Permission is granted to freely distribute this newsletter in electronic form for non-commercial use. All other rights reserved.
Send your comments, letters to the editor, and related articles to seltzer@samizdat.com For information on who we are check www.samizdat.com/who.html
To access other issues, go to www.samizdat.com/ioad.html. The full text of all issues is available for free, with hypertext links to the sites referenced. (Please keep in mind that URLs frequently change. We will attempt to update the information in this on-line edition, but don't expect perfection.)
For plain-text books on CD ROM, a library for the price of a book, visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
You can now receive Internet-on-a-Disk by email, by signing up at Yahoo Groups. Either send email to subscribe-ioad@yahoogroups.com , or register at the Web site http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ioad. You can also use that group to discuss related matters and share insights with other readers and with me (Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What's New (etexts available on the Internet): Samizdat Express, The Gutenberg Project, The Bartleby Project, Bibliomania (Data Text), Notre Dame, REESWeb, Oxford Archive
Web Notes : Context & Concept Filtering, First Steps: Marketing & Design Daily, Switchboard, Telstra, Four11, Liszt Directory, The Meaning of Life, Web Etiquette, Virtual Institute of Information, Union of International Associations, Web Digest for Marketers, Computerist Magazine
Other Educational Resources : Focus on Words, Student Book Reviews, Eco Travel in Latin America, New South African Constitution
Meta Sites: Boston.com, Travelocity, Matchpoint, Classified2000, Let's Talk Business, Mississippi River Home Page, Ireland On-Line, Hearthnet, Birmingham Assist, College Guides and Admissions
Places to Discuss Internet Marketing Issues: Business on the World Wide Web chat session, Asian Internet Marketing, Guerilla Marketing Online, Web Consultants mailing list, Intranut, Internet Marketing Communications mailing list, International Business Discussion Group, Internet-Sales Discussion List, Internet Developers Association, ISBC Business Discussion Group Newsletters, Abracadabra, Conference on Sales and Marketing via the Internet, Market-L List, CAN-IMARKET, Oracle-Agora, Marketplace
Curious Technology : EarthWeb Chat, Smart Bookmarks
Low-Tech Web-Page Design by Richard Seltzer
Advertising on the Internet -- Is it Worth the Price? by Alfred Thompson
For starters this is just a set of pointers to other sources of electronic texts, but some of them, such as REESWeb, noted below, might otherwise have passed unnoticed.
from REESWeb: Russian and East European Studies Internet Resourceshttp://www.pitt.edu/~cip/rslang.html
Extensive annotated set of pointers to all kinds of resources -- literary, language, and historical related to Russia and other Eastern European countries.
from the Oxford Archive ftp://ota.ox.ac.uk/pub/ota/public/
This pioneering source of public domain electronic texts has been moribund for quite a while now. The old Web address no longer works, but the anonymous ftp server is still in place with nothing new in "English" since 1995.
For those who do not have the capability or the time to retrieve electronic texts from the Internet, many are available at a nominal price from PLEASE COPY THIS DISK, a project of The Samizdat Express.
For further information, send email to seltzer@samizdat.com or check our Web site http://www.samizdat.com/
A complete book and some booklets discuss an idea for making the Internet more searchable using fuzzy conceptual filtering and thematic profile matching. There's lots here to ponder.
First Steps: Marketing and Design Daily http://www.interbiznet.com/nomad.html
Produced by John Sumser, this daily newsletter provides thoughtful and helpful commentary and news about business aspects of the Internet.
Switchboard -- US Phone Numbers http://www.switchboard.com/
Free residential and business telephone directory that seems to cover the entire US. Purportedly includes 90 million names of people, and 10 million names of businesses and provides street address as well as phone number. Their lookup system is very easy to use and effective -- I quickly found a few old friends whom I had lost track of. If you phone isn't listed in your name, you can register here.
Telstra -- Australian Phone Numbers http://www.telstra.com.au/
Residential and business phone directories for Australia.
Four11 directory of email addresses http://www.Four11.com/.
This free online search and listing service includes over 6.5 million unique email listings.
Liszt Directory of E-Mail Discussion Groupshttp://www.liszt.com/
Searchable directory of over 48,000 email discussions/distribution lists.
The Meaning of Life http://www.mlink.net/~jf/
Quirky -- sometimes fun, sometimes helpful -- common-sense essays and pointers.
Web Etiquette for Information Providers http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Provider/Style/Etiquette
This document describes the basic guidelines for making your Web site readily accessible and easy to use by large numbers of people. (This is a familiar classic. The location is new.)
