Multimedia Explosion! 
4,731 CD-ROM titles now,    ....   6,000+ by Christmas!


August 6, 1993 -- TFPL's latest edition of The CD-ROM Directory reveals
that 1992's unprecedented growth in the number of CD-ROM titles published
has just been exceeded. During the first six months of 1993, over 1,100
new titles reached the market. The PC remains the dominant publishing
platform, fuelled by the launch of large numbers of multimedia titles, but
there have been interesting surges in production for some of the
alternative platforms.

Editor Matthew Finlay comments, "Although the total number of titles always
makes the headlines, what is more important to the end user is the high
quality of many titles now appearing. This fact, combined with lower
prices being offered by publishers, is doing much to increase the number
of CD-ROM users."

The number of Macintosh titles, which nearly doubled during 1992, has
already increased by a third this year. This is no doubt due to Mac's
natural ability as a multimedia machine. Apple's Multimedia Developer's
Program (released in the USA early in 1993 and forecast for European
launch in September) is likely to sustain this trend.

CD-I is at last beginning to achieve a respectable count of titles as many
discs previously "in development" are actually being released. This is in
contrast to the two other consumer multimedia platforms. CDTV would appear
to have ground to a halt in terms of new title releases, confirming an
increasingly popular suspicion that it is out of tho running in the
consumer multimedia-player stakes. VIS was launched last year with around
seventy titles on the shelf, however new releases for this platform appear
to be following the patterns set by both CDTV and CD-I - an initial surge
followed by a long lull as a new batch of titles is developed.

MMCD titles are listed in The CD-ROM Directory for the first time, the
player having been released during March of this year. It is early days
for this platform, but it seems likely that the increasing trend toward
cross-platform titles will result in a respectable catalogue of
applications being released in a relatively short time frame.

Published in July, the 10th Edition of The CD-ROM Directory contains a
number of innovations over previous editions:

Product Demos, Graphics & Electronic Brochures ON DISC!

The new disc pilots a brand new promotional feature which offers companies
the opportunity to run a product demonstration linked to the relevant
title listing, display the CD cover design of an individual disc, or even
include an "electronic brochure". These graphic displays will increase the
impact of existing company and title entries within the directory.

New Italian Retrieval Software

In addition to the existing French, Spanish, German and English language
interfaces, the 10th Edition of the directory (now using version 3.2 of CD
Answer retrieval software from Dataware Technologies, Inc) introduces an
Italian Interface.

Publication Schedule

In order to keep fully up-to-date with this fast-changing business, a
completely new edition of The CD-ROM Directory is published every six
months (July & Dec). The latest edition (the 10th) launched in July, is
currently available. Subscribers to the CD-ROM VERSION automatically
receive two editions as part of their yearly subscription ($220 for both
editions). A BOOK VERSION is also published in December of each year ($165
per copy).

TFPL, Inc.
1301 Twentieth Street, N.W., (#702), Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 296-6009,    Fax: (202) 296-6343

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