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).
SOURCES OF INFO ABOUT COPYRIGHT LAW
WEB NOTES -- Amazon.com, Top 100 Electronic Recruiters, Mainspring
FRIENDS ON THE WEB -- Robin & Berthold Langer, Dave Stamps, Jack Rahaim, Dan Kalikow, Alfred Thompson
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES -- LIVE FROM ANTARTICA 2, LIVE FROM MARS, Science Textbooks and Historical Science, Cybrary, Resources Pathways College Information Community,
CURIOUS TECHNOLOGY -- Live Topics at AltaVista Search, Voxware, Four11's Internet Phone and Video Phone Directories, MapQuest, Internet Classroom Assistant, WebEtc from Microtest
INTERNET RESOURCES FOR THE DISABLED -- "Design Considerations: Readers with Visual Impairments," Empowerment Zone (employment info for the disabled), Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation
from the Samizdat Express seltzer@samizdat.comhttp://www.samizdat.com
LESS INSTEAD OF MORE -- They no longer have an on-line copy of The Oxford Book of English Verse.
from Bibliomania (Data Text) http://www.bibliomania.com/
Complete text of current, commercial, copyrighted books made available for free on the Web by the publisher.
Not the texts themselves, but links to sites that have texts. Very complete and well organized. New stuff is listed at /shuttle/new.html
from Zvi Har' El's Fairy Tales and Stories Site http://www.math.technion.ac.il/~rl/Andersen/
Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, in English translation. (Very slow server).
Writers' Haven http://www.digiserve.com/writershaven
An on-line community for writers and avid readers. "The Writers' Haven website displays stories, essays and poems written and submitted by you -- free of charge. Top submissions are displayed for viewing by publishers, other writers, and the Internet public in general." Visitors rate and comment on posted material, and chat rooms and forums let users share ideas.
The world's biggest bookstore just got larger -- in addition to one and a half million books in print, they also offer a million out-of-print, hard-to-find books. It has reach the point that even if you don't want to buy this is a valuable guide for the researcher. You can very quickly do bibliographic searches. You also get access to detailed information about particular titles -- information that would be very difficult to find elsewhere. And it's all done with an excellent understanding of the Internet environment -- creating communities of readers, and authors, and publishers, and encouraging them all to contribute content. (Interestingly, Glenn Fleischman, who up until last summer was the dedicated, hard-working moderator of the inet-marketing mailing list, is now the Catalog Manager at Amazon.)
The Top 100 Electronic Recruiters Website (from The Internet Business Network) http://www.interbiznet.com/eeri
Reportedly there are now over 3500 job-related Web sites, with over a million resumes and 1.2 million job listings. This site provides a simple way to submit resumes to or search job postings at the top ones all at once. John Sumser explains, "Anyone , from job hunter to recruiter, who wishes to use the Web as an employment tool is faced with a bewildering array of interfaces. Each employment oriented site, in a valiant effort to display design prowess, uses different naming conventions and structure. This places a huge burden on job hunter and recruiting manager alike. The 'Top 100 Electronic Recruiters Website' is our attempt to deliver a standardized interface and to facilitate the sorts of comparison and review that make an industry efficient. By focusing on excellence in the industry, we've built a resource for job hunters and recruiters alike... We've delivered an advertising-sponsored service that bridges the gap between pure search engines like AltaVista and subject matter indexes like Yahoo!. It's a model that can be readily applied to other industries."
Mainspring http://www.mainspring.com
Articles, book chapters, reference material, databases and discussion forums about tools and techniques for building private intranets and designing public Internet sites. The beta version will open to the public on April 11. (This will be a paid subscriber service.)
Snow-Bound Herbals -- Healthy Tea, Healthy Talk and a Whole Lot Morehttp://www.sbherbals.com by Robin and Berthold Langer.
Dbstamps Consulting Services -- Web Site Development, Network Design / Installation, Training, Programming, Consulting (in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire) http://www.LaconiaNH.com/dbstamps/ Tobacco Killshttp://www2.lr.net/dbstamps/ both by David Stamps
Jack Rahaim Consulting -- Multi-National Strategy and Reengineering, Reengineering In Health Care, Group Facilitation http://www.mindspring.com/~jrahaim by Jack Rahaim
Dan Kalikow's Front Page http://www.kalikow.com/~drdan/by Dan Kalikow
Thompson Family Home Page http://www.tiac.net/users/act2/ by Alfred Thompson
Cybrary (from school district 4J in Eugene, Oregon)http://www.4j.lane.edu/InternetResources/Libraries/Cybrary/Cybrary.html
On-line educational resources organized by the Dewey Decimal System.
Resources Pathways College Information Community http://www.collegeaid.com
Here you find review of sources of info about college choice and financial aid. You don't get the info itself (you have to buy the books etc. for that), but this site can help you find out what info is available and how to get to it.
Next time you're in AltaVista try LIVE TOPICS. In the past, you were best off starting with a narrow topic. This time try something broad, like "biochemistry" or "intranet". When the results list comes back, under the line that tells you the number of matches, you see a choice of Live Topics. If your browser support Java, click on "Visual Live Topics. AltaVista will then generate twenty categories on the fly (based on how frequently these terms appear on pages with your query word). Click on "Topic Relationships" and you'll see it presented graphically. Move the cursor over a category and you'll see the subtopics. You can use this feature to help you refine a search (check the Help files for directions.) I find it more valuable as a way to see the relationships among information -- to get a quick map of a fast-changing field. (For the fun of it, enter the query +* That gives you every page that's in the index -- 40 million pages. Then click on Visual Live Topics, and see the 20 top categories, and on Topic Relationships and get a picture of the entire Web.)
