Detour: American Visions Society online - new African American virtual community internet service envisioned by Gary Puckrein, American Vision magazine publisher, as the biggest database of its kind in the world - http://www.americanvisions.com

American Visions, Feb-March, 1997 by Merlisa Lawrence Corbett

Finding what they want is not difficult for AVS Online community members, for content is presented in a user-friendly interface, pleasantly comfortable to the eye. When users arrive at AVS Online, their first stop will be its worldview, complete with tree-lined streets and signs identifying each of the community's 13 centers. The Visitors Center, a free area for nonmembers, includes a lobby, a bookstore and a customer service booth. This is AVS's introduction for browsers -- those folks just cruising through the 'hood. Society members, however, will have full access to the entire community.

"What's being offered on line goes far beyond the magazine and has a different tone," notes Joanne Harris, the editor of American Visions magazine and the editorial content developer for AVS Online. "The AVS Online tone is more rhythmic and upbeat, less exclusively `highbrow.'" With her experience guiding the Afro-American Culture and Arts Forum on CompuServe, Harris expects members to make the community their own.

In the Science & Technology Center, for instance, society members can find the latest in emerging technology. This area won't be just newbieland. "This will be where computer wonks can discuss serious technology," says Puckrein, "as well as a space to confront the dangers of the black community being left behind as the 21st century opens and the new technology flowers."

The Non-Profit Center offers assistance to those wanting to give and to receive. Here, society members can search for available grants, major contributors and ways to improve charitable events.

The Mall, complete with a bookstore, offers users African-American-related merchandise in the Home Shopping Network format.

In the Automobile Center, members can access up-to-date information on the automotive industry, exchange information on products and participate in new and used automobile exchanges.

In the Education & Careers Center, members can network, post job openings, participate in seminars or workshops on line, and learn how to enhance their resumes.

A long with content specific to a given center, AVS members can find common features in each of the centers. Every center has a newsletter with the latest news on line and off line pertaining to the center's thematic core. Every center also has a listserver -- an automated mailing list. Information from the listserver is sent directly to the users' e-mail accounts and can be read without having to go onto AVS Online.

Each center has real-time chatting, message boards, videoconferencing, searchable databases and whiteboarding capabilities. Not even America Online, the nation's largest commercial on-line service, offers whiteboarding (the electronic version of whiteboards and dry-erase markers that you find in classrooms and office settings.) "We're talking cutting-edge technology," says the project's manager, Roger Ford, with Thomson Technology Consulting Group. "We have an entire development team devoted to building this virtual community."

Among the most advanced features available on AVS is the videoconferencing, which allows a large number of users to interact in real time. "You can have up to 500 people in a room at the same time," explains Ford. During conferences, users can mark up text, employing the whiteboarding feature. Conference users will also be able to take advantage of another cutting-edge technology, application sharing. A person using Microsoft Word in Illinois can share that application with someone in Texas who does not have Word by using FarSite software, which is downloadable from AVS Online. Society members can even reserve a private conference room for up to 100 people to conduct a seminar. Could we someday see 100 Black Men on line, or an NAACP cyberchapter?