Virtual Institute of Information http://www.ctr.columbia.edu/vi
Repository for scholarly papers and center for on-line discussion about cybercommunication and mass media research, run by the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information.
Union of International Associations http://www.uia.org/website.htmuia@uia.be
This site maintains an extensive list of links to the Web pages of international non-governmental and international governmental organizations (and related issues).
Web Digest for Marketers (WDFM) http://wdfm.com
Brief reviews of commercial Web sites are posted frequently at this site and are also available by email a few days before posting, at no cost (send email to larry@chaseonline.com and ask for Early Bird Email Edition).
Computerist Magazine (from Planet 3 Productions) http://www.p3p.com
This site offers info on PC and Macintosh computing, including editorials, news about the latest software, and a Free Clinic for getting help with problems.
A lot of work must have gone into this one -- on-line exercises, definitions, etymology, word histories: everything a word freak could ask for. On-line tests are automatically scored. It looks a great way to prepare for SATs and other tests that depend on knowledge of vocabulary.
Student Book Reviews -- http://www.shadow.net/~richmond/pc/reviews.htm#Reviews
At Pine Crest Schools in Fort Lauderdale, FL, students are allowed to publish book reviews on the Internet after they've read 10 books from their "Electronic Bookshelf " list. Over 140 students have participated.
Eco Travel in Latin America -- http://www.planeta.com/
Info and pointers related to "environmental tourism" -- blend of education and exotic travel.
New South African Constitution --
The new South African Consittution, adopted May 8, 1996 is now available on the Web. http://www.polity.org.za/lists/const.html = full text in WordPerfect 6.1 and Microsoft Word 6.0 as .zip files http://www.consittuion.org.za/zip/html = plain text and WordPerfect 5.1 as .zip file.
Boston.Com http://www.boston.com/
Run by the Boston Globe, this site tries to tie together the Boston community rather than just reflecting what appears in the newspaper. If you are free on Thursdays noon-1PM (Eastern Time), connect here, enter the keyword "chat" and join my chat session on "Business on the World Wide Web." (The chat schedule is at /common/ccal/ccala.htm).
Travelocity -- Travelling http://www.travelocity.com/
This is a classic example of a "meta-site." The target audience is anyone who wants to travel. Here you can check schedules, make reservations, etc. not just with one vendor, but across the board. Chats and forums tie link users with one another and with experts.
Matchpoint -- Buying houses http://www.nji.com/mp/
A simple way to look at homes advertised on the Web. Apparently, they charge sites with home listings to have their info included in the central database. Users submit info on what kind of house they are looking for and see listings on-line; they also can provide an email address to be notified when something meeting their criteria is added to the datab ase.
Classifieds2000 -- Buying cars http://www.classifieds2000.com/
This classified site focuses on vehicles -- cars, trucks, motorcycles, vans, and RVs. From here, it's easy to search listings from both individuals and dealers across the U.S.
Let's Talk Business -- "Entrepreneurial Community" http://www.ltbn.com
Based around a nationally syndicated radio talk show and a couple e-zines, this site focuses on the broad issues of small business, entrepreneurship and franchising. The e-zines are free, but you have to register to receive them by email. And the registration process gathers detailed demographic info.
Mississippi River Home Page -- http://www.greatriver.com/
This site tries to glue together a region, with travel and educational info related to the Mississippi River. It includes a number of focused, scheduled chat sessions.
Ireland On-Line -- http://ireland.iol.ie/
This looks like the "glue" for everything in Ireland related to the Web.
Hearthnet -- http://hearth.com/
Educational and business site with consumer and industry information about fireplaces, stoves, etc. It also contains a private area for industry members only.
Birmingham Assist -- http://birmingham.gov.uk/
This research project is run by the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham, in conjunction with the Economic Development Department of Birmingham City Council. It includes some interesting interactive features, for instance providing users a way to report pot holes and faulty street lights and to review local Pubs.
College Guides and Admissions -- http://www.collegeguides.com
Today it seems like just about every college, everywhere is on the Web. That can come in handy is you are trying to decide where to apply. But far handier would be a single site with the relevant information about all of them. This meta site is a step in that direction.
The readers and contributors who feel its absence should consider the following alternatives:
Business on the WWW chat session http://www.web-net.organd click on "Richard Seltzer's Chat: Business on the WWW," Thursdays, noon to1 PM (Eastern time in the US). Host = Richard Seltzer
Guerrilla Marketing Online http://www.gmarketing.com/tactics/forum.html
Forum for sharing marketing ideas.