Voxware http://www.voxware.com/
While other real-time audio can't go through firewalls and is difficult to use with a slow modem, this product (which compresses speech by 51 times) doesn't seem to have those limitations. For a good demo, go to http://www.digital.com/info/rcfoc/ and click on the March 31, 1997 issue. This site (Jeff Harrow's Rapidly Changing Face of Computing: a Technology Journal) has recent articles in this format and you can click there to download the plugin.
Four11's Internet Phone and Video Phone Directories http://www.four11.com/
This site, which now seems to be the best place to find email addresses, has now added directories of users of various Internet telephone and video phone applications.
MapQuest http://www.mapquest.com
With MapQuest's expanded atlas, you can now personalize dynamic maps of locations in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas for free.
Internet Classroom Assistant from Nicenet (free web-based communications tool for classrooms) http://www.nicenet.org
This web-based communications tool designed for post-secondary classrooms and collaborative academic projects requires only a regular web browser running on any platform and an Internet connection--no software needs to be downloaded and no server needs to be set up on your end. Including conferencing, personal messaging, document sharing, scheduling and link/resource sharing, it is available free to any interested party. The press release indicates "Money will not be solicited for using the system and advertisements will not be forced upon users - now and forever.
WebEtc from Microtest http://www.microtest.com/webetc.
Purportedly, WebEtc allows up to 20 network users to access the Internet at the same time through one phone line using one modem. It also allows home users to link up an extra computer for simultaneous Internet access. It supports Web browsing, FTP file transfers, newsgroup participation and Internet e-mail.
Good overview article for anyone who wants to design Web that meet the needs of people with visual impairments.
Empowerment Zone -- employment info for the disabled http://www.smart.net/~empower
Jamal Mazrui has assembled an extensive collection of electronic text materials on job search and placement strategies for the disabled.
For years, people with print disabilities have been left in the figurative "Information Highway" dust. Access to electronic documents are often harder to read by the blind, visually impaired, dyslexic, those who learn differently (sometimes improperly called, "learning disabled"), and a host of others. In an age where the electronic medium is fastly becoming THE publishing paradigm, there is a vital need for public and industry awareness regarding issues related to document inaccessibility.
Leading the charge to ensure publishing accessibility is the Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation (YRIF). With offices in Canada and the United States, the YRIF is an international nonprofit foundation already influencing major areas of publishing technology including the World Wide Web and standard print publishing. The Foundation was named after the late Yuri Rubinsky, co-founder of SoftQuad Inc (HoTMetaL Pro)., co-founder and chairman of the SGML Open consortium and world reknown for his work in furthering the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and the HyperText Markup Language (HTML).
In an effort to promote awareness around publishing accessibility, the YRIF is dedicated to bringing together workers from a broad spectrum of disciplines to stimulate research and development of technologies which will ensure access to information of all kinds. Recognizing that capabilities are limited in various ways, it seeks to achieve, to the fullest extent possible, equality of access for all.
In a major step towards achieving this mission, the YRIF, in concert with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the White House, is preparing to announce the single largest project related to access for people with disabilities and the World Wide Web. This announcement is scheduled during the week of the upcoming Sixth Annual World Wide Web Conference in Santa Clara, California, USA.
For more information about the Yuri Rubinsky Insight Foundation and how you can make a donation, please refer to the Web site at: www.yuri.org. For more information about the upcoming Web accessibility project, please contact the YRIF director, Mike Paciello by e-mail at: paciello@yuri.org or call the Foundation directly at: +1-603-598-9544.
The Internet is an event, a happening, a loosely structured and largely unpredictable experience resulting from the on-line encounters of people with people. These encounters range from nearly instantaneous real-time exchanges among many people, to delayed communication either directed at specific individuals or at self-selected interest groups or undirected -- messages left to be found by whoever wants them, whenever they want, like a gigantic library or tens of millions of notes in bottles set afloat in an ocean, yet fully indexed and miraculously findable. The book/magazine/library aspect of this vast phenomenon is a just subset of the overall event.
As you begin to explore the Internet and its possibilities, look for opportunities to interact with others, not just static facts. The real benefit will come from the contacts you make with other people, from what you learn from one another.
Participate in mail lists and newsgroups and Web-based forums and chats. Link up with other schools and other students and teachers to create your own on-line learning environment.
As technology advances, you'll begin to use the latest high-tech capabilities -- all the neat audio and video and multi-media effects. But don't lose sight of the main purpose -- connecting people to people. And remember that the interaction need not be limited to on-line activities -- once you get a good dialogue going, you may well want to set up related face-to-face meetings as well.
From what I remember of Holderness and from what I've seen as my own children have gone through school, Much of the learning experience takes place outside the classroom. You learn through the informal contacts you have with other students, with teachers, with other friends and family, from the school-within-the-school that you create from your choices of who to associate with and how and when.
With the Internet, you are no longer limited to what is found within the boundaries of your physical school or your home or your hometown. You can easily form contacts and build relationships with people of all ages, from all walks of life, from all cultures, from all parts of the world. Take advantage of this opportunity. Choose wisely. Act creatively.
Remember that the technology, in and of itself, does nothing. Rather it makes it possible for you to shape your own world-within-the-world. And, if you believe strongly about any issue or wish to pursue in depth any field of study, you can become a player, rather than just a spectator in the world at large.
