women in American business.

Dyson is chairman of EDventure Holdings, a New York City-based firm specializing in emerging technologies worldwide. EDventure publishes Release 1.0 and stages two annual conferences, PC Forum in the United States and High-Tech Forum in Europe.

Fluent in Russian, Dyson has taken special interest in technology development in Eastern Europe.

Dyson chairs the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a gatekeeper for the World Wide Web.

The daughter of an English physicist and a Swiss mathematician, Dyson graduated from Harvard with an economics degree in 1974. Recently she wrote that she has "devoted her life to discovering the inevitable and promoting the possible."

Dyson joins a distinguished roster of Syndicate columnists, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Salman Rushdie and Martha Stewart.

The New York Times Syndicate distributes more than 70 special features, from The New York Times and other sources, to 2,000 clients in 80 countries.

Among contributors to the Syndicate: Discover, The Economist, Slate and Technology Review; and the Financial Times, International Herald Tribune and Le Monde.

The Syndicate is part of The New York Times Syndication Sales Corp., with offices in New York City, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Paris.

Syndication Sales also operates The New York Times News Service, which daily transmits hundreds of stories from The New York Times and 11 partner news organizations to more than 650 clients in 50 countries. The News Service operates The New York Times Photo and Graphics Services.

The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) is a diversified media company including newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, and electronic information and publishing. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

The Company, which had 1998 revenues of $2.9 billion, publishes The New York Times, The Boston Globe and 22 regional newspapers; publishes three magazines, including Golf Digest; and owns eight network-affiliated television stations and two New York City radio stations. It also operates news, photo and graphics services as well as news and feature syndicates. A division of the Company, Times Company Digital, operates Internet properties such as nytimes.com, boston.com and winetoday.com. The Company holds interests in one newsprint mill, one supercalendered paper mill and the International Herald Tribune S.A.S.