Web Consultants mailing list (1200 subscribers) http://just4u.com/webconsultants/
The site have the archive of the mailing list discussion but a directory of consultants and other Internet marketing resources. The discussion is available by email either complete or as a digest. To subscribe to the digest send a message to webcons-digest-request@just4u.com in the body of the message type: subscribe webcons-digest To subscribe to the complete discussion list send a message to web-consultants-request@just4u.com In the body of the message type: subscribe web-consultants
Intranut -- nuts about Intranets (on-line magazine) http://www.intranut.com/
Articles plus a (forum) discussion area.
Internet Marketing Communications Mailing List (IMARCOM)
Discussion moderated by Robert Raisch, The Internet Company, and others within The Internet Company and IWORLD/Mecklermedia. To subscribe, send to IMARCOM @INTERNET.COM Subject: SUBSCRIBE IMARCOM Message: Your Name, Your Company's Name
International business discussion group for small businesses (ISBC BDG)
Send e-mail to majordomo@wildstar.net Include the appropriate one of the following in the body: subscribe isbc-bdg <your e-mail address> or info isbc-bdg Or send e-mail to nick@isbc.com
The Internet-Sales Discussion List (spun off from Internet Marketing in November, 1995) -- 2200 subscribers http://www.mmgco.com/isales.html or IS-SUB@mmgco.com
Marketing Lists on the Internet http://www.bayne.com/wolfBayne/htmarcom/mktglist.html.
List of marketing-related discussion groups.
Internet Developers Association http://www.association.org
Intended for Internet content providers, this association maintains a discussion listserv for its members.
Internet Entrepreneurs Support Association http://www.iess.com/iess
To join a discussion group for entrepreneurs and businesses doing business on the Internet, send e-mail to majordomo@ix.entrepreneurs.net Include the appropriate one of the following in the body: subscribe iesslist <your e-mail address> or info@iess.entrepreneurs.net
ISBC Business Discussion Group newsletters http://www.isbc.com
As one of the main aims is to foster international business relations editions in french, spanish, german, dutch, russian and chinese are already in place or are being set up.
Abracadabra! (Charles Puls & Company mailist) http://www.abracadabra.com
To join in marketing discussion send email to mailist@abracadabracom with the word SUBSCRIBE in the body.
Conference on "Sales & Marketing Via the Internet" July 22-25 at Michigan State U. http://www.vmarketing.com/odgroup/inet
Market-L List
This is the list that Internet-Marketing originally spun off from. To subscribe, send email to listserv@amic.com in the body of the message, write subscribe Market-L <your name> Then you can post messages to market-L@amic.com
CAN-IMARKET http://www.idirect.com/jasmine/canimarket.
This mailing list is a group dedicated to Canadian Internet Marketing. The list is open both to consumers and sellers of goods and services on the Canadian Market. Non-Canadians are welcome to participate. To subscribe, simply send a note to can-imarket-request@idirect.com with the word subscribe in the body of the message.
ORACLE-AGORA
This list is dedicated to New-Age Marketing. It is open both to consumers and sellers of goods and services in this market. To subscribe, simply send a note with the word "subscribe" (without the quotes) to: oracle-agora-request@idirect.com
MARKETPLACE
This is a brand new list trying to pick up with Internet Marketing left off. To join send email to nitefall@idirect.com.
Some Web-based chat applications have the drawback that you have to keep hitting a refresh button to see the new messages that others are posting. That means that as you type your reply, you have no idea what others are saying in the meantime. (The software used at www.boston.com works that way). This neat application uses Java and creates an environment where you see everything as soon as it's entered and can read the new stuff in realtime while you are typing. It has the usual chat problem that there are no threads and the dialogue gets confusing quickly if there are many people talking at the same time. But I'd like to play some more with this.
Smart Bookmarks -- http://www.firstfloor.com/beta.html
Using agent technology, Smart Bookmarks monitor groups of booksmarks or URLs. You can schedule each individual agent to check for changed, added, or new links manually, at program start-up, or at pre-determined times. Sounds good, but I haven't had a chance to download and try it out yet.
Every day my modem seems to get slower. No, it's not broken. Rather, more and more sites -- even personal ones designed by high school students -- use the latest and greatest fancy graphics with frames and images that flash and move repeatedly, and Java applets that make new things happen non-stop. There seems to be some law of human nature on the Internet that everyone needs to push the limits of the technology, using all the graphics and multimedia effects that they possibly can, to prove to themselves and to the world that they can do it.
