Internet-on-a-Disk
Index
Number 13 1995
INTERNET-ON-A-DISK #13, November 1995
SA180
Newsletter of public domain and freely available electronic texts
Circulation: direct = 8,000, indirect (estimated) = 100,000+
This newsletter is free for the asking. To be added to the distribution
list or for back issues, please send requests to samizdat@samizdat.com
Back issues are also available at our Web site --
http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat (cited by Net Guide
Sept. 1995 as one of the top 50 Web sites in the world).
COMING SOON: Spanish and Portuguese editions. Please let
us know if you are interested.
Permission is granted to freely distribute this newsletter in electronic
form. All other rights reserved. (Parts of this will soon be collected in
a book --The Way of the Web: reflections on the Internet Era and
what it means for business and mankind, by Richard Seltzer).
We plan to produce new issues about once a month (with time off for
vacation). We welcome submissions of articles and information
relating to availability of electronic texts on the Internet and their use
in education.
*************************************************
WHAT'S NEW
(texts recently made available by ftp, gopher, www, and LISTSERV)
from the B&R Samizdat Express --
http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat
o Why Bother to Save Halloween? (/hallow.html) -- much to my surprise,
this month this has been by far the most popular item on our Website
(A lot of folks must be pointing to it directly. It is getting more hits than
our home page)
o How to Publicize a Web Site over the Internet (/public.html) -- the text
of that article is included in this issue. The version at our Web site has
hypertext links to the resources referenced, and we plan to keep it updated
regularly (within the limits of our limited time).
o Building Communities on the Internet (/build.html) -- a model for how
to build a loyal audience.
o Business Opportunities on the Internet (/title2.html) -- speech slides in
Web-browser format
o Updated list of useful URLs (/url.html)
o Real Results (/results.html) -- the bare beginnings of a directory of
successful Web sites, with details on what they do and how
COMING ATTRACTIONS:
*Spanish and Portuguese translations of this newsletter will also be
available soon at our Web site. Please be patient. This is a volunteer
effort.
* We have volunteered to host at our Web site (at no cost) information
from Prescription Parents (the mutual support group for parents of
children with cleft-lip/cleft-palate) and the National Braille Press.
* Issue #14 of this newsletter will include the second part of Mike
Paciello's series on making the Web accessible to people with disabilities.
from the Gutenberg Project --
ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu /pub/etext/etext95
http://jg.cso.uiuc.edu/pg_home.html
Vida de Lararillo [in Spanish] (lazae10.txt)
Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest (swest10.txt)
Young Adventure by Stephen Vincent Benet (yngad10.txt)
The Mucker by Edgar Rice Burroughs (tmuck10.txt)
Van Bibber's Life by Richard Harding Davis (vanbb10.txt)
Princess Aline by Richard Harding Davis (palin10.txt)
Culprit Fay and Other Poems by Joseph Rodman Drake (cufay10.txt)
A Knight in Cumberland by John Fox, Jr.
The Count's Millions by Emile Gaboriau (cntmi10.txt)
The Ways of Men by Eliot Gregory (waymn10.txt)
The Heap O' Livin' by Edgar A. Guest (olivn10.txt)
Brief History of the Internet by Michael Hart (bhoti01.txt)
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (3boat.txt)
Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling (11kip10.txt)
John Barleycorn by Jack London (jbarl10.txt)
Before Adam by Jack London (badam10.txt)
Phantastes, A Faerie Romance for Men and Women by
George MacDonald (phafr10.txt)
The Golden Road by Lucy Maud Montgomery (goldr10.txt)
Steep Trails by John Muir (sttrl10.txt)
Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris (morll10.txt)
Rio Grande's Last Race by Banjo Paterson (rlast10.txt)
Three Elephant Power Etc. by Banjo Paterson (3elph10.txt)
Robert Louis Stevenson by Walter Raleigh (rlswr10.txt)
Where There's a Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart (awill10.txt)
Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson (chnit10.txt)
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone by Robert W. Service (rolst10.txt)
Rhymes of a Red Cross Man by Robert Service (redcr10.txt)
Island Nights Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson (isln10.txt)
St. Ives by Robert Louis Stevenson (stive10.txt)
Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton (bunnr10.txt)
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part Two (whrt210.txt)
from Edward Beach, Dept. of Philosophy and Religion, U. of Evansville
http://cedar.evansville.edu/~philweb/spinoza.html
Spinoza's Ethics, Part I (1677), translated by R.H.M. Elwes (1883).
from The Seven by Nine Squares (Florian Cramer)
http://fub46.zedat.fu-berlin.de:8080/~cantsin/
Raymond Queneau's "A Story as You Like It"
The Byzanthine Dream Book of Astrampsychos
The diary of 16th century painter Giacomo Pontormo
An autobiographical account of Kabbalah learning in 18th century Poland
by Salomon Maimon
The gnostic Gospel of Thomas
Writings by underground author Dr. Al Ackerman
*************************************
SUGGESTION -- PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD
While very few K-12 schools have good Internet connections, nearly all
have PCs or Macintoshes. And one of the best ways to introduce them
to the treasures of the Internet is by providing them with electronic texts
on disks. (That's a lot easier and cheaper than giving them printouts.)
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 B&R Samizdat
Express. For further information, send email to samizdat@samizdat.com
or check our Web site http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat
******************************************************
WEB NOTES
Central Source Yellow Pages
http://www.telephonebook.com
A company in Omaha, Nebraska, claims to have put on the Web the
numbers for "every business telephone in the USA." While the big
telcos were sleeping, a small company has done the obvious. Now
how long will it be before another small company put up phone
numbers for the entire world -- and not just business, everyone?
