I have a speech and a seminar on the Internet this month. Doing research for it, I suddenly realized that there are too many choices to put the net into a nutshell. In a four hour presentation, how do you explain something that is both global in scope and organic in nature?
Global is the only term that begins to encompass its scope. Just the other day, Ti Loc from Singapore logged onto my system, Kansas City Mail Online. I have no idea how he got the telnet address (198.69.223.38) or found out that we offer 30 minute guest accounts to everyone. He probably was just "surfing" around and came across a piece of e-mail originating on our system. We process about 50,000 e-mail messages per month and many of them carry our address.
Naturally, if he had to pay for a long distance call he probably wouldn't have come to Kansas City, paying about a dollar a minute. He stayed 23 minutes. I don't know everything he did, but I had a report that he chatted with some of our users. Chat is the process of sharing a meeting or chat room with other users, normally grouped by interest area and typing back and forth to one another. People that haven't done it don't understand it, but it is a phenomena of the growth of online services. Chat rooms practically built America Online.
Most folks who haven't been online and haven't investigated cyberspace are lost when it comes to two fundamental concepts. First is the basic understanding of the costs of the "long distance" bill. Tell most people that you are going to reach out and touch someone in Germany and the thought of a phone bill at several dollars a call leaps into their head. The Internet either flat-rates such bills (you pay a one-time charge per month, typically $10) or makes them about one tenth of the cost of the equivalent long distance. Internet nationally on metered accounts is about $2 per hour, on our system locally it is $1 per hour. That is 1.6 cents per minute all the time, compared to Sprint's 10 cents per minute for off-peak calling nationally, or 65 cents internationally.
The second issue is the misconception that it is easer to talk to someone than write them a short note. When you are talking about people in the same city and on the same schedules this may be true. But with a global base, and with today's busy lives, it is amazing how useful the time shifting aspects of e-mail can be. I often have my best thoughts deep into the night when many others are asleep. If I had to wait to the next day to express the idea it could be lost. E-mail rectifies the problem.
I have meet many people on-line that I consider good friends, even though we have never met in person. Some are geographically dispersed and some are simply so busy doing their lives that time to socialize and collaborate together simply cannot be found. The other great advantage to on-line meetings is that the stereotypes we place on one another are quickly lost. It is almost impossible to fall under the spell of visual preconceptions. About the only bias that I have is how fast someone types. If I am chatting I really like the fast typists. Slower typists are directed to e-mail by me so that we can both make the best uses of our time.
If any of you appreciate being able to zip through the TV commercials by using your VCR, you will begin to understand how important this time shift/time compression can be.
As to the "organic" issue, the neatest thing about the Internet is the topical nature of the net. If you want to find raw, unfiltered news and information, the net is the place to be. Information changes by the minute. One of the fascinating things about surfing the net using tools like Mosaic and Netscape are following hyper text links that were not there yesterday. Hours after the OKC bombing there was a web page up and forums actively discussing the issues involved.
We were late putting up our forum on the subject because we wanted to broaden it's scope to include all discussions of violence. It took us two days. Naturally our forum is called "Violence." Perhaps that is one of the places that Ti Loc visited when he came by. In Singapore, despite CNN, they may have wanted to talk to folks here about an event so close to us.
Building the relationships on the net is accelerated by its cooperative nature. The Internet is, in my opinion, the greatest example of human cooperation that exists today. Where else can you find over 100,000 computer networks of all types interlinked by the staggering connections that 25 million users can make with it, where most of the relationships are built by simply agreeing to carry everyone's traffic on your system and not get paid for it except by your few users?
When the net was first taken public (I was working for NASA at the time) we envisioned a few thousand sites in overall growth. A few thousand sites have been added this month! But if you let your imagination be daunted by this growth, you will lose sight of the fact that we are now a society fueled by information. Computers are the tools of information management. The Internet is one of the conduits through which the information flows. If you are not exploring it now, you may find in a very short time that you simply can't do business. Can you relate to the success or failure of a business that doesn't have a phone?
The compelling difference is that you could see the telephone coming in. Phone service took many years. The same cannot be said of the net. People who are not aware of it, who have no exposure, do not understand how much it has grown and how important it has become to expanding markets. But consider this: six months ago I started a business that about 10,000 people a month visit, and it is all run three3 part-timers. Most people who had over 300 clients a day serviced by a staff of three can see that this may be a growing area and one they should not ignore.
Businesses that are considering web pages (a way of publishing information on the net) should also consider that to build enough digitally based material is not something that happens overnight. The few folks that know how are very busy and they should plan reasonable implementation schedules. But not all businesses need to build web pages to get online. By simply using publications like infoZine, and many of the BBSs worldwide that make it available, you can have an important additional marketing tool at your disposal.
The Internet is too big to ignore, to do so is akin to ignoring a beneficent virus. It may start small, but it is going to grow into a new kind of life form, one that can carry you to new heights or eclipse you in its shadow. It doesn't matter that cyberspace is daunting, or that I can't explain it all in one story or one seminar. It is time to start learning it. Get on-line, find the web, launch a telnet session, or just chat with someone. It is fun and, despite the fact that there are a few learning curves along the way, it can be mastered by anyone that is not afraid to try.
If you don't know where to start, try a BBS. The BBS systems are reasonably easy to use, almost all have free trial periods, and you can find one that suites your tastes. Many good ones are listed in infoZine. Three good large systems with free trials and Internet are Metropolis, 913-661-9900; the File Shop, 913-262-7000; and Kansas City Mail Online 913-663-1100.
Graeme Gibson, C.D.P., is the Service Director of Computer Training Corporation and author of ``How to Build a Clone Computer'' and ``The Computer Repair Handbook.'' He is also the Sysop of Kansas City Mail Online and One Crossroads Place BBS. A former NASA programmer, he has worked in the computer field since 1972. His weekly TV show, Computers Today, is distributed locally by American Cablevision and Tele-Cable.
(c) copyright 1995 Graeme Gibson
copyright Graeme Gibson, C.D.P. 1996
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