I ask myself -- what are they communicating? What's the content? And in many cases, there is no content. The only message is basically, "Hey, look, Mom, I can stand on my head!"
Even large, high-tech-savvy companies get caught in this same human-nature trap. While the business objective of their Web sites should be to provide useful content to potential customers, they put most of their effort and investment into fancy effects, that add nothing in terms of content and communication, and in fact make their sites far more difficult to access for ordinary people, with ordinary equipment and software.
The point isn't that these effects can't be useful and can't enhance communication, but rather that, in most cases, they aren't used that way today. It takes skill, experience, and judgement to create or even to choose a picture that is actually worth a thousand words. And it takes even more experience to effectively use the more advanced capabilities. But rather than proceeding step by step and learning how to get the most out of each level of technological capability before advancing to the next, people infected with the technology bug rush ahead and dabble with the new stuff before mastering the basics of plain-text Web-based communication. And others who have something to say but aren't familiar with the technology or can't afford the latest hardware and software are intimidated, and back off -- convinced that Web-based communication is beyond their capabilities.
I design my own Web pages the way I wish others would, focusing on content rather than fancy effects. And what I do, anyone could do. It's no more complicated than using a word processor.
Increasing numbers of Internet service providers offer their dial-in customers free or low-cost Web space. You can create your pages on your own PC or Mac and upload them to the service provider's site, where they are made available for anyone anywhere in the world to visit any time they want. The details of how to upload and where to put your pages vary. Ask the support staff at your Internet provider to help step you through it the first time.
This is how I go about creating my low-tech pages on my PC with Microsoft Word:
If you use Word for Office 95, there is a free software patch -- the "Internet Assistant for Word," which can turn that word processing program into a simple and powerful Web-page authoring tool. (I strongly recommend that you not try to use Word for Office 97 for this purpose. That version has HTML editing capability built in, but it is far more complicated and difficult to use than the older version with the patch.) Microsoft used to make the patch available at their site; but now they are pushing Office 97 and they have stopped giving out the patch for 95. You can, however, still find it at many other Web sites. Go to AltaVista (http://www.altavista.digital.com) and search for wdia204z.exe Pick the version that is right for your particular hardware and operating system, and follow the instructions for downloading and installing.
The Internet Assistant modifies Word so it handles HTML (hypertext markup language) as just another file format or template. You can use it to convert an existing Word document to HTML, by using the "Save As" command and choosing HTML. Or you can use it to create new documents in HTML, which is the way I prefer to operate and what I'll describe here.
Start a new document. Under "File" select "Templates". Then under "Templates" click on "Attach". Then from the selections shown, click to highlight "Html.dot" and click on "OK", which takes you back to the previous screen with "Html.dot" selected as template. Click "OK" again to get back into your document.
You should now see five new icons in your toolbars. (If you don't normally use the toolbars, click on View and then Toolbars, and select "Standard" and "Formatting" and then click on "OK.") These icons open up all the functions you need to create Web pages.
First click on the icon that looks like the letter "i" on a sheet of paper. A box opens up for you to enter the title of your page -- not the title that appears at the top of your document, but rather the HTML title, the coded name that search engines like AltaVista give high priority to when answering queries and that is displayed with search results. Just type the name and click "OK".
Now enter your content. If you have something new you want to say, just type it like you would any other new document. If you'd prefer to start with something you wrote before, open that other document, then under Edit, choose Select All, and Copy; then exit that document, and Paste the contents into your new document.
Now enhance the looks of your content. Click on Format, then on Style, and in the bottom left-hand corner, under "List:" click on the down arrow and select "All Styles". A wide range of choices will now appear in the large box above. Use the scroll bar to see the full range of choices. To change the "Style" of a piece of text in your document, you simply highlight that piece of text, then go to this set of Style choices, select the one you want, and click on "Apply." Experiment to see the range of choices. First select styles for your head and subheads. (I prefer to work with Headings 1, 2, 3, and 4).
Keep in mind that the usual methods for highlighting text in Word apply here as well. For instance you can change words to bold or italics or underline just as you would normally. If you have lists, you may want to bullet or number them. You can do this by highlighting the text and choosing a particular style, or by simply using the numbered list and bulleted list icons from the toolbar, as you would normally.
To divide sections of text, simply position the cursor where you want the divider, click, and then click on the dark horizontal line in the toolbar.