Travel Time Trip Planner
http://www.vais.net/~traveltime/aircrhrq.html
Through forms-based queries, you can check schedules
and availability for airlines, trains, rental cars, and hotels. In some
cases, apparently, you can make reservations on-line. I haven't
used it to plan a trip yet, but it looks very tempting. The question is
-- how complete is it? Just like phone books (as above), you'd like
to go to one site to get the info and make the reservations for
travel anywhere.
EnviroLink Network
http://www.envirolink.org/EcoLink.
A grassroots, non-profit organization makes lots of environmental
information available on-line, and tries to build a "community"
of like-minded people.
MendelWeb (from Roger B. Blumberg, Institute for Brain &
Neural Systems, Brown University
http://www.netspace.org/MendelWeb/
"MendelWeb is a teaching and learning 'sourcebook' built
upon Gregor Mendel's famous pea plant paper of 1865, and designed to
show how primary texts can be used to construct educational resources
that take advantage of hypertext, the connectivity of the World Wide
Web, and the collaborative possibilites of the Internet."
Trace Research and Development Center
http://trace.wisc.edu
This center addresses the communication needs of people who are
"non-speaking and have severe disabilities." They study the ways
in which these people can converse and write, including the use of
high-technology communication aids.
Web Digest for Marketers from Larry Chase at the Online Ad Agency
http://www.advert.com/wdfm/wdfm.html
Short, critical reviews for commercial Web sites. If you are interested
in where the Internet is headed and what it means to business, you
should check here regularly.
The Internet Index from Win Treese at Open Market
http://www.openmarket.com/info/internet-index/
Check here for weird and fascinating stats and facts, which chronicle
the growth and evolution of the Internet.
Family pages or "Cyberhomes"
The Faherty Web --
http://www.ultranet.com/~faherty/
The Bennett Family Surfboard --
http://www.sjbennett.com/users/sjb/surf.html
Yahoo's Families list --
http://www.yahoo.com/Entertainment/People/Families/
**********************************
OTHER EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
PRIMARY DESTINATION NEW HAMPSHIRE
from Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover, NH and Digital Equipment Corp.
http://www.fosters.com
The presidential election campaign is on-line here -- with news, background,
and the opportunity to interact with others in Forums. Some of
these Forums are for the candidates to debate with one another, and other
are for folks like you -- or your students -- to express their views. If you
feel strongly about a political issue, you can either post your opinions in
a newsgroup or post them here -- the difference is that here there's a good
chance that the candidates and/or their staff will see what you have to say.
If enough people joined in, this could be an effective, no-cost way to
lobby on issues of importance to the Internet community. In any case,
it's a great way to introduce students to the notion of grassroots
electronic democracy.
QUEST! HOME OF NASA'S K-12 INTERNET INITIATIVE
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov
This is the starting point for getting to NASA resources targeted at
schools, including their current interactive project:
LIVE FROM THE STRATOSPHERE
http://quest.arc.nasa/livefrom/stratosphere.html
This project is "following a team of airborne astronomers as they fly
across the United States, conducting infrared astronomy research at
41,000 feet." Under way right now, the project includes live
television, printed teacher's guides, lots of on-line background
information, and the opportunities to pose questions to the researchers
on-line. (For those who cannot access or download this material directly,
the teacher's guide and all the supporting material from the Web site
is available on IBM/Mac diskette from PLEASE COPY THIS DISK.
Send email to samizdat@samizdat.com for details.)
WASHINGTON SOCIAL STUDIES
http://www.halcyon.com/garycres/sshp/startup.html
Here you'll find pointers to numerous sites with material useful in
teaching social studies (US and world history, economics, anthropology,
psychology, geography, and sociology), including on-line student
projects. There's also a section dealing specifically with the state of
Washington.
INTERNATIONAL HONORS PROGRAM (study and travel abroad)
http://world.std.com/~ihp/ihp.html
Check their 1996-97 Global Ecology Course Catalog.
NEWTON'S APPLE
http://ericir.syr.edu/Newton/welcome.html
Lessons and background material from the last four seasons of this
television show broadcast over PBS in the US.
THE ARMCHAIR SCIENTIST (LO SCIENZIATO IN POLTRONA)
a science magazine in English and Italian, by Loris Crudeli
http://www.areacom.it/html/ita/loris/armchair.html
This one-person operation produces a "science digest" which
filters and selects material from the net. It is intended to
"stimulate the quest for a new way to do science, in spite of the
deluge of information going on in our society, by trying to become a true
'global scientist-philosopher with a new attitude toward 'knowledge
compression' instead of the current trend towards lengthy essays,
confused repetitions, unuseful publications."
**********************************
CURIOUS TECHNOLOGY
Free Services Page from NetMind
http://www.netmind.com/
Here you find hyperlinks to a variety of useful, free services available
on the Web. "To be included on this page, a free service must do more
than provide on-line information; it must perform a customized service
for the user. Services on this page don't just tell you something, or
let you tell someone else something; they do something for you.
Most importantly, they do it for free." There's lot's of good stuff
here, including their own "URL-minder" (see below).
URL-minder from NetMind
http://www.netmind.com/URL-minder/URL-minder.html
This is an almost great idea. You find a Web page with great stuff, but you
don't want to bother to keep going back until there's something new there.
It would be handy to get a brief email reminder when more of what you
want to see is available. Netmind provides these kinds of alerts as a
free service. (Apparently, they plan to make their money by attaching
paid advertising messages to the email reminder notes.) You can register
at their site for whatever Web pages you want to be notified about. And
if you have your own Web sites, you can download a brief chunk of
code from Netmind and cut and paste into your pages, so visitors at your
site will be able to fill out a short form and get alerted about your pages.
This looked so good, we tried it at our site for a few weeks. The problem
is that any simple cosmetic or maintenance change in your pages triggers
a message to all the folks who said they were interested. So what should
be helpful tool, turns out to be a nuisance.
All they'd need to do to make this much better, would be to allow
the person maintaining a page to make a judgement as to whether a
change was worthy of note.
