DIGITAL L.A. : MORE THAN OLD PORTAL IN A STORM OF CONTROVERSY.

Byline: David Bloom

Hard on the heels of Disney, NBC and USA Networks, another big old-media company decided this week that it needed a bigger bite of the new-media world.

But Viacom and its flinty Yankee of a chairman, Sumner Redstone, decided to take a very different tack from big competitors, who all dropped hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars buying portal sites such as Lycos, Excite and Snap.

Portals have been the Net's business buzzword of the past several months, and everyone's been buying them at hugely inflated prices, thanks to the overheated tech stock market. Portals offer a raft of services to entice users to start there and stay long enough to let the portal sell more advertising.

To old-media minds used to thinking in television terms, portals look a lot like big TV networks, aggregating lots and lots of eyeballs that can interest big advertisers. So, the best way for old media to go new, the thinking has been, is to buy a portal.

The portal play has paid off for some: Disney's relentlessly cross-promoted Go Network - flush with established properties like the online sites for ESPN, ABC and Disney Channel and sporting some interesting parental-controls software - promptly shot up to No. 4 in Media Metrix's monthly Web traffic surveys.

But it's not a guaranteed success, as USA Networks found out, when both its stock and Lycos' took a pounding after their merger was announced recently.

``If you're Sumner Redstone, you're not all that ecstatic about having to pay billions of dollars for some portal and arguing that that's going to create a viable Internet presence,'' said Mark Hardie, a senior analyst for Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. Besides, ``Anything you buy now is second or third tier. That's all that's left on the market.''

With prices high and selection grim, the penurious Redstone took a much cheaper route, and one his company knows well.

Just as Viacom made billions by dominating specific demographic segments (kids and youth-oriented music) with its hugely successful cable television channels Nickelodeon, MTV and VH-1, it now will do the same thing on the Internet, driving its young and younger TV viewers to the Web sites and back again with heavy cross-promotion.

Among the intriguing additions will be Imagine Radio, the Brisbane, Calif.-based startup that has been providing highly personalized Internet ``radio'' for a while now.

Viacom bought Imagine for a reported pittance, and it is planning to expand its offerings from about 30 to more than 100 genres of music.

Listeners can create custom ``stations'' that play a mix of music from whatever of those genres they like.

The Imagine music player also will allow listeners to rate individual songs, buy albums and merchandise, get concert and band information, and access live chats and well-regarded independent Web sites.

The sites - tentatively named Project Nozzle for children and the Buggles Project for music - also feature the digital TV channels that Viacom already is offering to satellite-dish owners.

Though it will be awhile before there are enough high-speed Internet connections for most people to watch those digital channels on their computer/TV/convergence device, this is indeed where entertainment is going.

And in the meantime, it's nice to see somebody in the old media figuring out a slightly different way to go new.

Veterans wanted

Veterans have long told their war stories, but now they have a place to put them, in the California Military Museum in Sacramento.

The state-owned museum is looking for personal stories, photos and other memorabilia from California veterans that it can include on its Web site at (www.militarymuseum.org).

If you have material you think may be appropriate, contact the museum at webmastermilitarymuseum.org, or write to California Military Museum, with attention to CSM Dan Sebby, Web site manager, 1119 Second St., Sacramento, Calif. 93814. You also can call the museum at [phone].

By the way, the Web site already has an extensive amount of information, including histories of California military installations, units and ships. The Web site also includes an events calendar, an online bookstore and lengthy listings of links to other military history sites.

Screen savers

Screen savers have long outlived their direct usefulness preserving your monitor from phosphor burn-in problems, but that doesn't mean they still can't be fun.

For instance, KaizenWorks Publishing of Santa Monica is selling a series of quote-of-the-day screen savers that also include changing photos, backing music, and the ability to print out the thoughts as note cards and daily agendas.

Among the 14 Day-Savor titles are ones based on the ``Chicken Soup for the Soul'' series and the game show ``Jeopardy!'' plus motivational and educational quotes, ``angel messages'' and Bible verses, golfing tips and daily astrology for all signs.

The Day-Savors can be purchased on floppy disks or CD-ROM for $16.95 in office supply or gift stores, or bought online-downloaded at www.daysavor.com.

Hanks and the Web

And finally, words to live by, from actor Tom Hanks, star of the recent online romance yarn ``You've Got Mail'' and the substantially (and justifiably) less well-remembered ``Bosom Buddies.'' ``Don't ever make the mistake of searching for your own name on the Internet,'' said Hanks backstage at the recent People's Choice Awards in Pasadena. ``I found out more about ``Bosom Buddies'' than I ever knew, and I was one of the Bosom Buddies.''