AScribe
In The News

Cyber Frontier

By Todd Cohen

Nonprofit Newswire

A four-year-old news service that feeds nonprofit news releases to news
organizations and databases is growing and rolling out new features.
AScribe, a for-profit firm in Oakland, Calif., has 500 subscribers for
which it has distributed more than 13,000 news releases, said David Irons,
AScribe's vice president and co-founder.

Using the facilities of the Associated Press, the firm distributes news
releases electronically to the newsrooms of nearly 100 daily newspapers. It
uses Internet technology to reach weekly news magazines, online and
specialty publications and database services. Reporters can download news
releases from an electronic AScribe basket on their computer screens.

Approximately 60 percent of AScribe's subscribers are colleges,
universities, academic medical centers and graduate professional schools,
Irons said. The others are foundations, think-tanks, public-policy groups,
associations, arts and cultural organizations, public-relations agencies
and consultants representing nonprofits.

AScribe, which sells no advertising, charges $125 for a year's membership,
plus a subscription package ranging from $500 for 10 releases to $1,600 for
40. News organizations and freelance journalists get AScribe's news
releases for free.

The firm now has launched a service that, for $125, distributes a single
news release within an hour of receiving it. It also has launched a
twice-a-month NewsWatch newsletter that alerts nonprofit subscribers to
future events and activities that might provide a good opportunity to issue
a news release.

With $1.5 million from investors to cover its first five years, AScribe has
seen daily traffic grow to as many as 50 news releases from less than half
a dozen after it was launched in March, 1998, Irons said, and it expects
revenues this year to total $500,000.

3/1/02