NetBuddy from Internet Solutions
http://www.internetsol.com/netbuddy.html )
NetBuddy is a very different approach to the problem noted above --
finding out when sites you are interested in have been updated.
In this case, you download a free program (for Windows 3.1), and
this software "watches the web for you." "NetBuddy keeps a
list of Internet web locations which you want it to watch. Then
it automatically checks these sites at a frequency you decide. If
any of these sites have changed (have new information), NetBuddy
lights up that site in its list to let you know something's different
there." Unfortunately, this approach has the same drawback as
the URL-minder -- every little cosmetic, maintence change to a
page looks the same as if significant content had been added.
Tiger Map Service
http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/mapbrowse
A gem I found from the Netmind free services page, Tiger lets you
create custom maps of territory within the US and download them for
free. This could be very helpful in geography and history
classes, as well as for those who would like to include public domain
maps in their Web pages.
Excite
http://www.excite.com
This is probably the best free Internet search service available today.
It's easy to use, and must have an enormous data base to find some
of the stuff it comes up with. But it also has an annoying quirk --
results aren't repeatable. For instance, a few days ago I did a search
for "electronic texts on diskette" and found excerpts
from nearly every issue of Internet-on-a-Disk and the PLEASE COPY
THIS DISK catalog. Today I did the exact same search and found
none of those documents. Likewise, yesterday, for the fun of it, I
searched for "the meaning of life,"; and the first hit was a fun one --
a site that will send you email alerts whenever the meaning of life
changes. I tried the same search today, and all I got was pointers
to information on life insurance.
Webwhacker from Forefront Group
http://www.ffg.com/
This software lets you save Web pages locally on your PC so you
can display them later with your Web browser even if you don't
have an Internet connection. You can produce similar results
by brute force -- renaming files same in disk cache and changing
all the links to graphics images etc. so they point locally -- but this
software makes it all very easy and quick. I use it to capture examples
I want to use in delivering speeches and presentations about what's
happening on the Internet. (For slides of such a talk, with live rather
than local links, check http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat/title2.html)
This tool could also be very useful for teachers, who may have
access to a computer for classroom use, but probably don't have a
phone line or Internet connection in the classroom. From a PC at
home or in the library or computer center, you can find the pages you
want to show in class and save them on a diskette. Then in class,
using a PC with a Web browser (such as Netscape 2.0) you can open
local files on your diskette -- giving the full impact of Web-based
images and information, with all the look and feel of a live connection.
The beta version of this software is available to download for
a free 30-day trial; then, if you want, you can buy it from them on-line.
(This is the second piece of software which I have bought on-line.
The first was the Internet Phone).
Netscape Navigator 2.0 (beta) from Netscape
http://www.netscape.com
The latest (beta) version of Netscape's Navigator has some very useful
new features. For instance, you can now access local files with
your browser even when you are not connected to the Internet
(see the note on Webwhacker above). You can also easily convert
documents from .html to plain text, just using the "save as" function.
(Before when we downloaded a book from a Web site, we had to
use separate .html conversion software to do this, and the results
were nowhere near as good as this, in terms of keeping line breaks and
paragraph breaks where they belong). In addition, you can do all
your email -- including reading new mail -- right from your browser
(it's in the set of choices under "Window"). And as a side-effect of
that new mail capability, mail messages that you send from your
browser -- for instance, from clicking on a "mailto" link on a Web
page -- are saved as sent-mail. Also, when you print a document
from the Web, this browser prints at the top of each page the
name of the site and the URL.
On the negative side, remember this is "beta" software. It still
has some bugs. (I find that it intermittently crashes -- but just
starting up again is not trouble).
Keep in mind that the numerous servers from which they are
making this available are in heavy demand. Don't be surprised
if you can't get through except at 3 AM. But it's well worth the
hassle to get it.
Workgroup Web Forum from Digital Equipment Corp.
http://webforum.research.digital.com/
Here is a "kick the tires" version of the same software that's being used
by Foster's Daily Democrat (see Educational Resources). The software
resides on the Web server. All the user needs is a regular Web browser
(like Netscape's Navigator). With this software, you can make your
Web site interactive -- letting users exchange views with other users
and with experts. There's a wide range of possible applications from
customer support to collaboration to distance education. This is a site
for you to check out the capabilities and ask the developers questions.
*******************************
NEW BUSINESS MODELS
CARTOONIST BY-PASSES SYNDICATORS -- Borderline Cartoon Archive
http://www.cts.com/~borderln/old.html
"The cartoons on this page are free to use in your school newspaper,
magazine, or newsletter (both print and on-line)! Use as many as you
like, as often as you like! .. Also, anyone and everyone can feel free
to put a link on your homepage (also for free) to any of the cartoons
below." Why wait for an editor or a syndication company to "discover"
you, when you can build a reputation for free by making your current
work available for free over the Internet?
A NEW KIND OF ADVERTISING -- Webconnect
http://www.worldata.com/webcon.htm
These folks act as hyperlink brokers. They have signed up hundreds of
Web sites. They go to potential advertisers and offer them a package
deal. For $X per month, you can have hyperlinks to your Web site from
Y Web sites which attract the kinds of audiences you want to appeal to.
The revenue is shared with the Web sites, which have the right to
refuse any advertiser they don't feel is appropriate for them.
They contacted us about a month ago, and now already we have our
first "advertiser" -- The Encyclopedia Britannica. For including a
hypertext link to their site (with a little graphic), we receive $45 a month.
