To Our Readers

By ELIZABETH VALK LONG President

Henry Luce died before the advent of personal computers, CD-ROMs and fiber- optic networks. But he was a great believer in finding the best ways to get information into the minds of readers, and as TIME explores these new media, we continually ask ourselves how Luce -- with his perfectionism, his eye for excellence and his missionary zeal -- would have done it.

Our founder's approach seems to be paying off. When Macworld magazine selected the 10 best Macintosh CD-ROM programs for its March issue, three were ours: TIME Almanac 1993 (Best Almanac CD), Clinton: Portrait of Victory (Best Politics CD) and Seven Days in August (Best History CD). Seven Days is a multimedia account of the week in 1961 when the Berlin Wall was erected. "Of all the discs I surveyed," wrote Macworld editor James A. Martin, "this one is my favorite, for it best exploits the real potential of CD-ROM as a medium that can add depth and perspective to a topic."

TIME's foray into computer networking, meanwhile, continues to set the standard for interactive news services. Four and a half months after we began making TIME available in electronic form on Sunday afternoon (a day before the magazine hits the stands), we've logged more than 1 million visits to the TIME Online area of the America Online computer network. Our electronic message boards, where readers discuss news stories and current events with the journalists who cover them, are already crammed with comments -- nearly 13,000 in all.

When the information superhighway comes to town, TIME plans to be there as well. Time Warner, our parent company, is scheduled to begin testing a Full Service Network in Florida later this year, delivering interactive video over fiber-optic and cable-TV lines to 4,000 homes in Orlando. As part of that system, TIME journalists will collaborate with partners in various TV news divisions on a service called News on Demand that will let viewers see the stories they want, when they want to see them. Subscribers interested in Tonya Harding, for example, might order up both the 30-second summary that aired on the nightly news and the 45-minute press conference held by her ex-husband's lawyer that was carried on CNN. By pressing a button on their TV remote control, they could even have TIME magazine's analysis of the story printed out by an ink-jet printer attached to their cable box.

Henry Luce would be proud.