In such an environment, people feel free to speak up not because they are experts, but rather because they want to understand. They express their suspicions, inklings, instincts, guesses, seeking discussion that will help refine, correct, and validate their thoughts. And they also learn to learn in an environment that has no authority figures and no grades, the same sort of environment they'll be in after they get out of school.
The Internet is your event. The Internet happens and you can make it happen, rather than just have it happen to you.
with responses from Alfred Thompson and Bob Clancy
The well-meaning people responsible for the Computer Decency Act and the local decisions of schools and libraries seem to misunderstand the Internet and the risks and opportunities it presents. They tend to approach the Internet like they would television (one-way entertainment) or books in a library (static content). Like many Internet proponents, they think in terms of graphics on Web pages and lose sight of the fact that the Internet is an event -- that it's main strength and attraction is the interaction of people with one another.
Ratings systems for static content and software, like CyberPatrol, which, at levels selected by parents, limits children's access to a pre-screened set of Web sites, can help make parents feel more secure and can reduce the political pressure that concerned parents exert on librarians and school administrators. But I seriously doubt that that approach solves the problem, because the real risk isn't that kids would see naked pictures so much as that they would interact with people who want to harm them.
Increasingly, Web sites like boston.com, which because of their static content would pass any pre-screening, also house chat areas, which are unmonitored and wide open. Today that's text-based interaction, and you need to be able to type pretty fast to get caught up in the exhilaration and immediacy of the event. But, having seen the example of others, there's strong incentive for kids to get quite good, quite young at composing and typing. In this environment, automatic screening of particular words serves no useful purpose, because language is so supple and resilient and provides numerous alternative ways of expressing whatever you may wish to express. And as high bandwidth becomes more commonplace and software improves, many such areas will include audio and video, and will be user-friendly enough for most anyone to indulge.
You make an acquaintance in chat or newsgroups or a forum and you follow up with email or an Internet phone conversation or a CUSeeMe session or a traditional phone conversation and maybe agree to meet face-to-face. That's the way things happen on the Internet. . And the biggest risk is that the kids and their parents don't understand how it works.
Forbidding access to particular areas didn't work for God in Eden, and it's not likely to be a total solution on the Internet either. Enforced innocence based on ignorance is just a stop-gap measure. Human beings need a knowledge of good and evil and the training to apply that knowledge.
Don't just shelter children. Train and arm them so they recognize danger and know how to handle it. You teach them how to behave with other people -- including adults -- when they are alone out on the street. You should also teach them how to interact with others in the cyber-world.
But how?
First, we need sheltered, monitored areas for interaction among kids of similar age and interests. They don't stay there forever, but that's where they can learn cyber-street-smarts.
There's also a need/opportunity for training programs based around those sheltered experiences. Kids need the Internet equivalent of basic rules of safe behavior, e.g., for the youngest, "don't talk to strangers without letting people you know and trust listen in."
I could easily imagine several different levels of training, ranging from cyber-manners to cyber-safety to cyber-self-defense (cyber-karate perhaps). The child who achieves a certifiable level of competence is given a wider range of permitted activity -- always with ready access to an on-line mentor to provide help and advise.
Parents, schools and libraries could pay for such training. But entrepreneurs will have to provide it. Every problem is a business opportunity -- and this is a big one. So go for it.
PS -- The battle over freedom of speech and freedom of the press is just the beginning. The same folks who want to censor today will, when they become aware of the dangers, want to close down chat rooms and limit/restrict the ability of people to have live group interactions over the Internet. Then the battle will center on the freedom of assembly, which is just as sacred an element of the US Constitution. And once again, I believe, training, not rigid prohibition, is the best approach.
RESPONSE FROM ALFRED THOMPSON
From: Alfred C Thompson II <act2@tiac.net> Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:40:41 -0500 (EST)
As a teacher I try and watch my students closely. The library computer though which we provide Internet access is physically located in my classroom/lab. Obviously this gives me the opportunity to observe many students as they use the Internet.
Guess what? They don't use the school computer to look up "dirty pictures." There are 2 reasons for this. One is that Internet time has a high demand and so anyone not using the computer for school purposes would be quickly pushed off. A second reason is that pictures take a long time to be downloaded and students know they'd stand a very good chance of being caught.
They do look up some off color site though during idle periods. This is easily handled and our computer is closely monitored. Though by people not software. And as a religious school we had a solid base for expressing our views of why something is wrong. That's an edge for us. I can't say that the World Wide Web scares me anywhere near as much as Email and chat rooms though.
"Dirty pictures" are easy to come by and where even in the dark ages before the WWW (i.e. when I was a kid). The language on even strongly sexual sites is little worse then what a teacher can inadvertently overhear in a high school locker room. I believe the old ditty, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words (or pictures) will never hurt me." No, I don't like the sexual discussions, vulgar language or demeaning pictures, but kids will get to them. Internet or not.
My real fear is interactive media - Email and chat rooms. Teenagers are very vulnerable. They are unsure of themselves and of who they are. Those who are willing to tell them who they are and what they can do are a risk. The apple is not as much at fault as the serpent who gives it to an innocent child.
We'll never be able to monitor all the Email or chat rooms. The software is out there and it's free. You would be amazed at how many kids have Juno accounts. Or who spend their late nights in chat room or corresponding with acquaintances all over the world. Most often their parents don't even know this is going on!
Most are harmless. But as I type this there is a multi state search going on for a 13 year old girl and the 22 year old man she met over the Internet.