That's not bad considering the run our entire Web site on free space
that we get with our $29 a month SLIP account with TIAC. So our
one advertiser more than pays for our Internet access and our Web
space. And the advertiser is a company we're glad to help promote --
they have a site that we have wanted to point to anyway as an
important educational resource (http://www.eb.com)
*********************************
"HIT-VITATIONS" --
WHAT'S GOING ON? AND HOW DO YOU PLAY THIS GAME?
by Richard Seltzer, B&R Samizdat Express
I never expected that blatant commerical advertising would work on
the Internet. The medium is much better suited for providing detailed
information to people who want it, when they want it, and how they
want it. Surprisingly, some of the much travelled on-ramp sites
like Netscape are showing impressive results from "hyper-
banner" advertising. I recently spoke with Kathleen Gilroy of
Kathleen Gilroy Associates, a distance education company in
Cambridge, Mass.. In exchange for sponsorship of an Internet
training program, she got a hyperlinked "banner" on the Netscape site.
The result was 500,000 hits on her Web site in the first month
(http://www.kga.com).
Well, if you learn anything from dealing with the Internet and human
behavior there, it's that you've got to expect the unexpected and adjust
quickly to change.
So is advertising "in" now? Is that the way to go?
I've heard people comparing hits or visits at a Web site to responses to
a direct mail campaign. That seems far-fetched -- not the right
ballpark, not the right order of magnitude in terms of predicting
audience behavior.
The first-time visitor who clicks to your site by way of a hyper-banner does
so on random impulse. You've generated some street traffic by making it
easy for people to impulsively move in your direction from some other
site -- a click costs the user little time and almost no effort -- little
thinking is involved -- curiosity is enough.
When you buy an ad on television or in a newspaper, you are buying an
opportunity to catch the attention of an established audience. When
you buy a hyper-banner on the Internet, you buy an opportunity to induce
people to come to your site and be (at least once) part of your audience.
You have not yet begun to catch their attention.
A reminder and invitation to check a website (not a direct ad for
a product or service) is a step or two removed from traditional
advertising. It is audience acquisition for another program.
Once they "hit" your site, you have an opportunity to catch their
interest, to provide them with useful information or an enjoyable
experience or a discussion with people of like mind. You have earned
a chance to give them good reason to come back again and again to
your site. If, at that point, you simply shove a blatant ad in their face
or ask them to fill out a long form before you let them see or do
anything else, you could be throwing away that opportunity.
In other words, a hyper-banner is a "hit-vitation," an invitation to hit
another site. And the success of this approach does not mean that
blatant advertising is thriving on the Internet.
In the Hit-vitation business, you are in do-it-yourself mode. Your
Web site is the equivalent of a publication or a broadcast station --
run by you. You need to build an audience -- by serving an
audience -- before you can expect to get results. And raw hits --
randomly gleaned from pointers and paid-for banner links -- are not
an audience, they are just an opportunity to build an audience.
Generating hits by way of hyperlink invitations is analogous to
acquiring a list of prospects for one-time direct-mail use. These people
have not yet even seen, much less read, an ad or marketing material,
and the vast majority, once at your site, will do the equivalent of
throwing your marketing material in the wastebasket. In other words,
this is a step removed from direct mail responses, and marketers
should set their expectations of results accordingly.
At this point in the evolution of commerce on the Internet, the
experience of the user with a Web site is simply too complex to reduce
to statistics. For the long term, success should be measured not by hits
or visits but by some index of user loyalty -- how likely they are to
retun again and again. For today, remember that if you pay for a
banner/link, you are sending out invitations to anyone
and everyone to click on over to your site and take a look. And what
that's worth to you depends on what you have at your site -- how useful
and compelling people find it.
I still believe that the most interesting opportunities on the Internet are
likely to come from serving audiences rather than selling advertising.
In my ideal model, you provide a place where people can interact with
one another about matters of common interest; you provide related free
information and useful pointers; and once you have built an audience
and interact with those people regularly, you begin to provide them
with services and products which they need. The better you serve
them, the more likely you are to be successful. And in this mode very
small operations could be very profitable and very beneficial as well.
****************************************************
REACTIONS TO "HIT-VITATIONS"
by Tom Camp, camp@zeke.enet.dec.com
Some interesting thoughts regarding "hit-vitation". Another way to view
these interesting "sign-posts" is from the perspective of someone driving
down a city street loaded with signs for organizations (e.g. churchs, clubs,
etc.), businesses (stores, commercial sites, etc.) and leisure activities
(theatres, parks, amusements, etc.).
The Internet allows individuals to return to first days of driving (a.k.a.
teenagers) when "cruising" in and of itself was compelling. While cruising,
we looked at all the signs. They were new, exciting and had never been
seen from the drivers seat. A great way to just enjoy ourselves
as we thrilled at the freedom. Computers prior to the Internet didn't
allow us much freedom, you know. We saw the same view of office
applications and accounting programs, spreadsheets, lists, etc.
When we first drove our cars, we may have driven by those signs
thousands of times and driven into a few parking lots and browsed in
some stores. Slowing to check things out, talking with people on the
sidewalk - just enjoying the thrill. The places we checked out had a high
degree of relationship to our interests.
As we matured though, driving became routine and lost some of its thrill
and excitment. We went from one place to another because we had a
purpose. Sometimes that purpose was to browse or loose ourselves for
few hours in a Mall or store that we liked, but most often it was guided
by a very specific purpose. When driven by such a purpose, every red
light, yellow light, traffic jam and small yellow volkswagon in front of
us proved a maddening distraction. Eventually we stop only where we have
a purpose.
Much of what we're pursuing with the Internet today is an attempt to match
our Internet content and services to purposes which people find compelling
in their lives. For the consumer market this will not be an easy task.
The business user will benefit significantly in the short term for all
the reasons you've described before.
Obviously, we need to understand more about the habits and effects of
maturation of the Internet driver. I know I still act like a teenager
sometimes, clicking and clicking and clicking... But when I'm looking
for specific information on a company or a product - I want it NOW (one
click away). Long delays (regardless what the cause) drive me to look
for a horn to blow or some gesture to make at some faceless Webmaster in
the sky. I maintain my hot list and constantly scribble URLs to avoid
those long lines.
