EDITORIAL - Make sure you do Burn this summer

Like many of you, I am preparing to stretch out by the poolside seat for a couple of weeks of rest.

Right now, I'm looking at a big pile of books I bought to take with me.

But I've already dipped into it. I wish I had saved Michael Wolff's Burn Rate for my holiday. It's the most riveting read about the industry since Computer Wars, and the best book the internet has spawned. It's a biting satire based on life at the sharp end of being an internet entrepreneur. This is a must-read for everyone in the channel.

The book begins with Wolff outlining his trip to a conference of chief executives at the Ritz in Laguna Beach. He's there to raise money. The reality is '... that my lovely, wonderful company, which publishes some of the coolest guides to the Net and maintains one of the most lavish sites on the Web and has grown from four to 70 people in little more than two years, has seven weeks before it will crash and burn without investment'. His burn rate, or the amount of cash his company spent over income, was $500,000 a month.

The book chronicles the dash for cash, the sometimes desperate attempts to find the bankers, venture capitalists, stock market investors or internet specialists ready to invest money in his company. And it is very well-written, with a considerable sense of humour. The characters are from the internet halls of fame and sharply caricatured by Wolff - Halsey Minor of CNet, Seth Godin and Candace Carpenter, two of the internet's early programming wizards and Norm Pearlstine of Time Inc.

Whereas 1993 began with the consensus that the information superhighway would be based on set-top boxes and services accessed through the television, by the end of the year it is clear that, according to Wolff, '... the interactive future will be spearheaded by the online services, suddenly growing at a fantastic clip. Then by the spring of 1994, the Web is clearly coming, at first referred to by the University-supported browser that makes the Web visible.' Since Wolff was in at the beginning of the internet years, he has acute insights into the confusion the Web caused when it was unveiled. While many saw the potential immediately, some, such as Time Warner, acted cautiously and formed working parties to explore its money-making possibilities. Publishing companies toyed with the Net, worried it would make their paper-based products uncompetitive. And some lost millions of dollars attempting to find the elusive audience on the Web.

Wolff chronicles it all savagely. His wittiest bile is reserved for the members of the Maxwell family who ran Magellan, the company with one of the earliest search engines on the Web. At the time, the Maxwells looked like some of the smartest people in the information business, despite being tarnished by their father's pillaging of the Mirror Group pension funds. The description of Magellan's David Haden, husband of Isabel Maxwell, as the attempted merger of his company with Wolff's went down the pan at the 11th hour, is one which will stay vividly in the minds of every entrepreneur.

This book is rich with lessons about the online industries and has an hilarious take on the culture that made America Online so successful.

It is a book from which to learn.