Students are going to strangers, who may or may not be who they present themselves to be, for comfort, for advise, and for ideas. Some of these conversations may be bad for them. How will they know if they are not taught? This teaching is the great need for today. And hardly anyone seems to be awake to the problem. That is the scary part.
Parents and teachers have their heads in the sand. They buy software to keep the words and pictures off the computer and think that's all there is too it. Some truly don't know what else there is. Many are just too afraid to learn about the Internet. Others know but fail to admit because admitting that a problem exists places a burden to fix the problem.
Alfred C Thompson II, Teacher, Hacker, Net Surfer, act2@tiac.net,http://www.tiac.net/users/act2
PS -- I'd like to point you to another essay on the censorship and children issue. It's by Jim Burrows, who used to work for Digital. He is very articulate and has thought about the issue a lot. He and his wife have several (3 I think) children. His essay is at http://www.ultranet.com/~brons/Freedom.html I have a pointer to it from my essay page.
RESPONSE FROM BOB CLANCY
From: Bob Clancy <bclancy@hi.com> Date: Sun, 30 Mar 97 7:31:22 STANDARD
I found your article very interesting. I agree with your comments including the need to teach "Internet street smarts" and exercising of judgement. A balance is in order between the needs for user access to "Internet wide" resources and protection of internal "school specific" information such as the identify of students. Just as it has been determined that corporations own their computer/network connections and can specify/limit their use, so should a school outline what types of use will and will not be allowed. Use which supports educational goals should be encouraged. Use of the system should be monitored and fed back into additional training sessions designed to discourage abuses and encourage creative uses.
I agree it is a common misconception to assume that "filtering" (or censorship) alone can protect students. Education of parents, students, and teachers is necessary before deciding on the "level of access" that is right for a given student or project. It is assumed by parents that students will be "protected" but technology can't guarantee this.
Traditionally, in a well-disciplined school, increasing levels of responsibility are given with increased maturity. The word "discipline" comes from "disciple" which means "to learn". The Internet brings the question of censorship into public focus: information is provided to schools "by default" instead of being "selected" as schools traditionally do with other curricula resources. The Internet is different than traditional resources in that it is impossible to "review" before bringing into the school because of its size and dynamic nature. A school could limit availability to information based on educational needs/goals, aggregate class maturity, individual maturity, and parental concerns.
The criteria for censorship should be well defined and should may to the schools stated educational objectives.
Both censorship and freely available information can coexist if some access points remain uncensored. Students will need to state in advance what their objectives are in the form of an "Internet Use Policy" before conducting such research. The IUP is a sort of "hall pass" which allows the student additional privileges for a stated purpose. The IUP will be valid for a limited duration and signed by at least the student, parent, teacher or advisor, and technology coordinator. The IUP will list the types of sites that will be visited and any deviations expected from the standard school policy. The technology coordinator will make sure that the use remains consistent with and external AUPs and generally accepted practices (commonly referred to as "netiquette"). Everyone signing an IUP will make sure it is consistent with the school discipline policy.
Richard, your article has once again provokes thought and I thank you for this. I may modify this email into a "statement of direction" to be included as part of a "DRAFT AUP" for NetDay. Our plans are to make the Internet available for teachers for the remainder of this year and over the summer. Our plan is to first "educate the educators" and then to educate the students. I'm interested in hearing your opinions or reactions to these ideas.
Bob Clancy
with a response from Alfred Thompson
In Internet-on-a-Disk #18, I pointed out that people using search engines typically look for themselves and then for subjects that are near and dear to them. I described how that behavior has led to people to my site -- finding themselves or their works mentioned there. And I proposed that this "flypaper" approach could be used deliberately to get in touch with certain individuals or types of people.
Recently, while mentioning "flypaper" in a presentation about AltaVista Search to a group of educators at the NERCOMP conference in Sturbridge, Mass. , it dawned on me that this approach can also turn static text pages into opportunities for on-line interaction.
The pre-Web Internet was very interactive, consisting largely of email and newsgroups. The Web itself, in its earliest manifestation, connected people with documents rather than people with people. That is changing now with new and better ways for people to interact, rather than just read, at Web sites (with chat, forum, etc.) But static Web pages too can become "interactive."
Instead of carefully polishing every text and getting official approval/blessing for every document you wish to publish on the Web, post your work in progress. Post your reactions to what you have read, and unpolished notes from meetings. If a thought is important to you, it may well be of importance to others. And if the full text of your pages is indexed by search engines like AltaVista, interested people will find those pages and hence find you.
Posting a document as a "work in progress" begs for comment. Promising to post in the same place the most interesting and relevant reactions (sent by email), provides further encouragement to open up a dialogue. It takes no special software to get a discussion going -- just interesting and provocative content and the will to talk about it before it is completely finished. What was just an article or memo becomes a spontaneous community of people interested in learning about and understanding the same subject in collaboration with one another, sharing experiences and insights -- what formal education sometimes strives for, but very rarely achieves.
And like an open-minded and creative teacher, you learn from the insights of others and also from the new perspectives and thoughts of your own that are stimulated by the questions and comments of others.
RESPONSE FROM ALFRED THOMPSON
From: Alfred C Thompson II <act2@tiac.net> Date: Sat, 29 Mar 1997 18:40:34 -0500 (EST)
I have an essays page. It's similar to several others I've seen. Your site of course has essays both by yourself and others. Another friend of mine from Digital has a "Ruminations" page where he's posted a number of his thoughts. Mine has a number of things I've written over the last year or so. Some have appeared in "Internet-on-a-Disk" in one form or another. Some appear nowhere else.
