The Online World Part 2

This chapter is about the structure and contents of the online world. You will read about Bulletin Board systems, discussion lists, conferencing systems, online data bases, packet data services, and network services like FidoNet, i-Com, Infonet, and the Internet.

From papyrus to bits and bytes ------------------------------ Around 1500 B.C., the world's first library was established in Tell el Amaran, Egypt. Eight hundred years later, the first public library opened in Athens, Greece.

It took another two thousand years for the computer to be invented. The first known mention of a possible future online information service was printed in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1945.

Nine years later, the Naval Ordinance Test Station opened their online search service in California (U.S.A.) The first full-text database came six years later. MEDLARS was a bibliographic database containing references to medical literature. From now on, things started to roll at a faster pace:

* In 1972, DIALOG (U.S.A.) opened their Educational Resources Information Center and National Technical Information Service databases for online searching. (Appendix 1 contains infor- mation about the major online services referred to in this book.) * In 1974, Dow Jones News/Retrieval (U.S.A.) launched a financial information service for stock brokers.

* In 1978, the first bulletin board was put into operation in Chicago (U.S.A.).

* CompuServe (U.S.A.) launched a service for home users in 1979.

The online world was born in the United States. Little happened in the rest of the world until the late 1980s. American companies and users still dominate, but they are no longer alone.

Today, we can access over 5,000 public databases. They are available from more than 500,000 online systems ("host computers") all over the world.

With so many online services, it is difficult to find our way through the maze of offerings. This book therefore starts with a map of the online world.

The structure and contents of the online world ---------------------------------------------- The online world can be described as a cake with multiple layers, where the information sources are the bottom layer. You - the user - are the marzipan figure on the top. The online world contains the following tiers:

(1) Database producers and information providers (2) Online service companies (3) Gateways and networks (4) The services (5) The user interface (6) The data transport services (7) The User.

1. Database producers and information providers.

------------------------------------------------ I have a bulletin board system in Norway (at +47 370 31378). My BBS is running on a small personal computer, and offers shareware and public domain software.

Anybody can call my board to have programs transferred to their personal computers by modem (see appendix 2 for how to do this).

When you call this BBS to "download" a free program for to your computer's hard disk, don't expect to find one made by me. I don't write programs. All available programs have been written by others.

When you call Data-Star in Switzerland, or CompuServe in the U.S. to read news, you may find some stories auth.o.r.ed by these companies. Most of their news, however, are written by others.

InfoPro Technologies delivers Russian scientific and technical articles from "Referativnyi Zurnal" through online services like Orbit, Pergamon and BRS. InfoPro is not the originator. The text has been prepared by VINITI (the Inst.i.tute for scientific and technical information of the xUSSR).

My BBS (the "Saltrod Horror Show"), Data-Star, NIFTY-Serve, Orbit, Pergamon, BRS, and CompuServe are online services. We call those who have provided the news and information on these services for information providers or database producers.

The American news agency a.s.sociated Press is an information provider. They write the news, and sell them to online services like Dialog, CompuServe, Nexis and NewsNet. These online services let you read the news by modem.

The information providers sell the right to distribute their news. Your news reading charges may be imbedded in the online service's standard access rates. Some services will ask you to pay a surcharge when reading news.

Most subscribers pay US$12.80 per hour (1993) to use CompuServe at 2400 bits per second (bps). At this speed, you typically receive around 240 characters of news per second. If you access at higher speeds, you will have to pay more.

CompuServe pays a.s.sociated Press part of what they earn each time you read their news. There is no surcharge for reading AP news on this service.

Others charge more. To read Mid-East Business Digest through NewsNet, you pay a surcharge of US$72.00 per hour at 2400 bps (1993). Scanning newsletter headlines and conducting keyword searches are cheaper. You pay the the basic connect charge, which is US$90.00 per hour at this speed.

Thus, your total cost for reading Mid-East Business Digest amounts to US$2.70 per minute.

CompuServe's database service IQuest lets you search NewsNet through a gateway to find and read the same articles. Here, reading will only set you back US$21.50/hour (provided the articles are among the first hits in your search).

Many information providers also distribute information through gra.s.sroots bulletin boards. The Newsbytes News Network and the USA Today newsletter services (also in full text on Dialog and Nexis) are two examples.

The rates for reading the same article may therefore differ considerably depending on what online service you are using. If you are a regular reader, shop around for the best price.

Information providers may have subcontractors. The Ziff-Davis service Computer Database Plus, a database with full-text articles from magazines like Datamation and Wall Street Computer Review, depends on them.

Datamation pays journalists to write the articles. Ziff-Davis pays Datamation for the right to distribute the articles to CompuServe's subscribers. CompuServe pays Ziff-Davis part of what you pay when reading the text.

2. Online services ------------------ The term "online services" refers to information services provided by computer systems, large or small, to owners of personal computers with modems.

What is offered, differ by system. It may include access to libraries of programs and data, electronic mail, online shopping malls, discussion forums, hardware and software vendor support, games and entertainment, financial data, stock market quotes, and research capabilities.

You do not always need a phone and a modem when "dialing up."

Some services can be accessed through leased phone lines, amateur radio, or other methods.

Check out appendix 1 for a list of major services mentioned in this book, with addresses, phone numbers, and a short description.

CompuServe (U.S.A.), Twics (j.a.pan), and Orbit (England) are commercial. They charge you for using their services.

Some online services are priced like magazines and newspapers with a flat subscription rate for basic services. You can use this part of a service as much as you like within a given period. GEnie, CompuServe, BIX, America Online, and Delphi are among those offering such pricing options.