As a marketeer, I know there is power in this new medium. Measuring its
effectiveness will keep us all employeed for many years to come. I agree
with your concept that return is important. But as in life on the road,
for some sites how often is not so important -- pure hits may be. The type
of site is a critical component in measuring how successful it is. For
example, a site which provides information for a specific event might be
effectively measured on total hits, while a commercial site offering a
variety of information over time might be better measured by some
combination of new hits and returns.
Over time we'll see an evolution of sites and a maturity of users. As with
any new market, niches will evolve that we can't anticipate today and
specialized services will develop to meet these needs. For us the
challenge is to keep looking to identify these trends and help characterize
them, measure their success and build (as we say) compelling solutions.
Just a few thoughts...
**********************************************************
HOW DO YOU DEFINE SUCCESS? THE REAL RESULTS DIRECTORY
People who run Web sites have many different objectives -- from making
the world a better place to live, to building a business or both -- and hence
they have very different definitions of success and methods of trying to
achieve it. If you run a Web site and believe that it brings you results, send
email to samizdat@samizdat.com and ask for "results.txt", and we'll send back
a questionnaire. We'll gather the responses (no hobbies and personal pages
please -- just sites designed to produce results), and we'll make them available
to all for free on our Web site at http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat/results.html
(Remember, we're just getting started. There's not much to see yet.)
We hope that by sharing our experiences we can help one another make
better use of this strange and exciting new medium. And at the same time,
this is a vehicle for those who run Web sites to let people know what they're
doing and why, and why people should visit.
We're calling this project "Real Results: The directory of successful Web
sites." Please spread the word.
*******************************************************
HOW TO PUBLICIZE A NEW WEB SITE OVER THE INTERNET
by Richard Seltzer , The B&R Samizdat Express
[We will keep an updated version of this article with hypertext links at
http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat.public.html Please alert us to other
resources that should be included.]
When you start a Web site, one of your first steps should be to let the
right people know that you exist. Maybe you'll want to send out a printed
press release and pay for print advertising. But it makes much more sense
and is far less expensive to use the Internet itself to reach an Internet
audience.
***Directory listings
Get listed in on-line directories so people who know you exist, and so they
can find you even when they can't remember your address; also so people
searching by topic/subject can find you.
The simplest way to do this is with the Web site known as Submit It!
http://www.submit-it.com/
This is a forms-based way to submit information about a new Web site to the
following directory sites: Yahoo, Starting Point, WebCrawler, EINet Galaxy,
Lycos, Harvest, What's New Too! Infoseek, Whole Internet Catalog, Open Text
Web Index, World Wide Web Worm, Apollo, Jump Station, New Rider's WWW
Yellow Pages, The YellowPages.com, Netcenter, NIKOS, and Pronet.
Expect a 2-4 week delay from when you submit the information to when
people can find you through one of these directories.
Other important ones not in Submit-It include: NCSA's What's New page (now
run by GNN)
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new.html
the Commercial Sites Index (run by Open Market)
http://www.directory.net
and Excite.
http://www.excite.com
You also should consider getting listed in "Malls" -- many of which consist
largely of pointers to other sites and many of which provide these pointers
for free. For a list, check the Index of Commerical Databases and Malls, posted
by the Multimedia Marketing Group http://hevanet.com/online/com.html
And keep in mind that American Business Information in Omaha, Nebraska,
has made available the Yellow Pages of the entire United States on the Web.
Apparently, even if you aren't in the printed yellow pages, you can still get a
free listing here by filling out their form. http://www.telephonebook.com
With another free announcement service -- PostMaster at
http://www.netcreations.com/postmaster/index.html --
you fill out one form and your announcement is posted to 100 popular Web
sites and publications on the Internet and also goes to 300+ editors at print
publications and broadcast stations.
Keep in mind that the "one click reaches everybody" approach means you
can't tailor your messages for the audience and your submission looks the
same as hundreds of others and hence might not be noticed. It also
means you don't know who gets your messages, so you can't track success.
It's hard work to do it all individually by hand, but the payoff is likely to
be greater. And there are service companies that will help you for a fee
(check Netpost at http://www.netpost.com).
***Newsgroups
Whatever the subject matter of your Website, there's probably at least one
and maybe dozens of newsgroups that would be appropriate for a brief
announcement.
The group for general announcements of new Web sites is:
comp.infosystems.www.announce
Always read samples from a newsgroup before posting there to make sure your
message is appropriate and so you can tailor your message to the audience.
You can probably get a list of newgroups from your newsreader software or
your Internet provider. Another source on the Web, which also has useful
how-to and netiquette explanations is at the University of Indiana --
http://scwww.ucs.indiana.edu/NetRsc/usenet.html
For example, if you site is non-commercial and related to education, you
might want to try some of the following: k12.ed.soc-studies (social
studies), k12.chat.teacher (teachers), k12.library (school librarians),
alt.education.alternative , or alt.education.distance
***Distribution lists (LISTSERVs)
There are numerous public email lists which are similar in content to
newsgroups. Typically, you sign up using automatic subscription software
(sending messages in fixed format to the appropriate address). Just like
with newsgroups, people do not want to be bothered with irrelevant messages
and unsolicited advertising.
Two of the many sites which maintain lists of such email lists and
instructions on how to use them are:
http://www.nova.edu/Inter-Links/listserv.html and
http://tile.net/listserv
They can tell you the right format in which to send your email messages to
subscribe and unsubscribe to these groups. Some require you to be a
subscriber before you can post, and others are open to any appropriate
postings. Be sure not to post a commercial message to a clearly
non-commercial list or you will get inundated with hate mail. And beware of
subscribing to too many lists yourself -- a single list might generate
dozens of messages a day, which is great if you're very interested in the
subject matter, but otherwise soon becomes a nuisance. And if you do send
messages to these lists, keep them as short as possible, as a courtesy to
others. If you want to convey a long message, point them to a site where
they can fetch it, or invite individuals to send you email requesting that
document.
