George Schlukbier

George Schlukbier is the North American innovator who in the 1990s built Nando, one of the early websites offered by a daily newspaper (The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina), and NandO Times, an early and much-copied online newspaper. He later built Total Sports as an early online sports information source.

In 1993, The News & Observer hired Schlukbier as director of its newly formed New Media division.

Editor Frank Daniels III set Schlukbier to work creating an on-line presence for the N&O. Schulkbier assembled a technical and editorial staff to carry out his ideas for an interactive service that would appeal to young people—a crucial and shrinking readership for U.S. newspapers. His first step was to purchase an existing internet access provider. Then he joined with the N&O Newspapers in Education program to make NandO IAP access free to all North Carolina schools. Once familiar with the internet and with NandO's offerings, students wanted access to its chatrooms and games at home.

Schlukbier, the vice-president of NandO, worked with Daniels, Seth Effron, and Eric Harris in developing Nando Times as an interactive online newspaper offering a full menu of news, sports, and features from local to international. It became forerunner of the hundreds of such newspaper sites that popped up over the following decade.

McClatchy Newspapers (coincidentally, Schlukbier's former employer) purchased the News & Observer and its chain of smaller publications in 1995. Frank Daniels III left the newspaper, which had been owned and run by generations of his family, in favor of online ventures such as KOZ community news. He took Schlukbier with him.

Daniels merged KOZ with Total Sports Publishing of Kingston, New York, known for its Total Baseball encyclopedia. The publishing arm, under founder John Thorn, continued to produce highly regarded sports books, including Total Hockey. Schlukbier became president and chief operating officer of Total Sports, charged with building a multifaceted online sports news information service. Assembling a staff made up, in large part, of the same people who had helped create NandO, Schlukbier accomplished this. The company offered subscribers instant access to scores, statistics and standings. Total Sports' landed a contract with the collegiate Atlantic Coast Conference to provide live online coverage of ACC games, a novelty at the time.

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