990565 High-Speed Food Menu for Web Users

San Francisco - What will be on the menu when the world wide wait finally ends and high-speed Internet access arrives? Truffles, caviar, lobster, filet mignon, herb-rubbed Colorado lamb, perhaps a bottle of Cabernet?

That's what Gourmetmarket.com provides now over its Web site shopping service (www.gourmetmarket.com). But they plan to serve their gourmet menu with a multimedia twist in the new world of no-waiting Internet service.

(A similar gourmet web site recently launched at: www.thegourmetpage.com).

The San Francisco-based service this week completed a pact with cable modem giant AtHome to offer videos over the Internet on how to prepare gourmet dinners, along with “virtual tours” of the regions where the foods and wines come from.

But hang onto those cookbooks. The AtHome gourmet shopping classes, the trip through Bordeaux's vineyards, are still just a promise for most people.

Cable modem is expected to be rolled out to millions of users in the next few years, but Internet experts are skeptical that a service relying heavily on video will work very well.

“There is a question of how well cable TV networks like AtHome can deliver content quickly to a lot of users at once,” said Gene Shklar of Keynote Systems Inc., which measures the performance of Internet systems.

Cable modems can push data over the Internet at a top rate of almost 3 megabits (3 million bits of data) per second, which is more than enough to transmit gourmet cooking videos to Internet users.

But in a test of AtHome's Dublin, Calif., system, one of the first in Northern California, Keynote found a system operating far below peak, delivering Web pages slower than telephone-based digital subscriber lines whose peak speed is one-tenth that of cable modem. The reason, apparently, is that the cable modem speeds slow down with every user added to the system, since all are sharing the same line.

AtHome's vice president for marketing, Charles Moldow, concedes the system isn't ready to broadcast video to large numbers of users but he says a technology fix is imminent. AtHome has a deal with Internet multimedia company RealNetworks of Redmond, Wash., to provide a streaming video system for cable modem.

Meantime, the company is building its pool of video and audio recordings that users can download in a few minutes, far faster than traditional modems.

Consumer demand for the services is growing --and multimedia -- both music downloads and video clips -- is one of the fastest growing sectors of the World Wide Web. Internet content now is made up overwhelmingly of text and pictures on millions of Web sites, but the trend toward so-called “rich media” will accelerate when the network's capacity grows.

“It's incredibly important to us that we have products like Gourmetmarkets that use 'rich media,”' said Moldow. “People are going to be paying $40 a month for our service and we have to have that as a way to show the power of the network, so we can differentiate ourselves.”

Gourmetmarket.com is certainly ready to provide the “rich” stuff, from chocolate tortes to white truffles to fine wines. But so do a lot of other online sites. Gourmetmarket hopes its video will make it stand out from the pack.

“We can provide the text and sound and video of everything people want to know about gourmet cooking,” said Andrew Friedland, Gourmetmarket.com vice president of business development.

“You can have a video with a famous chef telling you how to prepare something -- store it, or order some of the ingredients as you're getting ready to make it,” said Friedland.

Gourmetmarket.com has entered joint venture partnerships with Arome Interactive and Great Chefs Television to provide the content of television shows, CD-ROMs and videos about foods and cooking. They will provide the context for people who want to buy online, Friedland said.

“We see a revolution in the way people shop for food and wine,” said Friedland. “They can't pick it up or touch it like they might do in a market. But we can offer elements to the shopping experience that they can't get anywhere else.”

AtHome, too, is preparing for this “revolution.” AtHome's Moldow says his cable modem service is already building up a library of “How To” videos that can be downloaded from the AtHome site.

Right now, those services are only accessible via the AtHome service, which has reached only 500,000 of the estimated 40 million home Internet users. But AtHome is considering listing some of the content with its Excite search service as it tries to boost demand among the Internet's “power users” for rich media dealing with gourmet cooking, finance, computers, real estate and other sectors.

So far, news on demand has been the biggest area for online video retrievals on the AtHome system. Movie trailers are another favorite, and “just searching for things” is also popular, Moldow said. Home shopping that uses rich media is still at a very early stage. But already television-shopping operations like QVC and Home Shopping Network are doing deals with online services so they can grow with the business.

“With video, you've got a great way to create an incentive with customers - - you're giving them the information and the encouragement to buy at the same time. It's a powerful tool.”

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