The Doctor's Office Of the Internet   

Tired of getting sand kicked in your face by cybersurfers? Humiliated that you're the last magazine on the block that still uses paper and ink? Buck up. Jeffrey Dearth says his Electronic Newsstand can give even the puniest periodical a presence on the ever-expanding Internet.

âelebrating its first anniversary July 21, the service offers electronic browsers free access to current tables of contents and articles from some 100 magazines. Users can subscribe or order single copies via electronic mail.

Dearth, who is also president of the New Republic, is so convinced that the future of magazines is on-line that he has taken to referring to their printed versions as "portable hard copy." He estimates the Newsstand (located at enews.com) has greeted 5 million visitors, with another 40,000 accessing each day.

As the Newsstand's founder and CEO, Dearth pitches the service as a supplement to existing circulation efforts. He charges each magazine an annual fee ranging from $1,500 for monthlies to $5,000 for weeklies, depending on circulation.

So far, his service has attracted mainstream publications such as Business Week and the New Yorker as well as specialty journals such as Astronomy and Foreign Affairs. For smaller magazines such as the Skeptical Inquirer, which debunks paranormal claims, and Yellow Silk, which features erotica, the Newsstand can provide much-needed exposure. Arthritis Today, for instance, has been adding as many as 10 subscribers a day.

üearth says the Newsstand has brought in thousands of subscriptions from 21 countries. Most maga- zines don't require advance payment, but Sales Director Tom Palmer says that 75 percent of subscribers who order by E-mail eventually pay up, nearly double the industry average. (Newsmagazines generally have the highest payup, he adds, while Yellow Silk has the lowest.)

Dearth argues, however, that the value of an on-line presence can't be measured in overnight returns. "If you're looking at this as subscription acquisition, you're missing the party," he says. "You're in a sense making new friends," who he believes are more likely to subscribe down the road than someone contacted by mail or phone.

Visually, the service is nothing spectacular. "It's pretty plain-vanilla," Dearth admits. There are no graphics included, although magazines such as Alaska, which is known for its photography, have still signed on.

Readers who log on to browse also encounter a pitch for Dearth's Internet marketing service, and within a few months they'll find another – a car "showroom" with information from automakers. The service also has minimal search capacities, and its value as a reference source is limited.

Dearth concedes the service has its limitations, including that it as yet doesn't carry any newspapers. Most papers are already on-line elsewhere and have a much wider range of reference services. The New York Times, for instance, joined America Online in June and offers ticket sales, an archive of some of its stories and a New York entertainment guide.

Lewis Clapp, a technical advisor to Harvard University's Nieman Reports, says that while the Newsstand helped the journalism review jump into cyberspace, he dislikes the service's advertisements, which he considers "a distraction."

"I'd like to see them spend a little more time developing the [search] tools" and appearance, he says, "rather than going out and getting [more] advertisers."