The Best and Worst of 1994 and Predictions for '95

by Eric Berlin


Here are the views of Internet World's regular contributors on the year's best and worst trends, events, resources, and sites, plus prognostications.

Best in Net Entertainment:

Worst in Net Entertainment:

Susan Calcari
(susanc@is.internic.net)

Best:

Best:

Worst:

Best:

Disaster Relief. We saw the best of Internet users when they pulled together to help each other through several natural disasters in 1994. The year brought floods, earthquakes, and other major tragedies. Almost immediately following each of these events, Net users gathered around their terminals and formed newsgroups to relay information and help the afflicted.

Most memorable perhaps was the response to the Los Angeles earthquake in January. Mailing lists (la-quake) were created without delay. Los Angeles users immediately posted offers to make telephone calls to friends and relatives in the area because incoming phone calls from outside of L.A. were not possible in the initial hours following the disaster. With every aftershock came a posting from people in the Los Angeles area letting the rest of us know how strong the shock had been and what further damage had occurred.

There were many touching and unforgettable postings that tell the rest of the story. One that really stands out in my mind was from a family who posted asking for someone to contact their grandmother in an apartment building in L.A. "We heard on the news that her building has had severe damage and we are very worried," the message said. A couple of hours later, a reply came that said, "I couldn't get through to your grandmother, so I went to the apartment building and found her. The building didn't hold up very well, but your grandmother did. She's fine and wants you to contact the rest of your family and let them know. She'll call you as soon as she can." You could almost feel the hugs coming right through the screen.

The proliferation of the World-Wide Web. Unlike other areas of the Net, once you access the Web, it makes no difference whether you're a new user or an old pro. The Web graciously accommodates all.

I remember the first time I saw a URL address: http://www.something.something.something. "Ugh," I moaned. "A whole new language I have to learn? I was just getting the hang of Unix!" I immediately resigned myself to the fact that this might be the end of my days in cyberspace. The Net had become somewhat of a runaway locomotive and I was the woman running behind it, screaming for the conductor to please wait! Then suddenly it all came together. A Net guru friend told me about Lynx. "All you have to do," he said, "is type the word 'lynx' at your Unix prompt, and presto! You're into the Web." That weekend I spent about eight hours a day exploring. I quickly found out that you could access all your favorite telnet, FTP, and Gopher sites from the Web, as well as tons of resources you would never find anywhere else on the Net. My cyberlife had changed forever.

The way I figure it, the arachnid family (I speak of spiders, of course) have had the right idea all along. Spin a Web, then use it to capture the best of the best. How do you spin your Web? Type "lynx" at your Unix prompt or load other Web browsers such as Mosaic. You'll find the best of '94 at your fingertips!

Worst:

There's not much that's bad on the Net, but because cyberspace does imitate life, we shouldn't be surprised that in 1994 some less-than-desirable material showed its insolent face. Pick any tragic event and you can probably recall seeing a newsgroup that taunted its seriousness. There was alt.tonya-harding. whack.whack.whack. Then we had alt.lorena.bobitt.chop.chop.chop. And no, I haven't forgotten alt.oj-simpson.drive.faster.

Expect to see more of this in '95. But don't despair, the flamers are out in force, scorching away at those who abuse the Net, and working to make the Information Highway more like real life, where all is good and nary an offensive word is spoken .

Mike Godwin
(mnemonic@eff.org)

Best:

Worst:

Prediction:

Kenny Greenberg
(kgreenb@panix.com)

Best:

Worst:

Predictions:

Andrew Kantor
(ak@mecklermedia.com)

Best:

Worst:

Predictions:

Kevin Savetz
(savetz@northcoast.com)

Best:

(See Kevin's "Odds n' Ends: Best Hookups, Best Practical Jokes, and Best FAQs," which follow "Best Education Resources" in this issue.)

Predictions:

Joel Snyder
(jms@opus1.com)

Best:

Worst:

The amount of WWW and Gopher data traversing the backbone means that poor little folks who want to do something as backwards as telnet are out of luck: The arteries of the Internet are clogged with the cholesterol from the information equivalent of a burger, fries, and shake. I know the Internet isn't just for research anymore, but do you suppose copying megabytes of GIFs of weather maps or naked girls could be done during non-prime time? This was the year that Internet traffic truly exceeded capacity.

Dave Taylor
(taylor@sage.cc.purdue.edu)

Dickens had it right when he noted that it was the best of times and worst of times. Instead of two cities, however, we're talking about the Internet. This past year on the Net was quite a roller coaster of events, and the next 12 months will undoubtedly be the same, only more so!

With this in mind, I offer my list of 11 events that are not only both the best and worst events of the past twelve months, but are predictions for the future. You can decide for yourself whether they're predominantly good or bad.

Best:

Worst:

Predictions:

Aaron Weiss
(mw12@crux4.cit.cornell.edu)

Best:

Worst:

Predictions:

Best Books of '94

The Whole Internet: User's Guide and Catalog, 2nd edition
by Ed Krol
Price: $24.95 (paper), 453 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates (Sebastopol, CA)
Phone: 800-998-9938
E-mail: orders@ora.com
ISBN: 1-56592-063-5
One of the best overviews of the Internet from one of the original programmers of NCSA's Mosaic World-Wide Web browser. Although it is more than an overview, Krol does not wallow in 1970s, history of C, Unix, and the Internet. Instead the book is packed with facts on the utility of all the Internet's offerings. Krol's offering is a basic Internet reference that no serious Internetter should be without.

The Internet Unleashed
Kevin Kelly, editor
Price: $29.95 (paper), 1,387 pages, 1 floppy disk
Publisher: Sams (Indianapolis, IN)
Phone: 800-428-5331; 317-581-3500
Fax: 800-448-3804; 317-581-3550
ISBN: 0-672-30466-X
This is an encyclopedic collection of essays by Internet experts in a wide variety of avocations. Kelly's crew go beyond their excellent descriptions of the basic Internet applications to discuss their life experiences, such as connecting PCs, LANs, WANs, schools, universities, and libraries to the Internet.

There is depth as well as breadth to the subject matter. Beam this one up to your Internet bookshelf.

Usenet: Netnews for Everyone
by Jenny Fistrup
Price $24.95 (paper), 396 pages
Publisher: Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ)
Phone: 800-947-7700; 515-284-6751
E-mail: orders@prenhall.com
Fax: 515-284-2607
ISBN: 0-13-123167-7
In the past year, e-mail and Usenet News were the avenues by which most people were introduced to the Internet. Fistrup shows how the type of information exchanges within the Usenet format continue to be a powerful tool and virtual community builder, even as new technologies and communications methods emerge.

The resulting query responses, FAQs, and organizational management are complemented by recent Internet innovations.

Current versions of Mosaic allow you to more quickly scan newsgroup listings, but to make a posting you will still need to know the procedures and observe the various rules of netiquette Fistrup discusses.

Copyright (c) 1994 by Mecklermedia Corporation. All rights reserved. Material may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without permission.