Staci D. Kramer: Let me take it back to the site. When this all started there was a lot of hope that you were creating something very different in terms of the way that your site and the network would be able to interact and would be creating opportunities. You?ve been able to tap into some of that but when the cable network isn?t maximizing, how does that affect the Web site?

		There was new management and much change in the wind. And it became very clear to me I wasn't exactly the best person to either implement that change or make it work over time. So it seemed to me that I should not dawdle ... it was time to move on.

Merrill Brown: It?s the wrong way to look at the question. The question is have we succeeded in inventing important ways to make the Internet and television work together, and the answer is yes. We were the first people to link Internet content to prime time news magazines on a vastly larger platform than cable television. I?m talking about Dateline.  We were the first people to aggressively and frequently use Internet programming connections to morning television. What we do with Today, with the Brokaw program (NBC Nightly News) and with Dateline dwarfs what anybody else has done and is doing right now. 

I?m extremely proud of the fact that we created a value proposition in prime time television and in network television that makes the Web and a program?s ties to it really valuable and journalistically sound. When we started doing this in '96-'97 the only sign of a URL you ever saw on a television network, let alone on a broadcast network, was a 59-minute-and-50-second-after-the-hour reference to ?for more information go to ?? We decided that consistent with believing in convergence and that all this ultimately would move to single-platform distribution, what we had to do was to create a sound journalistic storytelling premise for getting people to leave the television set and go to the computer or use the two simultaneously. When Jane Pauley or Stone Phillips goes on Dateline and says if you want to see where the dangerous seafood is in your part of the country go to MSNBC.com and punch in your ZIP code, you?re doing something that?s utterly and totally valuable to the end users, and creating an entirely new dynamic about how the Internet and television work together. I think that?s been really successful.

SDK: The first few times you heard Jane say something and saw the traffic blip at MSNBC.com, was that exciting?

MB: It was really exciting. Today when that works and the people watching the traffic sort of ooh and aah at the spike and more importantly when we get letters from people who say, ?It was really valuable that I was able to get this information that I was able to get this information from Lea Thomson on Dateline about a safety issue.? That?s really a wonderful feeling.

SDK: There?s a lot of talk about defining moments. I?m not sure this phase is over yet, but there was a period of time when anytime anything major happened in the world it was a ?defining moment? for the Web. What have been the defining moments for MSNBC.com?

MB: That?s a really hard question. I?m thinking a lot about today and not about the last six years, frankly.

Defining moments include the 1996 election. We were brand new and facing huge infrastructure issues. Defining moments ? the obvious defining moments are about major news stories, whether it is the Princess Diana story or the war in the Kosovo region or the obvious, 9/11.

All of those are, of course, important defining moments but I think the most important defining moments are about our ability to really innovate around here. When we rolled out our site design in 1997, which really was very controversial both internally and externally, that was exciting. When we rolled out the News Browser feature, which allows you anyplace on the site to go to any story on the site, something that I believe still no [other] major news site offers, that?s really exciting. When we rolled out meta-data links to video stories so you could be listening and watching an anchor at the same time you?re looking at content. We believe we were among the first to do this, not necessarily the first. When we rolled out News Alert, the applications when a bull's-eye pops up on your screen when we have something for you, that?s exciting.

In the last year or so we?ve done a really good job of engaging NBC correspondents in what we do every day, not just, as other sites do, lifting their transcripts from their on-air reporting, but, in fact , getting them to produce unique content for us, that?s exciting.

When we break stories, as we have over and over again, about subjects like hacking or politics or what?s going on the technology business or even about the war, that?s really exciting. When we did something that revolves around creating what I think is not just the best gossip column on the Web, but maybe the best gossip column anywhere, which we publish four times a week, that?s really exciting. So I?d rather talk about our innovations instead of Web defining moments. That?s what I?ll remember most.

SDK: I have to admit the rollover menu is a particular favorite of mine.

MB: Thank you. I?m very proud of it. When I pressed for it back in '96-'97 people here thought I was crazy, we could never do it.

SDK: In terms of things you?ve done at MSNBC.com, what would you say is the one thing others have copied the most?

MB: I?d say basic application development. Simple stuff. Drop downs. Maps you roll over. I think it?s pretty clear we were the most aggressive, if not necessarily the utter first people, who really integrated application development into story packages. That?s one of my great loves and passions getting software developers and journalists working together on projects that add value to storytelling. I?m very proud of that.

SDK: What happened faster than you expected?

MB: Audience scale. I had no sense that this thing would start ramping up in as dramatic fashion as it did in terms of audience measurement. We started with a few hundred thousand unique users a month and we were in millions within a few years. I had no idea that would happen quite so quickly. I thought we?d grow and we?d be a mass medium before long, but the fact that by ?98 we were talking about huge audiences and today we?re talking about a daily audience that?s larger than that of any print publication in the country is remarkable.

SDK: What still hasn?t happened that you think is long overdue?

MB: What hasn?t happened is that we haven?t completely gotten our story together for the advertising and marketing community, and that is a huge frustration for me. By we, I mean us and the entire industry. With the good work of the Online News Association and the Online Publishers Association and the continuing efforts of IAB (Internet Ad Bureau), I think we?re getting closer. There was a magic moment in the ?80s when the Cable Advertising Bureau pulled it all together and made the cable story sing for advertising agencies and their clients. We?re on the verge of doing that but haven?t pulled it off yet and certainly wished we had pulled it together sooner.

