Nationwide Party Line

Ann is a dancer. Garry is the president of a small manufacturing company. Bob translates Russian at the Pentagon. Along with Dan, Joel, Gail, Becky and a dozen others, they are having a discussion about travel by freighter, the virtues of Europe's railroad pass and a little-known boat trip between Venice and Israel. Their conversation is, in short, the conventional chatter of the well-traveled. What is unconventional about the discussion is that Ann is in New York, Garry in California, Bob in Virginia and the others scattered along the East Coast. The international travelers' group of TeleSessions is holding its weekly talkathon--on the telephone.

TeleSessions, an organization that began operations last month after a year of secret dry runs to work out the bugs, has a straightforward purpose: to bring strangers with similar interests together on a huge party line for information and fun (the group's) and profit (TeleSessions). To take part in "discussions you dial into," subscribers call TeleSessions' Manhattan number, specify their area of interest and are assigned to one of the groups. At the appointed hour (usually once a week), TeleSessions calls the subscriber to connect him with as few as ten or as many as two dozen other participants. For a fee of $2 an hour--long-distance participants must call in themselves and also pay long-distance rates--TeleSessions hosts provide a special switchboard, coordinate and schedule each session and make the telephonic introductions of each newcomer to the group. They also screen out the cranks, disconnect the obstreperous and occasionally cut in to redirect a faltering discussion. An actual moderator, TeleSessions discovered, is unnecessary.

A unique telephone chemistry takes it from there: unencumbered by considerations of appearance or even identity (only first names are used), and sharing a common interest, the subscribers swing easily into freewheeling, relaxed conversations. For reasons that even the TeleSessions hosts don't fully understand, two people seldom talk at once, interruptions are rare and discussions generally follow a polite, orderly sequence. Among the specialty groups meeting regularly are gourmet cooks, advanced photographers and small-business presidents. Groups of science-fiction buffs. Buster Keaton fans and wine connoisseurs will soon be on the line.

Unlimited Possibilities. With a dozen or more "experts" on a single hookup, the pool of knowledge can be enormous. "Does anyone, by any chance, know the recipe for pumpkin soup?" asked a participant in a recent session of the cooks. From out of the void came a voice: "Hot or cold?" When an international traveler disclosed that he was leaving for India, another subscriber told him the name and phone number of an Indian who would lend him an automobile. "There are enough people on the line so that you can ask any question and get an answer," says TeleSessions President Ron Richards. "There are also enough people so that someone will ask a question for which you have the answer."

Richards, a former Bell Laboratories engineer and former Ph.D. candidate in applied mathematics at Harvard, founded TeleSessions after years of brooding about his conviction that some 50 million private telephones in the U.S. were being wasted in two-way conversations. "It's as if everybody had a TV set but there weren't any programs," he says. "So the possibilities are unlimited." Richards optimistically foresees the day when Paris chefs will join in a gourmet-cooks session, when labor negotiators mediate quickly and amenably (hostility seems to evaporate during a group phone discussion) and when brain surgeons or judges or astronomers keep abreast of their field through weekly convocations--all, of course, via TeleSessions.

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