Because most organizations dedicated to AIDS awareness and education are nonprofit, they look for ways to keep their operating costs down while promoting their cause as effectively as possible. Part of the problem is that some groups duplicate efforts that have already been made by others. Web Zeit, a New York City production company, recently produced a CD ROM to help such agencies cut costs, eliminate redundancy and increase their effectiveness.

Funded by the pahrmaceutical giant Hoffmann-La Roche, the CD ROM, titled InterLink, opens with animation of men and women from various ethnic backgrounds carrying red squares and converging on a globe. In a long shot of the globe, the people hold the squares up to form a world-size AIDS ribbon.

The graphics were processed with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The program was authored using Macromedia Director and illustrated using Softimage. "Softimage is usually associated with game CD ROMs and video production," says Anthony Schneider, president of Web Zeit. "We used it on this CD because the content is fairly static, and we wanted an animated, lively attractor."

The disc's main menu contains two indexes — one listing the various audiences that an organization may want to target (teens, for example), and the other, subjects, such as treatment. After the user selects an item from each index, the program uses an Oracle database to generate a list of publications, resources and contact information.

Web Zeit polled members of InterLink's target audience before and during production to see that the disc's functionality aligned with their needs, Schneider says. "We were responding to the needs among AIDS service organizations to access publications and tap into their own shared resources more effectively. The CD is a fun, fast way of allowing thousands of organizations to share publications and other resources."

The project was conceived by the HIV Community Development Group at Hoffmann-La Roche, which chose Web Zeit's bid to produce InterLink because of the company's experience producing interactive content for other pharmaceutical firms. The disc, which will be distributed this month, took about six months to produce, Schneider says. "The best thinkg about InterLink is that it is a CD ROM that will make the world a better place."

The project is scheduled to go online later this year.