To add a hypertext link to another Web page, click on the chain in the toolbar. Click on the space under "Text to display" and type the words that you want readers to see highlighted. Then click on the space under "File or URL" and type the Web address. Then click on OK, and your "Text to display" will appear blue and underlined like a hypertext link. As an alternative, you could highlight a piece of text in your document, then click on the chain, and that highlighted text will appear in the "Text to display" box; and all you need to enter is the address. If you are going to have more than one Web page, make sure that you have hyperlinks connecting them so readers can easily move from one to another and can always, from any of your pages, return to your preferred starting point or index page.
To add a hypertext link to an email address, simply enter under "File or URL" mailto:username@address, e.g., mailto:seltzer@samizdat.com
If you would like to add special symbols, like ©, ®,, or Greek and mathematical symbols, click on Insert, then on Symbol, and make your choice.
NB -- If you think you might want to eventually move to another service provider or might want to move batches of pages to their own separate directories, you should use "relative" rather than absolute addressing in the hyperlinks among your own pages. In other words, if your basic URL is http://www.samizdat.com/ and you want to link to a page called lowtech.html, you can enter the URL for that page as http://www.samizdat.com/lowtech.html (absolute) or as lowtech.html (relative). With relative addressing, a browser looks for a document of that name in the same directory as the current page, regardless of what that directory may be named. That way if you do move, you won't have go through the tedious and error-prone process of changing all the links among your pages.
If you have a long document, there is no need to divide it up into lots of smaller documents with links among them (which many people do). Keep it simple -- both for your own convenience and the convenience of readers. The fewer the documents the better. And there's nothing wrong with having a Web page that is literally as long as an entire book. If it consists of just text, with no graphics, it should download relatively quickly. Just make the page easy for readers to navigate. Near the top, enter a list of the contents. Highlight the first entry in that list of contents and click on the chain in the toolbar. The highlighted words will appear in the box "text to display." This time instead of entering a Web address, and go down to "Bookmark location in file". Microsoft uses the word "bookmark" in a different sense than Netscape does. This "bookmark" means a hyperlink inside instead of outside a Web page. Enter a one-word label for the piece of the document you want to link to. Then click "OK". Your selected text will appear blue and highlighted like a hypertext link. Now scroll down to the text you referenced in your contents. Highlight the chapter title or subhead or first few words of text and click on the "open book" icon to the left of the chain. Enter the same word you entered under "Bookmark location in file" and click on "Add". Now go back up to your list of contents, and click twice on the hyperlinked text. If you entered the same words both in the hyperlink and the bookmark, you should be moved straight from the contents to the matching section of text.
If you have a picture of some some other graphic element which you would like to use, such as a company logo or a photo of someone which you have stored on your computer as a .gif or .jpg file, click on the place in the document where you would like it to appear. Then click on the icon showing mountains (to the left of the open book). In the section "Picture", enter under "Image source" the name of the file. Also, under "Alternative text" the explanatory words that you would like to be presented to people who do not have graphics capability (including the blind). Then move to the "Options" section, and select the height and width you want, and clicking the down arrow next to "Default" decide whether you want the graphic to be centered or aligned left or right. When finished, click "OK." (When you upload your pages to the site of your service provider, be sure to upload the associated graphics files to the same directory.)
When you have finished your page, save it with a name that ends with the suffix ".htm" and as type "HTML document". (When it comes time to move your pages to your service provider's machine, doublecheck to determine their naming procedures. In many cases, you'll want to give each of your ".htm" files a suffix of ".html" on the server. This is a minor nuisance -- Word,. even with Windows 95, only recognizes the three character suffix .htm, and many UNIX systems, commonly used for Web servers, only recognize the four character suffix .html. So be sure the addresses you enter for hypertext links among your pages use the form of the name that you will be using on the server. In my case, I name all the pages .htm on my PC and rename them all .html on the server; so all my links to my own page are in the form.html)
To see how your page will look to readers on the Web, click on the eyeglasses at the far left of the toolbar. To return to edit mode, click on the pencil icon that then appears in the same space where the glasses were. To test your hypertext links, first connect to the Internet as you normally do, then open your Web page in Word again and click on the links. Word will then launch your Web browser and take you straight from Word to the foreign Web address in the link. As an alternative, connect to the Internet, launch your browser, open your page as a local file and give it a test drive (With Netscape, click on File, then on Open File, rather than Open Location, and enter the name of the file, including it's directory.) That way you can experience your Web page just as readers would -- except for the relative links among your own pages -- before making it available to the public. (Your browser wouldn't understand the relative links because your current directory is that of your local file, not the directory on your Web server.)
