E-books and e-publishing by Samuel Vaknin (summer reading list txt) 📖

at their fingertips, a-la Bill Gates.

But tomorrow’s computer will also function as a terminal, when

needed: when data retrieving or even when using NON standard

software applications. Why purchase rarely used, expensive

applications - when they are available, for a fraction of the

cost, on the Net?

In other words: no consumer will subjugate his frequent word

processing needs to the whims of the local phone company, or

to those of the site operator. That is why every desktop is

still likely to be include a hard (or optical)-disk-resident

word processing software. But very few will by CAD-CAM,

animation, graphics, or publishing software which they are

likely to use infrequently. Instead, they will access these

applications, which will be resident in the Net, use those

parts that are needed. This is usage tailored to the client’s

needs. This is also the integration of a desktop (not of a

terminal) with the Net.

Decentralized Lack of Planning

The course adopted by content creators (producers) in the last

few years proves the maxim that it is easy to repeat mistakes

and difficult to derive lessons from them. Content producers

are constantly buying channels to transfer their contents.

This is a mistake. A careful study of the history of

successful media (e.g., television) points to a clear pattern:

Content producers do not grant life-long exclusivity to any

single channel. Especially not by buying into it. They prefer

to contract for a limited time with content providers (their

broadcast channels). They work with all of them, sometimes

simultaneously.

In the future, the same content will be sold on different

sites or networks, at different times. Sometimes it will be

found with a provider which is a combination of cable TV

company and phone company - at other times, it will be found

with a provider with expertise in computer networks. Much

content will be created locally and distributed globally - and

vice versa. The repackaging of branded contents will be the

name of the game in both the media firms and the firms which

control contents distribution (=the channels).

No exclusivity pact will survive. Networks such as CompuServe

are doomed and have been doomed since 1993. The approach of

decentralized access, through numerous channels, to the same

information - will prevail.

The Transparent Language

The Internet will become the next battlefield between have

countries and have-not countries. It will be a cultural war

zone (English against French, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and

Spanish). It will be politically charged: those wishing to

restrict the freedom of speech (authoritarian and dictatorial

regimes, governments, conservative politicians) against pro-speechers. It will become a new arena of warfare and an

integral part of actual wars.

Different peer groups, educational and income social-economic

strata, ethnic, sexual preference groups - will all fight in

the eternal fields of the Internet.

Yet, two developments are likely to pacify the scene:

Automatic translation applications (like Accent and the Alta

Vista translation engines) will make every bit of information

accessible to all. The lingual (and, by extension ethnic or

national) source of the information will be disguised. A

feeling of a global village will permeate the medium. Being

ignorant of the English language will no longer hinder one’s

access to the Net. Equal opportunities.

The second trend will be the new classification methods of

contents on the Net together with the availability of chips

intended to filter offensive information. Obscene material

will not be available to tender souls. anti-Semitic sites will

be blocked to Jews and communists will be spared Evil Empire

speeches. Filtering will be usually done using extensive and

adaptable lists of keywords or key phrases.

This will lead to the formation of cultural Internet Ghettos -

but it will also considerably reduce tensions and largely

derail populist legislative efforts aimed at curbing or

censoring free speech.

Public Internet - Private Internet

The day is not far when every user will be able to define his

areas of interest, order of priorities, preferences and

tastes. Special applications will scour the Net for him and

retrieve the material befitting his requirements. This

material will be organized in any manner prescribed.

A private newspaper comes to mind. It will have a circulation

of one copy - the user’s. It will borrow its contents from a

few hundreds of databases and electronic versions of

newspapers on the Net. Its headlines will reflect the main

areas of interest of its sole subscriber. The private paper

will contain hyperlinks to other sites in the Internet: to

reference material, to additional information on the same

subject. It will contain text, but also graphics, audio, video

and photographs. It will be interactive and editable with the

push of a button.

Another idea: the intelligent archive.

The user will accumulate information, derived from a variety

of sources in an archive maintained for him on the Net. It

will not be a classical “dead” archive. It will be active. A

special application will search the Net daily and update the

archive. It will contain hyperlinks to sites, to additional

information on the Net and to alternative sources of

information. It will have a “History” function which will

teach the archive about the preferences and priorities of the

user.

The software will recommend new sites to him and subjects

similar to his history. It will alert him to movies, TV shows

and new musical releases - all within his cultural sphere. If

convinced to purchase - the software will order the wares from

the Net. It will then let him listen to the music, see the

movie, or read the text.

 

The internet will become a place of unceasing stimuli, of

internal order and organization and of friendliness in the

sense of personally rewarding acquaintance. Such an archive

will be a veritable friend. It will alert the user to

interesting news, leave messages and food for thought in his

e-mail (or v-mail). It will send the user a fax if not

responded to within a reasonable time. It will issue reports

every morning.

This, naturally, is only a private case of the archival

potential of the Net.