One of my favorite lists is internet-marketing@popco.com (discussions of
business on the Internet), which also has it's own Web site
http://www.popco.com/hypernet/inet-marketing
Some non-commercial lists related to education include:
* kidsphere@vms.cis.pitt.edu (about 3000 subscribers)\
* vt-hsnet@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu (about 100)
* English@utarlvm1.uta.edu (about 200)
* HPSST-L@QUCDN.bitnet (history)
* HISTORY@CSEARN.bitnet (history)
* ECENET-L@VMD.cso.uiuc.edu (early childhood education)
* DED-L@VM.UCS.UALBERTA.CA (distance learning)
* EDUTEL@RPITSVM.bitnet (new technology for education)
* DEOS-L@psuvm.bitnet (distance education)
* LM_NET@suvm.syr.edu (media coordinators at libraries)
* LIBEVENT@uscvm.bitnet (library info services)
* LIBREF-L@ketvm.bitnet (about 3000, library reference services)
* Library@indycms.bitnet (librarians)
* NNEWS@ndsuvm1.bitnet (moderated; information resources on the net)
* uk-schools@mailbase.ac.uk (schools in the UK)
* LRNASST@ARIZVM1.CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU (forum for learning assistance
professionals)
* MEDIA-L@BINGVMB.bitnet (about 700; media librarians)
* LIBER@uvmvm.bitnet (school librarians),
***On-line magazines and newsletters that focus on the Internet
It seems that new publications of this kind appear every week. Search Yahoo
(http://www.yahoo.com) and Lycos (http://www.lycos.com) for the latest.
Here's a list of some of them, with the email addresses of editors. Be sure
to read the publications before sending them email:
* Computergram International -- Maya Anaokar, maya@power.globalnews.com
http://power.globalnews.com/apt/cgi.html
* Cybertalk -- Terry Taylor, ttaylor@wimsey.com,
http://www.cybertalk.wis.net/
* David Kaplan's News from the Net -- Dave Kaplan, davekaplan@msn.com
http://www.mcs.com/~davidk/
* David Strom's Web Informant -- David Strom, david@strom.com
http://www.strom.com/
* Edupage -- John Gehl, gehl@educom.edu and Suzann Douglas,
douglas@educom.edu http://www.educom.edu/web/edupage.html
* GNN -- Ellie Cutler ellie@ora.com and Melissa Koch mkoch@netcom.com
http://nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/news/index.html
* Hi-Tech Bulletin -- Doug Willoughby, dougw@pinc.com,
http://vvv.com/hi_tech/flashes.html
* In, Around, and Online -- Robert Seidman, robert@clark.net
http://www.clark.net/pub/robert
* InfoHighway (from the UK) -- Paul Lavin, plavin@caversham.win-uk.net
http://www.infohighway.co.uk/infohighway/
* Internet Business Journal -- Michael Strangelove,
Michael@Strangelove.com http://www.phoenix.ca:80/sie/ibj-home.html
* Internet Daily News and Pulse of the Internet Magazine -- William
Stanek, director@tvp.com http://tvp.com/projint.html
* Internet-on-a-Disk -- Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com
http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat/
* Internet Press -- Kevin Savetz, savetz@northcoast.com
http://www.northcoast.com/savetz/ipress.html
* Internet Week -- Minda Morgan Caesar, mcaesar@phillips.com
http://www.phillips.com/pbi/iw/index.html
* ITbits, Norton Greenfeld, ngreenfeld@implements.com
* Matrix News -- John Quarterman, mids@mids.org
http://www.tic.com/mids/mn.html
* net-happenings -- Gleason Sackman, sackman@plains.nodak.edu
http://www.mid.net/NET/
* Netsurfer Digest -- Arthur Bebak, arthur@msm.com
http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/index.html
* Tasty Bits from the Technology Front -- Keith Dawson,
dawson@world.std.com http://www.atria.com/~dawson/tbtf/
* Web Digest for Marketers (WDFM) -- Larry Chase chase@advert.com
http://www.advert.com/wdfm/wdfm.html
* The Web Word -- Steve Bennett, innovation@euronet.nl
http://www.euro.net/innovation/Web_Word_Base/Web.WordHP.html
* Webster -- dianna@newsmaster.tgc.com or human@tgc.com
http://www.tgc.com/webster.html
***Editors of on-line editions of traditional publications
Many traditional print publications now have Internet editions. Search
Yahoo and Lycos for the print publications and editors you are familiar
with and want to reach.
***Mutual pointers
Find sites that appeal to an audience that is similar to the audience you
want to reach and try to negotiate mutual pointers (for free). Search Yahoo
and Lycos to find such sites. Similarly, contact any natural allies who are
already on-line and negotiate.
*** We have posted this document on our Web site, with hypertext
links to the resources referenced. You can get to it directly at
http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat/public.html
We plan to update and maintain these lists regularly (within the limits of
our very limited time) as a free service. Please alert us to other resources
that should be included.
******************************************************
MOVIE NOTES
Lost in Cyber Space -- My Very Personal Reaction to "Hackers"
by Richard Seltzer, B&R Samizdat Express
I have to admit that I didn't see the entire movie Hackers. I walked out
about two-thirds of the way through -- which is something I never do.
So in fairness, my comments should be taken with a grain of salt --
there may have been some redeeming social or entertainment value in
the final third. But I saw no foreshadowing of anything of the kind. It
was simply too painfully bad -- like having to sit through a two-hour
episode of Lost in Space. Basically, if you love computers and the
Internet and what they can do for people, you'll hate this move. The Net
was right on. Hackers is right off.
