Contact: Mary Leddy/Dana Lieske Jane Lennon Lois Paul & Partners BookLink Technologies, Inc. 617/862-4514 508/657-7000, ext. 3022 MCI 313-8782 jlennon@booklink.com BookLink Technologies, Inc. Announces InternetWorks, A New Customizable Internet Viewer/Browser Provides an integrated, easy-to-use interface to all common Internet services and protocols, as well as Email and Network News. Wilmington, Mass., Oct. 24, 1994 -- BookLink Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of CMG Information Services, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMGI) today announced InternetWorks, a complete, Windows-based viewer/browser for the Internet. InternetWorks has been designed for both casual and power users. For casual users, InternetWorks provides a single, easy-to-use interface to all common Internet services and protocols. For power users, including corporations and VARs, InternetWorks provides OLE2 support for inter-application integration. InternetWorks includes many features unavailable with other Internet viewer/browser products, such as complete multithreading for simultaneous document downloads, full OLE2 support, a single interface for all services, and true Windows orientation. In addition, InternetWorks contains everything needed to begin using the Internet. Included are: all required Internet communications software (TCP/IP, Winsock, SLIP/PPP); full support for all major Internet services and protocols, such as Email, Network News, HTTP, Gopher, FTP and WAIS; support for standard image and sound formats; 800# installation support; and a special start-up offer from Internet Express, a national Internet access provider, with a one month money-back guarantee. InternetWorks runs under Windows 3.0, 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows NT, and will support Windows95. InternetWorks is completely multithreaded, significantly enhancing the user's productivity while on the Internet. Multithreading eliminates waiting, meaning that while documents are being downloaded, an InternetWorks user can continue working on the Internet, performing activities such as: * reading documents that have already been downloaded * following hypertext links to other Internet documents * commencing searches and additional simultaneous downloads * checking on the status of all currently running transfers * sending and receiving Email browsing newsgroups printing and saving downloaded documents. This functionality is in sharp contrast to the capabilities provided by many other Internet viewer/browsers on the market today. Those products require users to implement one download at a time, tying up their systems and precluding concurrent viewing or searching through other categories. "The Internet is rapidly becoming a critical part of the computing landscape, vital to businesses and individuals," said David Wetherell, president of BookLink Technologies. "We identified a serious absence of tools to make access easy, fast and customizable. InternetWorks fills that void, providing a solution that doesn't require users to struggle with compatibility or communications issues." InternetWorks is programmable and customizable, enabling a new class of Internet-ready applications. Because InternetWorks is OLE2-based (Microsoft's object linking and embedding technology), any programming or scripting language that supports OLE2 can use InternetWorks to access the Internet. This includes Visual Basic or Visual C/C++. Custom applications for Internet services can be created easily, without requiring users to be networking experts. For example, a financial application designed to track an individual's net worth can use InternetWorks and Visual Basic to access the Internet at timed intervals to ascertain current stock and mutual fund information, place these values via OLE2 in a spreadsheet, and show current net worth. Key Features That Sets InternetWorks Apart InternetWorks includes many features that competitively differentiate the product from other Internet tools and packages, such as: Complete multithreading capabilities: Every feature of InternetWorks is available to the user, no matter how many simultaneous downloads are running, making the product the only completely multithreaded Internet viewer/browser on the market. Full OLE2 support -- No other Internet viewer/browser offers full OLE2 support. This feature allows linking, embedding and drag-and- drop functionality to inter-application integration. For example, a "live" Internet document can be embedded in a Microsoft Word document. When the user clicks on a hypertext link in the embedded document, the information is automatically downloaded from the Internet. Multiple windowpanes: InternetWorks allows the user to split the screen into as many panes as needed, displaying a different Internet document in each. Benefits include simultaneous view of searches and lines of inquiry. Single, integrated graphical user interface: All Internet protocols and services are available from a single, easy-to-use interface. In many competitive products, separate tools are provided for different services such as Email and news-readers, each with a different graphical user interface and requiring that each tool be accessed separately. Windows orientation: InternetWorks was created "from the ground up" to run on Windows, and provides users with the same look and feel as their Windows desktop applications. Many other Internet viewer/browsers are either directly Unix-based or comprised of ported Unix code. As a result, those products do not conform to standard Windows interface conventions or provide seamless access to such technologies as OLE2. Customizability: InternetWorks provides a range of options to customize the interface, including support for custom home pages, "clickable" bitmapped graphics, custom page layouts with single- and two-column printing, the creation of new HTML documents, and the ability to change display fonts and colors. Electronic Internet Yellow Pages (IYP): InternetWorks includes an electronic version of the New Rider's Internet Yellow Pages, with a directory of thousands of Internet sites, together with descriptions and comments about the sites. This is particularly useful for new users who do not know their way around the Internet. Support for all common protocols and formats: InternetWorks supports a broad range of Internet protocols and formats, including: HTTP, Gopher, FTP, NNTP and SMTP protocols; and formats such as JPEG, GIF, BMP, XBM, WAV and AU. Complete communications software provided: Including TCP/IP, Winsock, SLIP/PPP. Complete Email package included: Users can communicate faster and more efficiently under one, integrated interface -- no more jumping between tools to send, retrieve and manage messages. InternetWorks Lite, a freeware version of InternetWorks, provides many of the same capabilities available in InternetWorks, but has limited multithreading (only two simultaneous downloads), does not offer full OLE2 support or Email (except for "mail-to"), and does not include the electronic Internet Yellow Pages. Pricing and Availability InternetWorks will be available in late November at all major computer and software retail stores, as well as directly from BookLink at 1-800-453-SURF. A special introductory price of $99 is available until January 31, 1995; after February 1, 1995, the MRSP will be $129. InternetWorks will be distributed to the retail channel by Macmillan Publishing. InternetWorks Lite will be available for free in mid- November online via FTP (download from ftp://ftp.booklink.com/lite) or directly from BookLink at 1-800-453-SURF. Shipping and handling charges are $9.95 for orders placed directly with BookLink. The Lite version will also be distributed with Internet related publications available through Macmillan Publishing. BookLink Technologies Inc. develops enabling software technologies for the Internet, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of CMG Information Services, Inc. CMG Information Services, Inc., is a publicly held company (NASDAQ: CMGI) with 1994 revenues of $19.4 million and 225 employees. Founded in 1968, CMG develops and markets information-based products and services primarily for the publishing and finance industry sectors. # # # All trademarks are the properties of their respective companies.