I announce that all my essays are drafts. I admit that I have seldom, so far, gone back and updated any. But I believed from the beginning that such a statement would do the most to encourage people to comment. After all, why would one comment if they believed the author was finished considering the subject?
Since I started posting them I've gotten feedback from a number of people. So far all by Email.
Some have agreed with my essays. One person told me that an essay of mine expressed thoughts that they'd had but had been unable to quite nail down. Another correspondent Emailed me asking permission to quote my essay in a college paper. They disagreed with my essay but found it interesting and helpful. I received a copy of their paper some time later. They did seem surprised that I was so interested in reading what someone who disagreed with them thought.
I consider myself an open-minded and creative teacher, both in the school I teach at and in "real life", and this helps me learn a lot from my students and those I run into elsewhere.
I initially started writing as an exercise. It was merely a tool to help me get my own thoughts in order. Now that they are posted for the world to see I hope they can become more. Hopefully they can be a continuing learning experience for me and for others.
http://www.tiac.net/users/act2/essays.htm is my essay page.
Alfred C Thompson II, Teacher, Hacker, Net Surfer, act2@tiac.net,http://www.tiac.net/users/act2
by Richard Seltzer, Samizdat Express, seltzer@samizdat.com
It's embarrassing when you don't read a "must-read" book until six years after it first appeared. I had heard the main points and concepts presented and discussed numerous times. Finally, on my way to Internet World in Los Angeles, I read Crossing the Chasm cover-to-cover in one gulp.
For a high-tech company to successfully introduce a product that is significantly new and different, the product has to appeal to different kinds of customers in sequence -- to "innovators" and "visionaries" in the early going, then to "pragmatists", followed by "conservatives." The "chasm" refers to the gap between the visionaries and the pragmatists, who have very different needs and who evaluate products in very different ways. While the visionaries are relatively quick to adopt new technology, there are very few of them. And while the pragmatists represent a large market, they will only buy after a product has been proven effective by other customers like themselves.
Much in this book rang loud and clear and true. In other places, it was evident that Moore was writing prior to the era of the Internet business.
COMMUNITY = MARKET
The Internet is not a "market" in the sense described by Moore. Rather, it is an environment, a set of events that enables the creation of markets.
On p. 28, Moore defines "market ... for the purposes of high tech" as --
Before the dawn of Internet business, a market was a given (you decided to "enter" an existing market), or it took a long time to establish and define a new market for a new class of products/services.
Now, with Internet capabilities, instead of "finding" a market, you can create one.
"Community" -- a loyal Internet audience -- is a set of people who will "reference each other when making a buying decision." Build a self-sustaining on-line community, and you build a new niche market.
Bear in mind, that for this approach to work, you need to do more than just provide marketing information at your Web site, and more than have your people interact with your potential customers and partners. You also need to provide a means for the members of your audience to interact with one another, otherwise they won't "reference each other".
CHASM FOREVER? OR THE LEARNING COMMUNITY
On p. 192, Moore notes, "if the chasm is a great challenge -- and it is -- it is one that is in large part self-imposed. To put it simply, we make the chasm worse than it has to be. Until we understand how we do so, and stop doing so, we will never really master the chasm."
Is the chasm something that will be with us forever (something we keep doing to ourselves because of human nature) or is it a temporary phenomenon?
I believe that it can, at least, be narrowed, and that the Internet provides the mechanism that makes that possible.
Yes, people have different personality characteristics. Yes, technology moves very fast, and different people relate to change in different ways. But gaps can be narrowed and bridged through relationship building and community building.
The ideal situation would be a market defined by an on-line community, which acted as a "learning community" (in the sense of "learning" organizations/companies).
In its most rudimentary form, such a community can be built around mailing lists and scheduled chat sessions (like my Thursday sessions at http://www.web-net.org) and forums for threaded thoughtful dialogue. In such an environment, people feel free to speak up not because they feel they are experts, but rather because they want to understand. They express their suspicions, inklings, instincts, guesses, seeking discussion that will help refine, correct, and validate their thoughts.
As technology advances, you incorporate the latest means of connecting people-to-people (like Firefly's collaborative filtering methods http://www.firefly.com, which help link together people with similar tastes and interests). Pragmatists and conservatives become familiar with the latest advances as new mechanisms for continuing an on-going dialogue, rather than as discontinuous innovation.
The "chasm" (like the old "generation gap," which we no longer hear of) is a communication gap. You narrow it by getting people to talk to one another, to treat one another's ideas with respect, and to learn from one another.
Ideally, the community would welcome and involve technology gurus, visionaries, pragmatists, and conservatives -- all talking about matters of common concern and interest.
And community interaction need not be limited to on-line activities, but rather could involve face-to-face meetings, and focus-group feedback (both remote and face-to-face) and even formal training sessions (both remote and local).
Hence, in this model, techniques of training and distance education become central to the business proposition.
FOCUS ON THE RELATIONSHIP, NOT THE SALE
In the introduction to the book, Regis McKenna stresses that high-tech marketing needs to "refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationships" and that as a result "the demand for a two-way means of communication increases."
In the learning market-community outlined above, communication is central -- but not just "two-way". It's not just a matter of vendors talking to and listening to partners and customers. It's also a matter of creating an environment where the customers and potential customers and partners regularly and naturally talk to one another. And the customers and partners in this process are also learning how to build relationships with and serve their customers and partners.
