Free New Magazine Teaches Teachers. Children's educational publisher Scholastic Inc. is rolling out a magazine to address the needs of teachers during one of the largest
teacher shortages in history. Instructor New Teacher Magazine will provide advice on areas such as lesson planning, online teaching resources, and parent/teacher
communication. The free publication has signed on such A-list advertisers as Microsoft, Discovery Channel, McGraw Hill and Texas Instruments. The magazine's sister publication,
Instructor Magazine, a subscriber-based trade, circulates to 200,000 teachers. Look for more media resources for fledgling teachers coming up: according to the U.S.
Department of Education, in five years 1.5 million teachers (roughly half of all teachers) will retire.(Scholastic, http://www.scholastic.com, 212/343-6100.)
Home Advisor is Where the Content Is. HomeAdvisor, Microsoft's online home and real estate guide, features new content areas for decorating, food and gardening. The site
aims to be everything for modern homeowners aspiring to live like the Cleavers, offering guides, advice and illustrations on everything from financing a home to making home
improvements. HomeAdvisor has made PC Magazine's list of Top 100 Web sites and was recently named Best Overall Home-Buying Site by Yahoo! Internet Life.(http://www.homeadvisor.com)
FreeZone Freezes Operations. One of the Web's most popular places for kids
to roam is among the latest batch of sites to buy the farm. FreeZone, founded in 1995 and employing as many as 44 full-time staff, has closed due to the soft ad market. The site
was a kids-only chat room where they could talk about everything from "bullies to the Back Street Boys," said a company spokeswoman. The Chicago-based site's final day of
operation was March 31, although some employees hold out hope they will reincarnate the site as a subscription-based model.(http://www.freezone.com, Jessica Halem, 312/705-3835)
Bad Bad Boys. If the success of "Cops" and
"Court TV" is any indication, crime makes for good cable. That's why USA Networks is rolling out a new digital channel dedicated to all things malevolent in the fall of
this year. "Crime," co-founded by "Cops" creator John Langley, will feature crime-related talk shows, reality series about law enforcement and hit movies like "Carlito's Way" and
"Dead Man Walking." USA has also acquired the domain "crime.com," a destination for crime stats, prevention tips and entertainment news (because, well, there seems to be plenty of
cross-over).(Ron Sato, USA Cable, 310/360-2389.)
Content Creation not King at TechWeb. CMP Media's TechWeb will no longer produce original content. The
technology news site will instead run stories from other publications under CMP's umbrella, including Network Computing, Internet Week and Information Week.
Some 33 employees in content creation have been laid off. (http://www.TechWeb.com, Maureen Reilly, [email protected].)
Name and Tagline Changes. Computer Telephony will now be known as Communications Convergence, starting with the June issue. Its new tagline is "Redefining
Telecom." Red Herring has also announced a tagline change, from "The Business of Technology" to "The Business of Innovation." (Computer Telephony, Christopher Keating, [email protected]; Red Herring, [email protected].)