NB -- When making edits to an existing page, to see the changes you have entered clear your disk "cache." Your browser "remembers" the pages it has been to recently to save time in loading them. If you click to go to an address it has on file, it serves the information to you from your hard disk rather than going back to the actual Web site. Often even hitting "Reload" won't get you to the new version, unless you erase your "cache". With the Netscape Navigator, you do this by clicking on Options, then Network Preferences, then under "Cache" click on "Clear Memory Cache Now" and "Clear Disk Cache Now", then "OK."
Once you have mastered these basic techniques, you may want to experiment and try to take advantage of features you have admired at other sites. I recommend spending lots of time and effort on your content first and doing all you can with words alone. But when the temptation to move beyond reaches the critical stage, go to the page you'd like to emulate and save it as "Source" with a suffix of .htm. Then from Word, open that file, edit, cut, and paste, and move things around, and click on the glasses to see what difference the changes make. If graphics files are missing, click on View, then on HTML Source, and try to decipher the name of the missing files; then in your browser go to the specific file you want and save that as well. You can learn a lot looking at the markup codes in the Source, and by taking pages apart and putting them back together again -- like working on an old jalopy.
To add bizarre new markup code to a page of your own directly from Word, click on View, Insert, then on HTML Source. Then you'll see the background code that makes up your page. You can add and edit code directly in that mode. When you are done, click on View again, and then on "return to edit mode."
If you want to add Metatags (to tell search engines like AltaVista how you would like your page to be described and what related keywords for that page you'd like added to their index), you can do so either in the HTML Source (as above), or by click on "i" (where you entered the HTML title) and then on Advanced and then on Meta.
When your page is done and you have posted it at your site, be sure to go to AltaVista (http://www.altavista.digital.com) and at the bottom of that page click on "Add Page", then, in the form at the bottom of the next page, enter the URL for the particular page you just created. Then the full content of your page will be added to the AltaVista index within a day or two, the world will be able to find you. (You also might want to check my article on how to publicize a Web site over the Internet for free http://www.samizdat.com/public.html).
If you are stumped by some of the fancy new effects you are trying to add, use AltaVista to search for a free on-line tutorial on the topic you are curious about. Or as a last resort, buy a book or take a course.
But when you get to that stage, remember that your investment is probably for the entertainment of playing with new technology, because those extras really aren't needed to deliver useful content to readers on the Web.
Most of the money spent on Internet advertising so far seems to be on company sponsored Web pages. Studies indicate that the cost per reader is higher for Internet Web pages then for print, radio or TV advertisements. What advertisers are hoping is that the added level of information provided by these sites will move more people to buy product.
The Internet is an amazing way to advertise. With current technology on-line brochures involve not only text and pictures but sound and video. The production costs are on a par with conventional multi media production but the delivery costs are low. Not only that but because it is up to the potential customer to demand the information, via their Internet connection, it will be seen by people who are known to be interested in the product. Consumers can view as little or as much of the information as they want and only that much information is transmitted.
Costly as Web sites are, they may prove to be less costly then mailing hard copy materials if they can attract enough readers. Getting people to browse a Web site is the second biggest form of advertising. Many companies are adding Web pointers to print and television advertisements as well as buying pointer space on other sites to attract readers to their hypertext WWW brochures.
Many sites are now peddling their "location" as valuable sites for advertising. These sites attract browsers based on content or features.
Sites like Yahoo which provides arguably the Web's best directory attract millions of hits a day. News sites like CNN also attract many browsers. These have become prime sites for paid advertising. Digital Equipment has attracted a great many browsers with its Alta Vista search engine. They only advertise their own company and products but this may signal a trend for the future where companies create one attraction site based on a service and use it to draw people to other more sales-related sites.
The big question, especially for sites that sell advertising and the companies who buy it, is how many people actually notice enough or are interested enough to push the link for more information? Software to track this is starting to come on the market and will be critical to the success of this form of advertisement.
Advertising dollars are well spent if the advertisement is noticed and results in profitable sales. If the Internet continues to grow, as advertisers hope and the pundits predict, then the cost per reader will balance out. As people get more accustomed to finding their product information on the Web more readers will seek out advertising sites. In the mean time valuable lessons are being learned in Web design and using a new medium. In theory anyway.
From: joroger@vossnet.co.uk (Roger Trobridge)
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 17:03:29 GMT
>Netscape's few download sites are in heavy demand, and the "standard" file for 3.0 is enormous -- more than 6 Mbytes. Hence even at 3 AM EDT, downloads timeout, crashing my system.