Other online services charge for 'connect time'. They have a rate per hour or minute.

MCI Mail uses "no cure, no pay." You only pay to send or read mail. To check for unread letters in your mailbox is free.

There are all kinds of creative pricing schemes. Some services have different rates for access during the day, night and weekends.

Others have different rates for users living far away. Sometimes the remote subscriber pays more, in other cases less than ordinary subscribers.

Still, most online services are free. This is particularly true for the over hundred thousand bulletin board systems around the world. The owners of these services often regard them as a hobby, a public service, a necessary marketing expense, or do it for other reasons.

The cost of setting up and operating a bulletin board system is low. Consequently, the BBS systems are as varied as the people who run them. Each BBS has its own character.

My BBS is also free. I consider it an online appendix to this book and the articles I write.

National Geographic BBS in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., U.S.A. (tel.: +1- 202-775-6738) is run by the magazine of the same name. This board is also free. They regard it as a part of their marketing strategy.

It provides them with input to the editors, and it is an easy way of maintaining contacts with schools.

Semaforum BBS in Norway is run by a company. Its purpose is customer support and to give information to prospective customers.

The cost is a marketing expense.

Some large, international online services on the Internet, BITNET, and UUCP are almost free. They address research and educational inst.i.tutions and are financed by public funds. These services are now being made available to other users at very moderate rates.

Some users fear that using online services will increase their telephone costs dramatically, and especially when using services in other countries. This is often unjustified. Read chapter 13 and 15 for tips about how to keep your communications costs down.

3. Gateways and networks ------------------------ CompuServe users select the Computer Database Plus from a menu.

This prompts CompuServe to dial another online service and lets you use this, as if you were still using CompuServe. You hardly notice the difference. You are using Computer Database Plus through a gateway.

CompuServe users searching the IQuest databases get the following welcome message:

One moment please...

Connected to 19EASYN

Welcome to IQuest

(c) 1991 Telebase Systems, Inc.

U.S. Patent No. 4,774,655

Through another gateway, CompuServe connects you to the online service Telebase Systems, Inc. Telebase lets you go through other gateways to search in databases on online services like BRS, MEDLINE and NewsNet.

While searching, you may get similar progress reports:

Dialing BRS Connect BRS Scanning .... Please wait Dialing Medline Connect Medline Scanning .... Please wait

All the time, your modem is connected to CompuServe. You are mentally using IQuest and not other online services. Technically, you are going through various gateways to reach the information libraries. You pay CompuServe for the privilege. In turn, they pay a fee to Telebase, and others.

You can read The New York Times on Down Jones News/Retrieval through gateways from MCI Mail and GEnie.

Accessing information through a gateway is often simpler than logging on to several online systems. Calling several systems often costs more, and it certainly takes time.

Users of BBSes connected to RelayNet or FidoNet can join in global discussions. Partic.i.p.ants in other countries also call their favorite local systems. To the individual user, it looks as if they all use the same bulletin board system.

The networks that tie these boards together regularly send new discussion items to the other partic.i.p.ating boards. Write "This is not correct!" in a distributed conference on a Norwegian FidoNet BBS, and others may soon read your line on San Bernardino BBS in Colton (Canada), Wonderland Board in Macau or the HighTech BBS in Sidney (Australia).

SciLink (Canada) administers a network for distribution of conferences between systems using the Caucus software system.

Partic.i.p.ants in Tokyo, Toronto and San Francisco can discuss as if they were all logged on to the same online service.

The main purpose may not be to make it simpler or cheaper for the user. One typical motive is to reduce an online service's own communications costs.

KIDLINK is a global project for children between 10 - 15 years of age. It allows kids to discuss through a system of electronic mail.

Part of the dialog takes place by the children sending email to a recipient called KIDCAFE. A message to 'the cafe' goes through the international networks to a host computer in North Dakota (U.S.A.). There, a computer program called LISTSERV distributes copies of the message to names on an electronic address list.

(Conferences administered by a LISTSERV are called 'discussion lists'.) SciLink in Toronto is one recipient. Messages forwarded from North Dakota are made available for users as entries in a 'local'

conference called KIDCAFE. A user in Tokyo can read a message, as if it had been entered locally. If she wants to reply, her answer is sent back to the LISTSERV for redistribution to the world.

Western Michigan University (U.S.A.) is also a recipient. Here, another LISTSERV program is in charge of forwarding the mail to yet another list of (local) addresses. We call it a 'mail exploder'.

This mailing list has been set up by local administrators to reduce costs. The individual user is not allowed to receive copies of messages all the way from North Dakota.

One Michigan recipient may be a local area network. You will find many smart technical solutions in the online world.

Actually, this is how the online world got started. Two systems were interconnected for exchange of electronic mail. Then, another system was added, and another. One day it was a global network of computer systems.

Some network systems are connected by leased telephone lines.

Other networks, like FidoNet, depend mainly on dial-up using regular voice-grade telephone service. Each BBS dial regularly to other computers in the network to send or receive mail and files.

They may do it once per day, twice per day or whatever.

Then someone got the idea of interconnecting networks. FidoNet was connected to the UUCP network, which was connected to the Internet, which in turn was connected to the Bergen By Byte BBS in Norway, CompuServe, SciLink, MCI Mail, and various local area networks.

Today, the online world is a global web of networks. The world is 'cabled'. You, me and all the other modem users stand to benefit enormously.

4. The services --------------- The most popular online services are electronic mail, chat, file transfers, conferences and discussion forums, news, reading of online journals and gra.s.sroots publications, database searching, entertainment. The online world has an infinite number of niches, things that people are interested in and have fun doing.