Given this orientation, the focus, for any company doing business on the Internet should be not on the transaction, but rather on the relationship. Ease of handling secure on-line transactions is important only insofar as it is a convenience to the buyer. Other factors are often far more important in building and maintaining relationships with customers, (and perhaps far less expensive to implement).
For instance, an established retail business with a large chain of physical stores probably has little to gain from investing in an on-line transaction system to try to compete head-to-head against Internet-only no-inventory retail operations. Every sale that happens entirely on-line deprives them of the opportunity of building a closer relationship with the customer and encouraging the impulse purchase of other related items. Yes, if the chain has limited geographic coverage, an on-line presence could extend their reach to new customers. But for chains that are wide-spread -- that have already made an enormous investment in bricks and mortar, in inventory and organizational infrastructure, and in broadcast advertising, there is much more to be gained from using the Internet to better serve their customers. The on-line presence should support the physical stores, make them more attractive and useful. In many cases, people would prefer instant gratification, getting the goods they want the day they decide to buy them, rather than having to wait a day or a week for delivery.
Over the Internet, a retail chain could offer store-specific on-line inventory status, with the ability to reserve an item for pickup later that day. Based on previous purchases, they could send automatic email reminders when the customer is likely to be running out of an item and need more, and sales alert messages about special offers and prices. Depending on the product, perhaps they could/should provide on-line pre-sales and post-sales support, supplementing and, in part, replacing telephone support; and done in such a way that answers are saved and are searchable and that customers have ways to help one another. If appropriate for the kind of goods sold, the retailer should also try to create an on-line community for customers, and supplement the on-line interaction with face-to-face special events at the physical stores. Make the physical stores an asset rather than a liability.
The world is rapidly headed toward an everywhere, every way, everyone style of communication based largely on today's Internet.
The Internet itself will become less visible as it becomes more pervasive.
Information technology, too, will become less visible -- become more a backroom activity that often takes place remote from the user, that the user takes for granted and need not understand.
Users will be more aware of the access devices they interact with than the computing capabilities they connect to or the transport media used. And the quantity and variety of these devices will multiply rapidly, as entrepreneurs take advantage of the underlying standards.
While engineers will be thinking in terms of the convergence of information and communication technologies, users -- especially business users -- will see more divergence and diversity.
The boundary lines between office and home, between work life and personal life will become increasingly blurred. The same devices will be used to access capabilities and resources that are business-oriented or personal-oriented, that are private or public.
Today, every Internet user can become a publisher. In the future everyone (even those who have no awareness of what the Internet is or what computers are) will be able to be a broadcaster as well as a publisher. Here "broadcast" is meant in two senses. On the one hand it emphasizes that the modes of communication that are readily available to everyone will be multiple -- one-to-one, one-to-few, few-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many; and in both "pull" and "push" styles. It also emphasizes that the content will include not only text but also audio and video, which today we normally associate with "broadcast" media.
Enabling and encouraging interaction among users and building communities of interest will become increasingly important to the growth of new businesses.
"Content" will be much more broadly defined than it is today -- including not just information and entertainment, but also the experience of interacting with other people and also with simulation programs and agent programs in this new multi-dimensional communication environment. For example, some tasks that today are performed by computer service people will in the future be performed by interactive simulation programs with access to extensive data and with the possible help of humans. In other words, activities that today are a key element of Digital's business will become more "content" businesses and less "service" businesses.
The enabling of on-line multi-person experiences (from small meetings to conventions to games) will be big business (a "content" business).
Getting from here to there will be extremely difficult, but the difficulty will (for the most part) be masked from the user. Business imperatives -- the high-stakes profit opportunities -- will drive us there quickly, attracting the needed investment dollars and spawning the entrepreneurial and technological creativity necessary to bridge the gap.
But from the business user's point of view, things will get a lot harder before they get easier.
By the year 2002 (five years out) everyone will have gadgets galore, but only a few people, working for advanced companies, will be in a position to take advantage of them all and have them work together smoothly. (Smooth working will be possible, but not common)
Yes, there will still be clients and servers. Yes, there will be personal computers and networked personal computers and network computers. But there will also be a multitude of relatively "dumb" specialized devices that use the Internet -- communications devices and also ordinary appliances ("things that think" in the MIT lingo). And we will be well on our way toward the "utility" when users of the global communication environment rarely, if ever, touch anything that we would today call a "computer." In other words, in 2002, advanced companies will be able to offer their employees the kind of smoothly operating, integrated communications environment that won't be available to the ordinary user for another five or ten or even twenty years. And that environment should be a major competitive advantage for those that have it.
Though the end state is smooth and simple, it is not provided by some magical do-everything box. Rather you have input/output gadgets of many kinds, using various transport media, that connect you to an assemblage of gadgets and software which together perform the functions you need.
All this diversity will be mediated by systems that understand "who" you are -- your needs, knowledge, tastes, and capabilities; the resources you have access to, the prices you need to pay for the resources you want, and your ability to pay and how you prefer to pay. You -- the person lucky enough to work for such an advanced company in 2002 -- might, by extension from today's world, think of the set of resources and capabilities at your disposal as your "virtual computer" or your "virtual personal network". But even in its 2002-infancy this new communication environment will be far broader than "computing" -- this will be the space in which much of your business interaction with other people and other people's agents will take place.
The rest of the world -- the have-nots farther down the value pyramid -- will have access to Internet-based capabilities and resources far in advance of those we have today. But those capabilities and resources will be isolated and uncoordinated, and their multiplicity and immensity will make them ever more difficult and complex for the ordinary user. Hence many people and businesses will only take advantage of a small part of what is available to them, and will spend much of their time and energy trying to pull together and juggle the various pieces of their on-line existence.