A network connecting more than 16.3 million computers (end

1996) is also the biggest collective memory effort in history

after the Library of Alexandria. The Internet possesses the

combined power of all its constituents. Search engines are,

therefore, bound to be replaced by intelligent archives which

will form universal archives, which will store all the paths

to the results of searches plus millions of recommended

searches.

Compare this to a newspaper: it is much easier to store back

issues of a paper in the Internet than physically. Obviously,

it is much easier to search and the amortization of such a

copy is annulled. Such an archive will let the user search by

word, by key phrase, by contents, search the bibliography and

hop to other parts of the archive or to other territories in

the Internet using hyperlinks.

Money, Again

We have already mentioned SET, the safety standard. This will

facilitate credit card transactions over the Net. These are

safe transactions even today - but there an ingrained interest

to say otherwise. Newspapers are afraid that advertising

budgets will migrate to the Web. Television harbours the same

fears. More commerce on the Net - means more advertising

dollars diverted from established media. Too many feel unhappy

when confronted with this inevitability. They spread lies

which feed off the ignorance about how safe paying with credit

cards on the Net is. Safety standards will terminate this

propaganda and transform the Internet into a commercial

medium.

Users will be able to buy and sell goods and services on the

Net and get them by post. Certain things will be directly

downloaded (software, e-books). Many banking transactions and

EDI operations will be conducted through bank-clients

intranets. All stock and commodity exchanges will be

accessible and the role of brokers will be minimized. Foreign

exchange will be easily tradable and transferable. Initial

Public Offerings of shares, day trading of stocks and other

activities traditionally connected with physical (“pit”)

capital markets will become a predominant feature of the

internet. The day is not far that the likes of Merill Lynch

will be offering full services (including advisory services)

through the internet. The first steps towards electronic

trading of shares (with discounted fees) have already been

taken in mid 1999. Home banking, private newspapers,

subscriptions to cultural events, tourism packages and airline

tickets - are all candidates for Net-Trading.

The Internet is here to stay.

 

Commercially, it would be an extreme strategic error to ignore

it. A lot of money will flow through it. A lot more people

will be connected to it. A lot of information will be stored

on it.

It is worth being there.

Published by “PC World” in Tel-Aviv on April 1996.

Partially Revised: 7/00.

 

Appendix - Ethics and the Internet

 

The “Internet” is a very misleading term. It’s like saying

“print”. Professional articles are “print” - and so are the

sleaziest porno brochures.

So, first, I think it would be useful to make a distinction

between two broad categories:

Content-related

or

Content-driven and Interaction-driven

Most content driven sites maintain reasonable ethical

standards, roughly comparable to the “real” or “non-virtual”

media. This is because many of these sites were established by

businesses with a “real” dimension to start with (Walt Disney,

The Economist, etc.). These sites (at least the institutional

ones) maintain standards of privacy, veracity, cross-checking

of information, etc.

Personal home pages would be a sub-category of content-driven

sites. These cannot be seriously considered “media”. They are

representatives of the new phenomenon of extreme

narrowcasting. They do not adhere to any ethical standards,

with the exception of those upheld by their owners’.

The interaction orientated sites and activities can, in turn,

be divided to E-commerce sites (such as Amazon) which adhere

to commercial law and to commercial ethics and to interactive

sites.

The latter - discussion lists, mailing lists and so on - are a

hotbed of unethical, verbally aggressive, hostile behaviour. A

special vocabulary developed to discuss these phenomena

(“flaming”, “mail bombing” etc.).

To summarize:

Where the aim is to provide consumers with another venue for

the dissemination of information or to sell products or

services to them the standards of ethics maintained reflect

those upheld outside the realm of the internet. Additionally,

codified morals, the commercial law is adhered to.

Where the aim is interaction or the dissemination of the

personal opinions and views of site-owners - ethical standards

are in the process of becoming. A rough set of guidelines

coalesced into the “netiquette”. It is a set of rules of

peaceful co-existence intended to prevent flame wars and the

eruption of interpersonal verbal abuse. Since it lacks

effective means of enforcement - it is very often violated and

constitutes an expression of goodwill, rather than an obliging

code.

 

The Internet in the Countries in Transition

By: Sam Vaknin

 

Though the countries in transition are far from being an

homogeneous lot, there are a few denominators common to their

Internet experience hitherto:

1. Internet Invasion

The penetration of the Internet in the countries in transition

varies from country to country - but is still very low even by

European standards, not to mention by American ones. This had

to do with the lack of infrastructure, the prohibitive cost of

services, an extortionist pricing structure, computer

illiteracy and luddism (computer phobia). Societies in the

countries in transition are inert (and most of them,

conservative or traditionalist) - following years of central

mis-planning. The Internet (and computers) are perceived by

many as threatening - mainly because they are part of a

technological upheaval which makes people redundant.

2. The Rumour Mill

All manner of instant messaging - mainly the earlier versions

of IRC - played an important role in enhancing social cohesion

and exchanging uncensored information. As in other parts of

the world - the Internet was first used to communicate: IRC,

MIRC e-mail and e-mail fora