Daily News from New York, New York • 129

4i THE $55.00 $79.94 -Is A $65.31 $29.75 IF IMk 1 lA ses -s $47.62 sAf IS fKi! Wired updates REAL ESTATE nn no HotWired site Wired Ventures, aiming to provide a new interactive experience to members of its digital community, is launching a revamped version of its HotWired site on the World Wide Web. The new site, due to go live tomorrow, is designed to enable members to experience pages that come alive with theatrical motion and interactivity, encouraging them to take an active role in the emerging digital culture of the Internet as well as keeping current on Web issues. The new site reflects the hip approach of the company's other major media property. Wired magazine, which since its launch in 1993 has sought to establish itself as the chronicle of the emerging digital age. Editors at Wired Digital, the company's online media division, which developed HotWired 4.0, have geared the updated site to help people become insiders in the new and fast paced medium.

HotWired 4.0 is organized around six sections, including its Webmonkey how-to guide for Web junkies. Webmonkey provides tutorials, tricks and tools for both novice and professional Web developers. V7DDQ EODUDDDU By PETER GRANT im turn igsss i Klein IbiVH News Business Wnter The booming Times Square entertainment district is about to get a rain forest complete with waterfall, tropical thunderstorms and robotic wild animals. Rainforest Cafe, a theme restaurant that serves diners in a jungle atmosphere, is joining in the rush of eateries, theaters, stores and other attractions to the area. The Minneapolis-based Rainforest, which is in the middle of a major expansion effort, has reached a tentative deal with developer Douglas Durst to put a 350-seat outlet on the ground floor of the Conde Nast Building, which he's putting up at 42d SL and Broadway.

"It's for sure that we're coming to Times Square," said Steven Schussler, the company's founder and senior vice president "It's a matter of when." Schussler and Durst declined to comment on their talks. But real estate sources said that they've agreed on lease terms. The two-level restaurant would be a good match for Durst's 47-floor skyscraper, which is going to be one of the most environmentally sensitive structures in the city. The building will -S ft L. BUDO Wit-Li AJMS DAILY NEWS THEME PLAYER: Rainforest Cafe plans to occupy bottom two floors of 47-floor Conde Nast Building, which is to be built at this site at 42d St.

and Broadway. at eight other locations this year, including Westbury, L.I., and Nyack. "We're on a fast track," Schussler said. have such features as garbage chutes for recyclable material and special light-sensitive panels in its walls to cut down on energy costs. Rainforest Cafes serve American food to patrons surrounded by mechanized goril Rainforest, which sold stock to the pub-lic two years ago, earned $5.9 million in 1996 on sales of $48.7 million.

The Rainforest deal will further the remarkable transformation of Times Square from a vaguely menacing area of run Construction is proceeding or about to start on other attractions, such as Madame Tussaud's wax museum, a magic theme restaurant by the illusionist David Copperfield and the Ford Center for the Performing Arts, where the musical "Ragtime" is expected to open at the end of the year. Other companies are frantically scouting the area for fear that they might be left out of one of the country's great new entertainment districts. Billboard Live International reportedly is considering a concert site and dance club at the old Times Square Theater. Other tenants in the market include the National Basketball Association, which has been on the lookout for a theme restaurant. "It's hard to keep up with all the rumors," said Gretchen Dykstra, president of the 42d Street Business Improvement District.

NBC profits to climb General Electric's NBC unit expects operating profits to jump by as much as 15 in 1997, according to NBC sources and Wall Street gurus. The projections were disclosed last week when top GE and NBC officials met with Wall Street analysts. The session was closed to the press, and NBC officials wouldn't provide details of the session. One analyst, who declined to be identified, said: "It was a big pep rally. These guys played up the fact that they're kicking everyone's butt." Although GE does not detail operating profits at its units, NBC contributed $5.23 billion of $49.57 billion in total 1996 revenues.

NBC Chief Financial Officer Warren Jenson said NBC expects 1997 cash flow earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to range from 1 1 0 billion to $1.15 billion, according to the sources. Fed to hold the line The Federal Reserve is likely to leave interest rates unchanged this week as the economy appears to be cooling from torrid first-quarter growth levels while inflation remains absent, according to some former Fed officials. The Fed's policy-setting body, the Federal Open Market Committee, meets tomorrow and Wednesday to deliberate on interest rates. The central bank last changed monetary policy March 25, when it raised the federal funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 5.50. The Fed left rates unchanged at its May 20 meeting.

Where there's smoke The historic accord that tobacco companies and state officials brandished after months of intense negotiations looks less like the last word and more like an opening bid, legal experts and anti-smoking activists say. The next round of negotiations is already under way. At this point, it is an indirect affair involving health groups, the industry, the White House and state officials, all vying to shape the opinion of the public and of Congress. It may be months before congressional committees sit down with any specific proposals to turn the settlement blueprint into federal law. In the meantime, everyone involved is trying to sort the parties' public posturing from their true agendas.

las and snakes, talking trees, butterflies, jungle mists and a wide array of tropical birds and Fish. The company, which opened its first restaurant in the Mall of America in Minneapolis in 1994, just opened its eighth outlet in London's Piccadilly down movie theaters and porn shops into a family-oriented entertainment mecca. Numerous restaurants, theme stores and theaters have opened, most notably Walt Disney's restoration of the Circus. Rainforest is planning to open New Amsterdam Theater on 42d St. rn Multi-paper Web site The mother of all newspaper Web sites launches today.

A consortium of newspaper giants is unveiling News-Works, a Web site collaboration of dozens of papers nationwide that will compete with already-established news sites like MSNBC and ABCNews.com. Headquartered in New York with an editorial staff of 15, the NewsWorks site packages breaking news drawn from newspapers around the country, on local as well as national issues. A test version of the site last week, for example, had coverage from numerous newspapers on the life and death of Betty Shabazz. The media giants behind the site, such as Gannett, Hearst and Si Newhouse's Advance Publications, are betting that they'll be able to make money by selling online ads to national advertisers on both the NewsWorks site (www. news works-corn) and the Web sites of affiliated papers.

But one analyst says they'll have an uphill climb to catch up with all the other news sites on the Web. "They have their competition cut out for them," said Steve Mitra, senior analyst with Jupiter Communications. Mags' cyber ad-vice The American Society of Magazine Editors is trying to impose some order in cyberspace. The trade group, which includes editors of most of the major magazines in the country, called forcleardis-tinctions between editorial and advertising content that appears on magazines' Web sites. "The dynamic technology of electronic pages and hypertext links create high potential for reader confusion," ASME president and Money managing editor Frank Lalli said in a statement "Permitting such confusion betrays reader trust and undermines the credibility of not only the offending online publication or editorial product, but also the publisher itself." In 1982, ASME issued guidelines, which most major magazines follow, that require advertising sections to have a different typeface than articles and that special ad sections be clearly labeled as advertisements.

Ham J. IteOy.