From: Peter Sylvan <psylvan@world.std.com> Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 18:28:36 -0500 (EST)
Lots of good ideas and food for thought (as usual)!
I particularly liked the analogy of millions of bottles with notes of knowledge floating on a sea of information and yet somehow being easily accessible [and drifting towards clusters of related topics - questions and answers coming together?].
Here are a few of my own notes in bottles that I would like to add to the collection:
For graduates who are interested in using the web to continue their learning I like to suggest mentoring programs that allow them to benefit from the experience of people with different types of expertise. Learning while working on real world projectsis also the quickest and most effective way of learning. Much of this can be done on the web.
There is a website devoted to mentoring (although they call it "coaching") The International Coach Federation at http://www.coachfederation.org/
The new Millicent transaction system that DEC is now testing within the company looks like it will have major positive effects on commerce and education. It will provide the shell in which people can supply quality information and services and get paid for it with a minimum of overhead. This will encourage education byte by byte probably in ways that we can not now imagine. (One of the bottles out there probably has a note about Xanadu signed by Ted Nelson.)
> Remember that the technology, in and of itself, does nothing. Rather it makes it possible for you to shape your own world-within-the-world.
"If you build it they will come." (Field of Dreams)
"If you establish the right process and they will build on it."
> And, if you believe strongly about any issue or wish to pursue in depth any field of study, you can become a player, rather than just a spectator in the world at large.
Not only can you become a player, but the web allows you to build your own team from around the world to work on projects of personal interest or fundamental value.
Keep up the good thinking,
Peter Sylvan
REACTION TO ARTICLE "HOW TO MAKE BUSINESS CHAT WORK" (from Internet-on-a-Disk #19)
From: "B. Campbell" <campbebe@lifepoint.net>> Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 18:55:47 -0800
What a wonderful article on a topic that needs much exploration and explanation. Here are the things that come to mind as I read it:
1) There's a lot of confusion out there about when it is better to use chat and when it is better to use asynchronous methods of communication. For example, I was involved with a group that loved the idea of chat. So they forced people around the world to log in at the same time to receive a pre-written update of affairs. This is clearly something that would have been handled better as an asynch posting with real-time follow up on particular issues.
2) Along this same line, I've seen a lot of people in chats focus on the chat (the typing, the excitement of real-time interaction, etc.) instead of the information. It takes people some time to acclimate and let the chat function become invisible. If you're hosting a chat, you should be aware of the likely chat sophistication of the user group.
People believe the "if you build it...." concept when it comes to chat, and it isn't necessarily so. Yes, chat has immediacy, and this can help stimulate users to drop by. However, you need to have some reach, a critical mass of some number, before a chat can really sizzle. In most cases, it just isn't cost effective for a company to pay the moderator(s) plus guest(s) when only a handful of consumers come to the chat.
3) As an extension to the 'team meetings' that you mention, I think role playing activities are well suited to chats. For example, if I belong to a career counseling site, small groups of us can be assigned to role play the interview process (job seeker, HR person, an observer or two). Then in real time or asynch all of the small groups can come together and review what happened, what worked, etc. In this particular example (job interview role play), chat has unique properties that don't exist in other media. It is immediate because of the real-time element, however, it is much slower than a face-to-face role play. This in-between timing can help the role player have a higher awareness of how they're navigating the situation.
I'm so glad to see you writing on this topic! And thanks for letting me read it! I hope my notes are useful. Feel free to bounce things like this off of me at any time.
Betsy
WHAT IS THE MARKET FOR ELECTRONIC BOOKS? HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY?
From: Michael Hopcroft <scribe@cybernw.com> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 21:36:18 -0800
Thank you for posting the link to Internet-on-disk. Now could you do me the courtesy of explaining a little?
I am going to be releasing an electronic book for sale next month. Well, actually I'm just sitting here waiting for the art to arrive. Then it's done. I have a retailer in place and a price set. I even have a small promotional tour of sorts.
Promoting the book is not the only reason I'm going to Norwescon -- they did invite me. But it can't hurt. Or can it?
That's the question your zine poses. Where is the market? What will the market accept?
I am a prose writer, who's occasionally dabbled with comic scripts. Both forms seem natural matches to the PC. Producing the book the way I am going to do it now, with color art, would have been prohibitively expensive to print. However, it would also be prohibitively expensive to produce true multimedia -- and get actors, musicians, scenery, graphic designers, the whole bit. I can see the lines between book, movie and game blurring; it's happening right now. But I'm wondering where someone in my position fits in that scale?
The other thing was your statement about the blind being the prime audience for E-Books. I can actually see why this might be true, especially when the interface for reading text aloud in your browser is developed.
But otherwise I don't understand that statement. Perhaps you could clarify things a little?
My overall concern is where the low-overhead press fits in the picture of the new culture. Are these ultimately doomed commercially, even with their low overhead, because they can't compete with the glossier game/movie/books? And how can that be counteracted?
Michael Hopcroft
REPLY --
First, when you say "electronic book" what do you mean? Is this a CD ROM? Or is it on diskettes? Or do purchasers download from an Internet site?
What the market is depends on what the product is. Is this fiction or non-fiction? Aimed at what audience? What's the point of the color art?
1) electronic books on CD ROM for preschoolers seem to do very well, as aids for learning how to read
2) plain text electronic books are probably purchased 90% by the blind
3) there might be a market for computer books/learning/training aids on CD ROM where the illustrations etc. are essential to conveying the message.
