@ LARGE
Holding pattern

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Staff, 8/14/2000

Tom Domenico's Web site isn't in worse shape than most Web sites you'll visit this week. OK, sometimes your e-mails go unanswered. Some of the features don't always work as advertised. There's not as much information as you might want.

The problem is, Domenico runs the Massport Web site. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but here's a situation where the Web could be used to further a meaningful social good. Namely: reducing the amount of time I spend window-shopping for live lobsters in Terminal B.

Wouldn't it be nice if you knew instantly when a flight was delayed or canceled, rather than battling tunnel traffic, only to stand and steam in line with 200 equally frustrated summer travelers?

Over the past five years, ground delays of an hour or more have increased 130 percent at US airports, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Flight cancellations have jumped 68 percent. And that's not including the current labor dispute that's forcing United Airlines to scratch hundreds of flights.

Information could be a real ally here. But while the Massport Web site has collected a shelf-full of awards from groups like the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council, the American Association of Port Authorities, and CIO Magazine, and while it is admittedly one of the top airport sites, it often leaves users in the lurch.

On most days, you'll only find arrival and departure times on the site for a dozen airlines - out of the 30-plus that serve Logan. Missing are some airlines you may have heard of: TWA, the Delta Shuttle, and all of American's domestic flights.

You can't blame Domenico for the paucity of arrival and departure data. Many airlines simply don't supply it to Massport in digital format. Domenico does say there's a project, as part of the Terminal E expansion, that will provide individual airlines with technology enabling them to supply information to the site. But don't hold your breath: It won't be up and running until late 2001. Or early 2002.

While Domenico claims that all of the site's incoming e-mail is answered within 24 hours during the week, an e-mail that I sent three weeks ago seems to have been sucked into that same black hole that consumes your Samsonite.

And one of the site's niftiest features, FlightTracker, which allows you to get a status update on your cell phone or pager, still has bugs. When it works, it's a killer app, notifying you when a flight has been delayed, when it has landed, when it has arrived at the gate. But the site will also let you attempt to track flights - say, a TWA arrival from St. Louis - that never enter its database, so you never receive any kind of notification.

Domenico says he is working on making Massport.com a more comprehensive resource, and ironing out some of the issues with FlightTracker. One problem is that the site's maintenance budget is ''paltry,'' in Domenico's words - less than 10 percent annually of the $500,000 Massport spent to build it in the first place. Spending more to boost the usefulness of the Web site is high on my Massport wish list, right up there with a new runway.

For now, the individual airlines' sites - and their 800 numbers - are still a better source of information if you want to avoid unnecessary trips to Logan or decrease the amount of quality time you spend with those lethargic lobsters. The FAA also maintains a list of significant airport-wide delays at www.atcscc.faa.gov.

Wishful thinking

Online gift registries haven't yet taken off, for lots of reasons. First, it's a tradition for soon-to-be-married couples to stroll the aisles of Crate & Barrel, creating a list of all the kitchen goodies they need. Surfing Crate

andbarrel.com together isn't quite the same.

Second, people rarely think of registering for occasions other than weddings. Third, it's hard for an online registry to get both gift recipients and gift buyers to visit. Fourth ... well, you get the idea. It ain't easy.

Peter Wolfe, the CEO of Swagbag

.com, an online gift registry based in Reading, is hoping he can beat the odds, and outlast a throng of competitors. A partnership launching in September, - with the Shops at the Prudential Center and CyberXpo.com, an Internet kiosk operator - is crucial to Swagbag's survival.

When you're shopping at the Pru this fall, you'll encounter ads at the CyberXpo Net kiosk and cards in stores that encourage you to build a wish list for Christmas, or your birthday, on the Swagbag site. Then, others can get access to your list and either buy the items online or in person at the mall. The Simon Property Group, which operates local shopping meccas like the Atrium Mall and the Northshore Mall, is pursuing a similar model with its Clixnmortar.com subsidiary.

Wolfe has been running Swagbag on about $300,000 of money from friends and family, and he has yet to secure venture capital. Like many other Net entrepreneurs, he's trying to quickly fashion Swagbag into a business that can stay afloat with a very lean staff, limited technology investment, and frugal promotional programs. Last fall, the company ran radio spots on 11 local stations. The Pru partnership seeks to bring in new users at a much lower cost - say, $10 a pop.

''We're confident that once this [partnership] starts going, we'll be able to turn it into something bigger,'' Wolfe says, before observing that such partnerships - which were relatively easy to come by a year ago - have suddenly become much more valuable to Internet start-ups. ''It's tough. If we didn't have this, things would be pretty desperate-looking.''

Done deal

Wellesley's Salary.com announces today that it has cut a deal with America Online. Salary.com CEO Kent Plunkett says it's the 35th cobranding deal the company has negotiated in the past 60 days. Salary

.com's compensation data - which lets you know what you should be earning - will show up in AOL's WorkPlace Channel.

Plunkett says he's contractually forbidden from talking about the terms of the multiyear deal, but hints that he's not shelling out millions just to show up on AOL. One typical

Salary.com arrangement is a split of the advertising revenues.

Plunkett predicts that the AOL arrangement - along with a similar deal with Yahoo - will help Salary

.com hit 10 million page views per month in September. ''That's a big step toward profitability,'' he says.

Smokin'

The Cambridge Chamber of Commerce's eBusiness Group and the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council partner up to put on the first-ever ''CyberQue'' this Thursday. It'll be held outdoors at University Park, just outside Central Square. Proceeds benefit Cambridge Camping, and the food is from Somerville's estimable Redbones.

But would you rather be gnawing ribs al fresco than watching the Democratic National Convention at home? Really?

Scott Kirsner is a contributing editor at Wired and Fast Company magazines.