I sympathise with your download problems. I am a relative newcomer, to the Internet (6 mths), but because I want to use it to find information etc, I have decided to learn the traditional arts and crafts of archie/gopher/telnet, and ftp.So far I have got to grips with ftp and am having great fun. I am using Cuteftp, and it seems quite straight forward. Here is the point. Delete all of this if you know already, but you can bypass Netscape's web site and go straight to their ftp sites (ftp.netscape.com, ftp1...... through ftp8? , wander through their directories, and then download what you want. You also seem to bypass all registration forms. You need to know what you want, so if you are in doubt, get the file name from the Netscape download page. You can usually work them out. n32e202 (navigator 2.02), g32e20b2 (gold 2.0b2) . It seems to work at most free web download sites. If they don't give you the ftp address, try the web address or as for Netscape substitute ftp for www. The last option is to get the Netscape files from one of the big software sites like CWS (www.stroud.com), www.Tucows.com, www.shareware.com, or www.Jumbo.com. They post them quite quickly, with a good review.
You may never have the problem again, but just in case I thought it was worth passing on.
And by the way for what it is worth I give you voluntary membership of the "Fast Modem Slow Browser Society". I started it for fun to emphasize the indulgent selfish use of large bandwidth pages when most of the network I get access to from the UK is suffering from arteriosclerosis, and is prone to the odd heart attack. We look for efficient design of web page suites. But, like the Bandwidth Conservation Society, that is a whole new ball game. I think the only time my modem gets out of breath is downloading my Email from my local ISP, just down the road.
Dr A R Trobridge, Maidenhead, Berks, England
VOLUNTEER TRANSLATORS OF SHAREWARE
From: lirene@tcp-ip.or.jp (irene bensinger)
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 09:12:16 +0900 (JST)
Just a note to thank you for publishing my letter regarding volunteer translators and/or localizers of shareware and freeware in Internet-on-a-Disk #16. I have already received several responses and hope to have the beginnings of an informal network of translators on my home page soon.
Thank you for all the great work you do and the high standards you set for Net citizenship!
irene bensinger * lirene@tcp-ip.or.jp, http://www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~lirene
QUESTION FROM PERU ABOUT INTERNET AND TV
From:mfiguero@ipae.edu.pe
Date: 18-MAY-1996 17:30:49.82
Hello, I want to know what do you think about the use of the web vs. tv.
REPLY -- TV to me represents three problems:
Well, my hope is that the positive characteristics of today's Internet culture will continue even when the technology and the means of delivery are far different. -- Richard Seltzer
RESPONSE TO 'WHO CONTROLS THE CONTEXT?' (#14, Dec. 1995)
From: Brezillon Patrick <Patrick.Brezillon@laforia.ibp.fr>
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 07:55:59 +0200
I just read your note on the context on the WEB. I think that it is a paper that should be extended as a complete scientific paper.
I suggest you that you take into consideration the possibility to submit it at the conference CONTEXT-97 (see CFP below).
Best regards,
Patrick
[International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context (CONTEXT-97), Rio de Janeiro (Brasil), February 4-6, 1997]
FRENCH TRANSLATION
From: INIFTP@IST.CERIST.DZ
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 19:57:15 +0000 (GMT)
I find your "Internet-On-A-Disk" very interesting, and I wonder whether your Newsletter is translated to french. If it is not, I would be very interested to do this translation.
Best regards, A. Yazid (from Algeria)
REPLY -- Thank you very much. We would very much like to have a French translation. We'd appreciate your help. -- Richard Seltzer
INTERNET ADVERTISING
From: RP850479@aol.com
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 18:58:32 -0400
I have just read your draft of "Advertising on the Internet - Is it worth the price?" I find it very interesting and will use it in the next class I give on Advertising. Thank you.
Ray Proctor
HOME PAGE OF 16-YEAR-OLD IN SLOVAKIA
From: Skultety Rastislav <skultetr@phf.euke.sk>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1996 19:32:47 +0200 (MET DST)
I would appreciate if you could add my URL to your web page. http://www.euke.sk/~skultetr
It's my personal homepage, but it is still in progress. I'd like to add some java applets to it and cgi scripts in order to make it more comfortable and better.
Rastislav Skultety skultetr@phf.euke.sk
LOOKING FOR PORTABLE DEVICE TO READ ELECTRONIC BOOKS
From: "jraychin" <jraychin@bendnet.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 23:43:01 -0000
I would like to find a reader that I could carry with me like a book . That I could put disks in . This would be so I could read books with out having to set in front of the computer after downloading a book . I would not like to print it so I could save paper and ink. Any suggestions?