Keep in mind that the virtually non-existent market gets even smaller if you are using some encryption system to prevent copying.
Sorry to sound negative, but that's where the world is at right now.
Two of three major pieces are in place all of which are essential for electronic books to take off:
1) production is cheap and easy (either on diskette or posting at an Internet site)
2) distribution is virtually free (over the Internet)
Many people would say that the third barrier was security/encryption. I don't think so. With today's displays, it's simply too hard on the eyes to read an entire book online. Hence you can make the entire text of books available on the Internet and in so doing increase rather than decrease sales of paper copies of the same book. (People only read samples even when the whole thing is there for free electronically).
If and when inexpensive, high quality -- easy readability -- displays become widely available the terrain will change very rapidly.
Then security/encryption might surface again as a real issue.
Good luck with your venture.
-- Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com
ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF INTRANETS
From: Verena Laste <br165@aix.dvz.fh-koeln.de> Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:58:03 +0000 (CUT)
we are two persons studying library and information sciences at the fachhochschule cologne. now we are working on a paper about advantages and disadvantages of intranet referring to information departments. during our netsearches we contacted a guy from belgium, who told us about you being a professional on net-stuff. so we wondered if you may give us some informations (via e-mail) you consider important for us.
christian schmid (userschmid@aol.com) verena laste (br165@aix.dvz.fh-koeln.de)
REPLY --
Your question is quite broad.
I suggest
1) check issue #19 of my newsletter, Internet-on-a-Disk at http://www.samizdat.com/news19.html
in particular look in the Letters to the Editor where there is a question and answer with regard to the pitfalls
2) I presume that you have seen the very optimistic Intranet market study at Netscape's site (I believe it was done by IDC and says typical ROI is over 1000%)
3) Check the transcripts of my weekly chat sessions about Business on the WWW -- http://www.samizdat.com/index.html#chat In particular, look at the ones in which Intranet was the main focus. You'll also find there pointers to Gordon Bennett's Intranet website/newsletter.
4) Go to AltaVista http://www.altavista.digital.com enter the simple query
intranet
When the results come back one line will tell you how many matches there were. The line below that will give you the option of using LIVE TOPICS, a new and very powerful feature. Click on Java (if you have a recent Java-enabled browser). LIVE TOPICS will automatically generate a set of 20 categories and related subcategories, statistically based on words that appear on Web pages that deal with the subject of intranet. Then click on topical relationships and you will see in graphical form the interrelationships of these areas. Move the cursor over a category and you will see the subcategories. You can use LIVE TOPICS to help fine-tune your search (check the Help files). But you will also benefit from the categories and relationships to help you understand the scope of the topic and focus on those parts that are likely to be most useful.
-- Richard Seltzer
WHAT DOES "SAMIZDAT" MEAN?
From: Bernadette_Price@class.orednet.org Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 13:58:17 -0800
I was just catching up on my reading, and was intrigued by the review in the Oregonian newspaper's Visual Arts section entitled: "Savor 'Samizdat' -- Slowly." It's about the new exhibition at Reed College's Cooley Memorial Gallery. "Named for the famous art movement in Eastern Europe that began in the 1960s, the show surveys one of the most fascinating art movements of the 20th Century... this show draws together a dozen Eastern European artists with work from both before and after their countries' revolutions." It's a lengthy review, and if you would like, I could send it to you. I was just curious about the naming of your "Samizdat.Com" domain and the article gave me one possible clue.
By the way, you may recall that I originally wrote about how AltaVista's powerful search capability found me a link with Gowganda, Ontario, Canada, my childhood home, and that a Reunion is in the works. I've just heard from another childhood friend, who lives in Calgary (but spent years in South America as a mining engineer) and has an e-mail address. He's just passed on my e-mail message to someone else that he's in touch with from those days, and slowly but surely, as far-flung as we are, we're reconnecting.
Letters and photographs are "making the rounds" as one more is added to the Reunion invitation list for next Labor Day weekend at Gowganda Lake. All this because of Alta Vista! I'm really excited.
Bernadette
REPLY --
"Samizdat" means "self-published" in Russian. Under the Soviets it came to connote "underground press." I self-published a couple of my books back in the 70s and also translated some Russian Samizdat documents to English. (B is for Barbara, my wife; R is for Richard; and it sounded so much like a train that we called it Express instead of press). We were into small (miniscule) press stuff back in the early 70s. When the Internet opened up (in 1993) we resurrected the old company name.
-- Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com
CORELLI'S MANDOLIN
From: Eberm@aol.com Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 16:05:17 -0500 (EST)
I caught your wonderful web site by doing a ferret search for reviews of Corelli's Mandolin. While I found your site, I have yet to find much actually written and retrievable about the book Corelli's Mandolin.
Since you appear to be an expert on all things literary, could you give this novice some pointers about how to find book reviews, synopses, critiques about this and other books. I keep bumping into dead ends -- keep finding lots of bookstores that want to sell books, but can't locate real in-depth reviews. What am I doing wrong?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Ellen Berman, Washington, DC
REPLY --
Try using AltaVista http://altavista.digital.com Enter
+review +"Corelli's Mandolin"
First try it on the Web. Then try the same query on the Usenet
I love that book -- just haven't had time to write my thoughts at length. I welcome comments from folks like yourself who appreciate books and have strong opinions about them, and enter such notes in my "Readers' Room" http://www.samizdat.com/#readers for all to share. Unfortunately, I don't have much time to devote to that venture so it's still in the beginning stages.
-- Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.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
Return to Samizdat Express