After 203 years, The Old Farmer's Almanac joins the Internet; America's favorite annual joins New Jersey Online.

--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--April 25, 1995--In a keystroke of technology that even Ben Franklin would have been proud of, The Old Farmer's Almanac, America's oldest continuously published periodical is now wired to the Internet's World Wide Web in a site featuring current weather conditions and graphic forecasts -- plus its famous sage advice and unique information.

The content of the weather site focuses on New Jersey and Philadelphia but also offers forecasts for cities across the country. This is the first offering of New Jersey Online, a local Internet service that will include news, information, and interaction serving the state.

The Almanac's new site is being developed by Newhouse Newspapers New Media, a division of Advance Publications Inc., publishers of New Jersey's Star-Ledger, Times of Trenton, and Jersey Journal. The three papers had previously announced a joint venture to share and develop regional on-line content with the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, published by Knight Ridder's Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. The site will include content from The Old Farmer's Almanac books, published by Random House, (also a division of Advance Publications Inc.) and is sponsored by MCI Proof Positive. Its World Wide Web address is "http://www.nj.com/weather".

According to Jamie Trowbridge, director of Books and New Media for the Almanac's parent, Dublin, N.H.-based Yankee Publishing, the project is a milestone in the history of the famous publication.

"This opportunity creates a great number of exciting changes for one of the most stable publishing products in America. It turns an annual into a daily and a national treasure into one that is now available throughout the world. It also allows us to regionalize our editorial coverage in a much more efficient manner than ever before," he said.

The site is sponsored by MCI Proof Positive under the direction of Scott Ross, president of MCI Business Markets.

"Few things change as fast as the weather and technology. MCI is proud to be associated with The Old Farmer's Almanac and New Jersey On-Line," Ross said.

"We are delighted to be featuring the Almanac's venerable name and information in our first step onto the World Wide Web," said Jeff Jarvis, creative director of Newhouse Newspapers New Media.

"We chose the weather as our first service simply because it's useful. We've tried to make it more graphic and more entertaining than anybody else has on the Web."

The weather site provides current conditions and an automatically updated, photographic five-day forecast for New Jersey, Philadelphia, and 25 cities from Boston to San Francisco. The information is updated hourly, 24 hours a day, from data fed by Weather Services Corp.

Features of the site directly from The Old Farmer's Almanac will include Today's Advice, This Day in History, This Day in Weather History and Heavenly Details (sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset). Readers may click to other pages for the Almanac's famous weather predictions -- often used for weather planning or the start of garden season -- and future planetary occurrences including a graphic, day-by-day look at the moon's phase.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Color photography of the new Almanac site on NJ Online may be obtained by calling Lissa Weaver at 206/842-8922.

CONTACT: Jeff Brein or Lissa Weaver, 206/842-8922