The central "hacker" (handle = Zero Cool) gets in trouble with the Feds
at the age of 11 and is prohibited by the court from getting near a computer
until age 18. What story there is starts when he has just turned 18, has
just moved to a new city with his divorced mother, and is a newcomer at
the public high school, where he gets involved with other "hackers."
Their "hacking" is mainly telephone-based pranks. The technology is
reminiscent of the Three Days of the Condor -- twenty years old. They
use cassette recorders to capture the sounds of money being deposited
in a touchtone pay phone, and play it back to get money refunded when
they never made a deposit. They use modems to access and change
school grades and class registration. One of them breaks into a
supercomputer -- guessing that the password for the system manager
would be GOD (as if a major, security-sensitive computing site these days
would allow anyone to have a three-letter password, much less a common
noun). To prove he was there to his buddies, he tries to download a
"garbage" file. The owner of that file in fact had stored there some sensitive
information related to a personal nefarious scheme. To get the Feds
involved to help him get the file back, he sets loose a virus that he designed
himself and claims the "hacker" did it. The Feds are creepy imbeciles. The
pranksters are more interested in one-upping one another than in foiling the
bad guy or getting away from the Feds (and their pranks are like playing their
equivalent of scavengerhunt videogames using phone lines to break into
systems). And the bad guy, with his convoluted motivation is simply
pathetic. Hence, there's no central conflict -- just a string of episodes.
Technology-wise, there was hardly any mention of the Internet -- it was
all direct-dialup to a modem at the target site. (For instance, they make
a phone call to a security guard and trick him into telling them the dialup
number for the top secret computer -- real high tech).
Worst of all, whenever they show a computer in action, they put ludicrous
graphics on the screen, apparently to show that it's "doing something."
It's like a 1950's sci-fi movie notion of what a computer is and how it works.
**********************************
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
***FREE ETEXTS AND THE FATE OF AUTHORS
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 6:43:38 BST
From: Dave Fawthrop
Kirk.Laughlin@franklin.pacsci.org and daniel@sierra.net are worried as
to what will happen to writers, if the text of books are freely
available on the net. Let them take courage from the situation in the
United Kingdom. Libraries here, which I frequent, are public
institutions, and free at the point of borrowing, being paid for by
local and general taxation. This has been so for perhaps a century.
The effect of this on authors has not been catastrophic. Numerous
bookshops, which I use occasionally, still thrive. Authors except for a
few bestsellers, still complain that they are underpaid. They have
however won a small victory recently. They receive a very small sum
from the government depending on how many times their books are
borrowed.
Your correspondents also, do not take into account the fact that,
E-text is perhaps the least convenient form of text for actual
*reading*, as against consulting technical literature. Indeed as a
Sci-Fi addict, and computer professional, I have not - to date -
attempted to read any of the e-text material available in that genre.
Why?? It is difficult to read on a screen even with a good editor and
font. Taking a computer, even a portable to bed is just not on!! The
costs in money, time and effort of local printing and worse binding is
quite significant.
Free Etext will cause the situation of writers to change, but not by
much.
***FREE VS. FEE
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 20:49:42 -0700
From: geof@netcom.com (Geoffrey F. Pawlicki, Project Gutenberg)
Just read you latest [#12] and wanted to say congrats for your recent
naming to the top 50 list ... and also to offer the, albeit obvious,
suggestion that you keep the 'all content' perspective as a 'signature'
item on your homepage. ...
Further, in response to the fellow whom you published in #12,
"...It is one thing to imagine, even with logical trappings, what you think
should happen as a result of making the printed word free. It is another
thing to actually live the life of a writer, or musician, in a world where his
product, unlike all others, is incapable of creating a material reward."
I should like to point out the maxim that 'detail costs' with regard to music as
well as the visual arts, and that many of the questions addressed in terms of
free vs. fee are mostly an issue of how much work is needed to assert
copyright, e.g., listenability, originality, 'genius', timeless classic, etc.
*** THE CHANGING NATURE OF PUBLISHING
Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 06:20:54 -0400
From: sheridan@k12.oit.umass.edu (Susan Rich Sheridan (Westfield State))
I just got on the World Wide Web for the first time.
Your discussions and the responses to your discussions on the changing
nature of publishing were fascinating. I have been trying for about 30 years
to get published. This year, I have decided to self-publish. The first book
coming out in Feb. is a book on drawing and writing, which I have worked on
through my doctorate and a summer Bread Loaf program at Oxford for the past
5 years. I hired a fellow to use Quark to set it up visually, and I have
scanned in student drawings. I am fully self-publishing, building a tiny
team of editors, and technicians. But I am going to get this handbook on
visual and verbal literacy out. I have approached publishers for 5 years on
this. I have about 100 peole who want the book to teach from. So, I decided
to do this myself. Next, comes a novel. Then poetry.
I think Barney's letter to you, and others I have just read are very
interesting. I would like to be able to sell this handbook for a nominal
price - that is, I am a single parent now, a solo self supporter, an adjunct
professor (which means I make about $10,000 per year), and I have to figure
out how to make a little money. One of my editors said she worked for a guy
who wrote a book on memory, writing and older people, and has
FRANCHISED the idea. Most startling to think about as an academic.
That is, instead of founding some institute to promulgate your idea, just
sell it, inexpensively, and let others take it up as a small business. Extremely
intersting. The handbook I have written would thus be a kind of seminal
franchise how-to text. Anyway. Lots of change in the world of publishing
and the dissemination of information.
I think my teaching and learning strategy called drawing/writing needs to get
out there before our US educ. system fails entirely to engage kids' minds in
their own minds as competent meaning makers - that is, as literate people.
***ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER
Date: Sun, 03 Sep 95 22:10:26 0600
From: Margaret Stimson
Greetings from Winnipeg, Manitoba.