REPLY -- Sorry. I've seen prototypes of such things, but I don't know what's commerically available today. Doesn't anyone else out there have suggestions?
SMALL TOWN NEW HAMPSHIRE POLITICS ON THE WEB
From: swc@well.com
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 20:18:25 -0700
I've taken the plunge, and applied the web to my personal hot button... local politics. I've taken advantage of my ISP's "free website" feature to create a set of pages devoted to a local political issue... the intense debate on whether or not to replace traditional town/school meetings with ballot voting on budgets. As a partisan for old-fashioned values (like town meeting), I was part of a group that defeated ballot voting earlier this year. But the proponents of ballot voting submitted another petition immediately after losing, so the issue gets re-discussed, re-analyzed, and re-voted on next March. I decided to use the web as it was initially conceived, as a primarily text-based tool for communicating, to argue the position of "reason and light". I've received cooperation from the local papers (the weekly and the semi-monthly), and the authors of various pieces in them, to "reprint" some of the material that was published before the last vote. I intend to add to the site over the summer/fall with some commentaries of my own, as well as news and views of others, as we trudge inexorably towards the day of decision next March. My goals are to accumulate and present all the positive arguments for defeating the ballot proposal; refute the arguments made in favor of the ballot proposal; and make the site the up-to-date resource for all who want to know current and historical news about the issue. Naturally, if I can keep the site updated with status and news, everyone in town looking for news will be exposed to the messages on their way to it!
Check out the site at http://www.well.com/user/swc/. I've included links to my favorite internet sites as well, as a reward and diversion for those who make it to the bottom of the first page; yours is one of them.
Steve Coughlan swc@well.com
RESPONSE TO HALLOWEEN ARTICLE AT WEBSITE http://www.samizdat.com/hallow.html
From: "Bennett, Maria" <Maria.Bennett@cdev.com>
Date: 01 Mar 1996 16:38:18 -0600
I read your article on Halloween and I couldn't agree more. I enjoy the time of year. I live in the northeastern seaboard where we get a good dramatic change of seasons and I revel in the sights, sounds, and smells of Autum. All of this is climaxed by Halloween. I say that I am a pretty good Catholic and I find no "evils" in Halloween. This past year we had 29 working Jack-o-lanterns in our front yard (10 on electric and the rest were candle and even oil lamp lit!) and people stopped on the road just to see our display. I invited the neighbors over for spiced cider and cookies. Unfortunately, one of the neighbors was appalled at me and told me it was against his religion. Too bad for him, he missed some awesome chocolate chip cookies and my best cider yet. People are too anal retentive for their own good. When folks get too religiously fanatic acting I tend to ask them..."Is your own faith in God so weak that this simple thing intimidates you and causes you to stray from God?? I'll pray for you!!" I usually stops them in their tracks.
Good luck and if your are ever in Airville PA in late October, Come Trick-or-Treating at my house. All are welcome.
Maria Bennett
RESOURCES FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION
Therefore, I'd like to feature Internet-on-a-Disk on our new broadcast DLRN-J list which is for folks in distance ed (primarly k-12 teachers). Our plans for this list are simple: to tell distance educators about resources & include information on topics that are of interest to them.
I was wondering as an example of what is found on Internet-on-a-disk could we include one of the articles you recently wrote on distance ed: e.g. "Making the Web Accessible to the Deaf, Hearing and Mobility Impaired" or "Are participants born or made? The Potential of Web-based Discussions for Distance Education". I would include ordering information, and the URL to your www site.
Please let me know if this is okay and if you have any other ideas or preferences. To find more about the DLRN project please check out: http://www.fwl.org/edtech/dlrn.html
REPLY -- You have my permission to use my article "Are Participants Born or Made..." For "Making the Web Accessible" you should contact the author, Michael Paciello mpaciello@webable.com
Published by Samizdat Express, 213 Deerfield Lane, West Roxbury, MA
02132. (203) 553-9925. seltzer@samizdat.com
My
Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities
by Richard Seltzer, on CD, includes four books, 162 articles, and 49 newsletter
issues that will inspire you and provide the practical information you
need to build your own personal Web site or Internet-based business, helping
you to become a player in this new business environment.
Web
Business Boot Camp: Hands-on Internet lessons for manager, entrepreneurs,
and professionals by Richard Seltzer (Wiley, 2002).
No-nonsense guide targets activities that anyone can perform to achieve
online business
success.
Reviews.
A
library for the price of a book.
Return to Internet-on-a-Disk
Go to Readers' Room
and Writers' Showcase
Return to Samizdat Express