SDK: The industry still can't agree on what the most important number is when it comes to ratings.

MB: I think OPA is making great strides in that regard and I guarantee you that that will be resolved in the next two years because too much is at stake.

SDK: Are unique users the key?

MB: Yes. I think page views are preposterous and audience is everything. A page view is just so out of step with what media is about. A page view is a  contrivance designed by developers and editors to get people to flip around  and make the number higher. What one site decides requires a click and  moving onto a second page is not what another site decides. We decided a  long time ago that we were not going to play that game. We think once you  call up a story on the Web site and you're gone through that effort  and I  don't care whether it's at 28.8 or broadband --  you are entitled to see  that entire story and you should not have to endure it again merely for the  contrivance of a page view that yields an advertiser a new impression. It's  not in the user's interest and, in fact, it's not in the advertiser's  interest because it creates confusion and delay for their customer ie the user of the story in question.

SDK: One of the things I think of when I see high page views is poor design.

MB: That certainly would be a view consistent with ours. We could break up our stories every eighth paragraph or pick your number and obviously we'd  have more page views. It has nothing to do with the size of an audience or  the end-user's engagement in a given story. In fact, it's a disincentive  for the user to move on. It's a medium and it's about people and eyeballs.

SDK: In a USA Today story you were both in, (media critic) Jon Katz said: "It has become a huge big-bucks game that it didn't used to be" Journalism  was supposed to be a considered medium. It was never supposed to be a  medium that transmitted information instantly."

MB: Oooh. I don't remember that one. That's preposterous. What is 24 all-news-radio and television about? Is that not journalism? Should  bulletins not be put on 24-hour news services? Are bulletins not journalism?

SDK: "A big-bucks game that it didn't used to be?" Is there supposed to be some roped-off area that says ?Journalism  not supposed to make money.  Internet  not supposed to make money.'

MB: Journalism must make money. The notion of the so-called golden era when large broadcast networks underwrote their news operations as public service  is preposterous in fact and in its premise. We have to make money. There  are lots of ways to measure that. Our web site even at break-even status  has great value for NBC News and for MSNBC cable even in a world where it  didn't have huge margins and I think everybody recognizes that, which is  why the goal here has been and it'll continue to be let's at least get to  self-sustaining.

SDK: Was there a time when you were worried about what Microsoft might do in terms of working with you, that they might be heavy handed?

MB: I worried about it before I took the job and never really since. Lots of people said to me in the early days, ?why would you go try to set up a  newsroom and engage at that level with a company that doesn't have a  journalistic heritage and, in fact, a company that journalists have a  history of some skepticism of?

My answer was because their managements have  assured me we'd have the right level of independence, they've assured me  we'd have the resources to do what we needed to do and that we would have  the independence to cover Microsoft and GE and its properties aggressively  and fairly.

We've been able to do exactly that.

Microsoft management -- and  I know them all at some level and have worked with many of them  they have  been utterly supportive and understanding of all our journalistic wants and  needs and never once have I thought our independence was at risk. They have  been utterly spectacular even in understanding why we had to do things like  cover the DOJ case and all the news Microsoft makes from time to time ".  I'm very proud of the fact that we have been forced by events to cover our  parent companies more aggressively than any enterprise in history. We have  written more about at least one of our owners than anybody has ever had to  write about one of its owners " As a result, we are treated by Microsoft in  the same fashion as they treat other news organizations.

SDK: You gave MINS a 2002 New Year's resolution that didn't promise to do anything better but to acknowledge everything that's already been done  right. Do you think there's enough of that in this industry?

MB: There's absolutely no appreciation within the industry and outside it of the extraordinary magnitude of our accomplishments. The mere fact that  every news organization in the world has a means to show their work to any  consumer in the world is extraordinary. We can sit at our desktops and read  any newspaper in the world of any consequence and that's extraordinary. The  fact that can sit at a desk in the Middle East and watch the best of NBC  Nightly News is extraordinary. The mere basics of the infrastructure that's  been created is an extraordinary accomplishment and it's only six years.

SDK: People are already chipping away at that ability for everyone to see everything. CNN.com is selling its video, which automatically knocks a  chunk of people out. You've got newspapers putting their content in an  electronic Internet-based service with editions that dissolve in a few  weeks. There's this attempt to leash content and make it pay through ways  other than just eyeballs and that's chipping away at this access. Where do you think it's going to go and where do you want to see it go?

MB: I want every category of content to have both free and subscription versions so that, yes, there's free video and also higher end subscription  video, so that yes, there are going to be  free newspapers and free Web  sites and others for which one pays. I don't see anytime soon any change in  that mix. We'll figure out subscription models for discrete categories that  make sense but the mass-media free distribution system for lots of great  content will not change anytime soon. I think the mix is great. High-end  services you pay a fee for make a ton of sense; vanilla services that are  delivered free make a lot of sense under the advertising model.

SDK: Coming from the cable universe you've heard about the promise of broadband for a long time, has the slow rollout of broadband-hampered sites like MSNBC.com?

MB: You say slow. Half our audience looks at us on broadband; there a huge at-work marketplace that's almost completely high speed and we're serving  up an enormous amount of video. Do I wish the pricing system of broadband  were better? Do I wish the national macroeconomic situation were better so  that subscriptions would be growing? Yes, but it's not bad especially when  you consider the difficult economics. It's coming. It's inevitable and it's  certain. It will be ubiquitous by the end of the decade.