------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 19:20:34 -0600 (CST) From: Czar Donic Subject: File 4--The Internet Explosion (Network News Roundup) From--VAX1::MCDONALD "Gary Lee McDonald" 4-JAN-1994 14:26:51.36 To--MCDONALD CC--MCDONALD Subj-- 1993 Network news roundup The Uniform Resource Locator for this document is: http://nearnet.gnn.com/gnn/news/current/Net_roundup.html 3 January 1994 Internet Explosion The explosive growth of the Internet, both in services and subscribers, was probably the single biggest Net story of 1993. Growing pains included traffic jams, commercialism on the Net, changing government and business roles, and a culture clash between the Net anarchists and pragmatists. The Internet widened its scope to include government documents such the Clinton Health Care Plan, National Public Radio, and an exclusive release of a new Stephen King book. And now, the stories... JUNK MAIL, ONLINE STYLE. A Wall Street Journal article sideswiped advertising on the Internet in an article headlined "Internet to Get Hit with Ad Clutter." Tim O'Reilly of the Global Network Navigator, a new online publication funded by ad revenue, responded, "The point is that with GNN, what information a customer retrieves is entirely under his or her control. With hypertext technology, you follow the links you're interested in, and only the articles you want to read are actually transferred over the Net from the server to your WWW client. People on the Net don't want unsolicited advertising, but they do want to be able to retrieve information that they are looking for -- and that includes commercial information as well as free information." YOU CAN'T SAY THAT ON THE INTERNET. Censorship has hit the Internet, where battles over free speech are being waged on several fronts. Colleges in Canada have banned all electronic discussions of sex, and controversy is raging stateside over a program that automatically wipes out anonymous messages and about the suspension of a California professor who ran a BBS that carried messages harassing a female student. Congress has even gone so far as to order a study of whether bulletin boards, on-line services and cable TV are being used to encourage "crimes of hate." (Wall Street Journal 5/24/93 B1) NSF RELEASES PLAN FOR INTERNET. The National Science Foundation released its long-awaited plan for Internet restructuring. Under the proposal, the government will phase out regional network subsidies and direct those funds to colleges to pay network fees. The backbone of the system, which will be three times faster than what exists today, will be privately managed under federal contract. Following the government's announcement of plans to change the way it subsidizes Internet users, eight regional networks formed a for-profit company, the Corporation for Regional and Enterprise Networking (CoREN). (Chronicle of Higher Education 5/26/93, 6/9/93) NPR ON THE INTERNET. NPR's "Talk of the Nation" show debuted over the Internet May 21. Some 400 computer listeners queued up to talk back to host Ira Flatow, and hundreds of others sent e-mail. Carl Malamud, Flatow's guest and founder of Internet Multicasting Corp., also distributes his own show, "Geek of the Week", the independently produced "TechNation", National Press Club luncheon speeches, and "Internet Town Hall." (Current 5/31/93 p.1) RURAL DATAFICATION. CICNet Inc., provider of Internet access and services in the Upper Midwest, received a $1.3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant award that they will use to launch the "CICNet Rural Datafication Project." This ambitious, non-profit undertaking will bring the Internet to rural areas and under-served communities where expertise and money are often in short supply, but enthusiasm and interest are not. (GNN News 12/20) GLOBAL NETWORK NAVIGATOR. The Global Network Navigator (GNN) is a free Internet-based information center that is initially available as a quarterly offered by O'Reilly Publishing. GNN consists of a regular news service, an online magazine, The Whole Internet Interactive Catalog, and a global marketplace containing information about products and services. To subscribe send mail to: info@gnn.com. INTERNET GETS SCARY. A short story from a new collection by horror writer Stephen King is available through the Internet, the first time a commercial book publisher has published an electronic first serial. It appears through the Online Bookstore (508-546-7346); users can search, browse, or read the story on their screens or download a copy for a fee of $5/hour or $5/download. (Publishers Weekly, 9/27, p. 12) The Internet Index: Facts and Figures for '93 Compiled by Win Treese (treese@crl.dec.com) Annual rate of growth for Gopher traffic: 997% Annual rate of growth for World-Wide Web traffic: 341,634% Average time between new networks connecting to the Internet: 10 minutes Number of newspaper and magazine articles about the Internet during the first nine months of 1993: over 2300 Number of on-line coffeehouses in San Francisco: 18. Cost for four minutes of Internet time at those coffeehouses: $0.25 Date of first known Internet mail message sent by a head of state: 2 March 1993 (Sent by Bill Clinton, President of the United States) Date on which first Stephen King short story published via the Internet before print publication: 19 Sept 1993 Number of mail messages carried by IBM's Internet gateways in January, 1993: about 340,000 Number of mail messages carried by Digital's Internet gateways in June, 1993: over 700,000 Advertised network numbers in July, 1993: 13,293; Advertised network numbers in July, 1992: 5,739 Date after which more than half the registered networks were commercial: August, 1991 Number of Internet hosts in Norway, per 1000 population: 5 Number of Internet hosts in United States, per 1000 population: 4 Number of Internet hosts in July, 1993: 1,776,000 Round-trip time from Digital CRL to mcmvax.mcmurdo.gov in McMurdo, Antartica: 640 milliseconds Number of hops: 18 Number of USENET articles posted on a typical day in February, 1993: 35,000 Number of megabytes posted: 44 Number of users posting: 80,000 Number of sites represented: 25,000 Number of Silicon Valley real estate agencies advertising with Internet mail addresses: 1 Terabytes carried by the NSFnet backbone in February, 1993: 5 Number of countries reachable by electronic mail: 137 (approx.) Number of countries not reachable by electronic mail: 99 (approx.) Number of countries on the Internet: 60 Amount of time it takes for Supreme Court decisions to become available on the Internet: less than one day. Date of first National Public Radio program broadcast simultaneously on the Internet: 21 May 1993 Percent of Boardwatch Top 100 BBS systems with Internet Connectivity: 21 Number of people on the Internet who know you're a dog: 0 Keywords: Internet, roundup to 1993 News Roundup. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ + END THIS FILE + +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+===+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=