In issue #12, Richard Evans noted:
"Intrigued with the prospect of REAL electronic town meetings (where
business gets accomplished through the democratic
process, not the Ross Perot variety), I'm writing to ask if you are
aware of any groups that are applying Robert's Rules
(etc.) to their electronic deliberations, and/or whether anyone is
working on protocols for doing that? "
While not exactly what was requested, there is a site for an Online Tour
of Canada's Parliament. At the bottom of the first page, there is a
Glossary to Parliamentary Procedure that may be a good addition to
whatever list you may assemble on that topic.
You can reach the site at
http://www.cisti.nrc.ca/programs/pio/intro.html
I have linked to it from The INFO ZONE at
http://www.mbnet.mb.ca/~mstimson
for the benefit of our students. We would like you to visit us as well!
***MORE ROBERT'S
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 10:40:52 IDT
From: mark@sd.co.il (Mark Levinson)
I found the Robert's Rules site ... The site is "Roberts Rules Made Simple,"
and it's very abbreviated but the best I've managed to find so far. It
belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America:
http://ccme-mac4.bsd.uchicago.edu/DSAManuals/Rules/Rules.html
***STILL MORE ROBERT'S
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 14:26:35 +0100
From: Pekka P Pirinen
This [#12] was a particularly good issue, with useful info and thoughtful
articles. And I liked "THE WAY OF THE WEB".
As to RULES OF ORDER FOR ELECTRONIC FORUMS, it's good
to remember that Robert's Rules are a local institution, practically
unknown outside the US. Anyway, people always want to improve
on things, and the electronic meetings are probably different enough
to require their own rules. Also, they offer the possibility of enforcing
the rules by technological means, although I think this is bad idea that
will only annoy and frustrate people.
It might be a good idea to look into what kinds of rules IRC channels
and MUDs have evolved, although there probably aren't many whose focus
would be arriving at decisions.
***THE REAL TOMORROWLAND
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 20:38:45 -0400
From: SRCannon@aol.com, - Susan Cannon
Richard, I just read your piece WILL THE REAL TOMORROWLAND
PLEASE STEPFORWARD? and wanted to comment on some parts of it.
"We need to remind ourselves that rapid change is part of the human
condition. Our current accelerated pace seems especially frantic
because our society is emerging from a period when change was
relatively predictable. However, in the broad perspective of history, the
'future shock' we are now experiencing is not the exception, but the rule."
I don't believe that rapid change is part of the human condition. It has
however, become part of the human condition with the onset of capitalism
and the industrial revolution. Capitalism is inherently unstable and by
virtue of its structure supports technologically fueled change- this is the
first time in history that such instablility and change were a part of the human
condition. Before the onset of capitalism, change was very very slow- the
societal structure and the governing economic systems were stacked against
it. For example, there was no incentive for a serf to produce some
innovation that would increase productivity, because only the master would
benefit. Also, if someone was a member of a craft guild, they were geared to
produce only so much stuff, in a certain way. If someone innovated and found
a better way, or a more productive way, then what would they do with the
excess?. There was no supply-demand market system to distribute the extra.
Wealth was not used to create more wealth- it was used to consolidate power
and support a social postion, thus supporting the status quo. In a
tradition-based economy, such as exists in some clan societies and in
undeveloped areas, the main idea is to do what others have done before you-
strict adherence which is enforced by social pressure. Now that wealth is
used to produce more wealth based upon ever-increasing production capability,
there exists a powerful incentive for technological innovation. Thus,
technology fuels rapid change such as we have never seen before. As a social
system, capitalism is extremely unstable, going through spurts of rapid
growth and expansion, and hitting periods of stagnation and fall back. Mass
unemployment has been it's Achilles heel, which Keynsian economics attempted
to correct after WWII. It worked for awhile, but technology may cause that to
happen again.
"For those of us growing up in middle-class America, the period of
twenty years after World War II was an anomaly. The world of 'Father
Knows Best' and 'Donna Reed' and 'The Nelsons' was a world where
change was incremental and predictable. Cars would get bigger and
faster, and highways would be built to accommodate them. Airliners
would get bigger and faster, and airports would be expanded to
accommodate them. When in the 1950s, General Electric proclaimed,
'Progress is our most important product,' they meant steady,
incremental, predictable progress. The original Tomorrowland in
Disneyland -- both the theme park and the television show -- was a
friendly, familiar place, a way of life you could easily extrapolate from
the world you lived in."
The postwar years were an anomaly- but I don't believe that it was because
change was incremental. It was not- the sense of stability came, among other
things, from the brief period economic prosperity, dominance, and expansion
enjoyed by priveledged Americans in that period. Change was rapid and
accelerated at that time too.
I agree with your general thesis, but think that your perspectives and
certain broad statements should be looked at again.
*** POSTING INTERNET-ON-A-DISK ON AN INTERNAL WEB SITE
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 21:13:46 -0600
From: laink@harrier.sasknet.sk.ca (Kieth laing/HRDC)
Hello. I've just finished reading your Sept newsletter [#12] and thoroughly
enjoyed it. I run an internal webserver at the office I work in and wonder
if your invitation to carry the material that you've posted here on other
websites extends to internal websites (websites not on the internet)? In
our office we just went to tcp/ip which means for most (99%) of my
colleagues this is their first look at web technology-they don't have
internet accounts. Your newsletters would be a tremendous boost at showing
them some of the best aspects of what the web outside has to offer. Thank
you for the good read. I look forward to hearing from you.
REPLY -- I'm glad to hear that you like what you see. Feel free to mirror
anything you see on my web site on yours. Richard Seltzer
***********************************
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Richard Seltzer is available for speaking engagements.
Published by PLEASE COPY THIS DISK, B&R Samizdat Express,
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http://www.tiac.net/users/samizdat
Submitted by: cijs27 (cijs27@ccsun.strath.ac.uk)
Fri, 3 Nov 1995 14:10:35 +0000 (GMT)