Just as he had assumed in the first place, people on the Net wanted to _talk_—not just to the _N & O_ but to each other about all kinds of topics, including material in the paper itself. And the more comfortable the readers grew with the online world, the more spirited, the more Usenet-like, would be the discussions. No, the meek would not suddenly turn into flamers. But the thrill of technology would be less of a distraction, and they would pay more heed to what they had to say and grow more adventurous about it. On the _N & O_’s present BBS, with its often awkward commands, many people were not even leaving messages for each other. Instead they typically used the system at a more primitive level to type out their thoughts with the other person online at the same time. I hated this approach. It brought to mind Dave Barry’s crack that the Internet was like CB radio with typing. Even if Daniels still did not enjoy the political debates on the Net itself, he was living up to the old tradition of sharing material with the rest of the world. In that sense his newspaper was exemplary. The _N & O_ didn’t just offer news, discussion areas, and games for its subscribers: Sample news and features were free to anyone who wanted to read them. That was how I’d first run across A.C. Snow. I’d seen the _N & O_’s name on a list of newspapers, and A.C. had caught my eye as I was wandering through the Gopher that stored sample news stories and columns from the paper. The World Wide Web, however, was the best way to try out the electronic _N & O_. When I dialed up the main page for NandO.Net, I could see a colorful, bluish logo and enjoy a newsstandish atmosphere, with scads of goodies to explore. The _N & O_ differed from many electronic newspapers. It didn’t just inflict on readers a digest of generic news, with only the most cursory helping of original material. I read samples from the regular _N & O_ and specialized publications such as the _Insider_; enjoyed brief but regularly updated electronic news intended for the Net itself; wandered through a little bookstore with cover shots from books by Snow and other columnists; wended my way through tens of thousands of words from a journalism seminar at Harvard; soaked up long, multimedia features; dialed up samples of rock music; and ventured into the sports area—the _N & O_’s most popular material on the Web.