Kelley Blue Book a great tool for car buyers
June
22, 1997
By JIM
BROOKS
For years, the Kelley Blue Book has been the standard tool for
dealers and lenders to establish prices and values for cars and
trucks.
Well now you can count on the "blue book" folks to help
you as a consumer shop for a car.
The Kelley Blue Book Web site, at www.kbb.com, offers helpful information
on buying and selling a car in a very simple and easy-to-use format.
The Blue Book site has values for new cars and trucks (including
dealer invoice prices), and values for used cars going back 21 years.
The Web site is aimed at the public, and the car prices it contains
aren't the same as the "blue book" that your bank or auto
dealer uses.
And there's good reason why.
Many factors aren't included in the prices that are printed in
the dealer/lender version of the blue book.
For example, the wholesale trade-in value doesn't include the labor
a dealer will have to put into a car to prepare it for sale, or
the mark-up he'll need to make a profit.
Instead, the site's values reflect "real-world" values.
The prices are a good guide as to the price you'll probably get
if you sell or trade-in your car.
Don't overlook the mechanics of their site, either. It's very simple
to navigate and use.
All you need to enter to get started at the Kelley site is a zip
code. In a couple of mouse clicks, you'll have the information you're
looking for.
Visually, the site isn't as graphically intense as similar auto
price guides on the Web, which means it loads faster.
If you're in the market to buy or sell a car or truck, some time
spent at the Kelley site will better prepare yourself for that trip
to a dealer or used car lot.
WEB TV UPGRADE. If you've pondered buying one of the WebTV
set-top boxes to surf the Internet, you can at least take heart
in the company's latest moves to improve the service.
A new software upgrade for WebTV users will be available by the
first of July that will offer some important new features.
These include:
-- support for secure online transactions;
-- an regional online TV guide, with celebrity news
and features;
-- added printing capabilities, and;
-- support for multimedia on the Web.
The most significant change in the WebTV service is that the company
is dropping its requirement to subscribe to its closed WebTV network
-- which required long-distance phone calls in many areas.
The WebTV boxes will now be able to access any existing Internet
Service Provider (ISP). WebTV will still charge $9.95 per month
for support that includes future software upgrades, telephone technical
support and WebTV user-only content.
The upgrades are likely a response to complaints from some of WebTV's
85,000 subscribers, as well as the increasing competition for TV
set-top Web appliances.
Set-top boxes from NetChannel and ICTV will be on the market by
year's end, and other companies are eyeing the no-computer-needed
Web-access market.
AOL ADDING 56K. America Online has inked a deal with modem-maker
U.S. Robotics to deploy the company's high-speed modems in its network.
U.S. Robotics will provide its "x2" 56k modem technology
to AOLnet, which is AOL's dial-in network division.
The deal is a feather in the cap for U.S. Robotics, whose technology
is competing with chipmaker Rockwell and others as the de facto
"standard."
No standard exists yet for the speedy 56k modems, but both companies
say their currently incompatible modems will be upgradeable to the
standard -- when one is created.
WEBCRAWLER UPGRADE. Of all the search engines I use
on the Web, WebCrawler is probably one I've used the least in recent
months.
But now WebCrawler (acquired by Excite from America Online) has
just revamped itself into more than just a search engine Web site.
WebCrawler now offers content from:
-- Classifieds2000, a free national classified ad directory;
-- N2K's MusicBoulevard music store,and;
-- Deja News, a searchable database for Usenet (newsgroup)
postings.
-- MapQuest, which creates interactive maps.
WebCrawler will continue to offer its Web-based search services,
as well as its popular WhoWhere? people finder service, a database
of 11 mill lion e-mail and 80 million home addresses.
NETSCAPE BUG FIXED. Programmers at Netscape Communications
Corp. tracked down a reported bug last week and fixes are underway.
The company has posted an updated version of Communicator with
the fix. Patches for older versions of the Navigator browsers software
will be coming quickly, according to a posting on the Netscape Web
site (http://home.netscape.com).
WINDOWS ON THE WORLD. The updated version of Windows95 --
named Windows98 -- will be released in "beta" in July.
The software should have lots of neat features, and reports say
it the Windows desktop now will look more like a Web browser than
the current Windows95 view.
The "beta" version is intended for evaluation and debugging
by users and developers -- not as the final version.
The "official" release date may arrive before year's
end, but don't count on St. Nick bringing it bundled at Christmas
with your new Pentium II PC.
The company alerted vendors last month that Win98 probably wouldn't
be out in time for Christmas PC sales.
You'll probably see a great many offers for free or low-cost upgrades
for both Windows95 and Windows 3.1 users at Christmas instead.
Millions of users still cling to the older Windows 3.1, and Microsoft
likely hopes the new operating system will convince more users to
upgrade.
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