Arthur Goldstuck
Network of agonies
WEB FEET does not usually act as a letters column. Sometimes, however, a voice that rings out in the wilderness of the Web sums up the dilemmas of the masses of Web users so succinctly, that it serves as a signpost to the kind of questions this column should be tackling. And when it comes from someone whose job is coordinating the nation’s information stockpile, so to speak, it bears more than just a private response.
Peter Lor, director of the State Library in Pretoria, is no different from the ordinary Web user in his efforts to make the Web work for him. He wrote: “Lately I have been getting really frustrated with WWW access. I don’t have a lot of time to play around on the WWW, however fashionable that may be.
“When I get a chance I try to sit down first thing in the morning, log on to our LAN and go into Netscape Navigator. I then have an hour or so to look around on the Web. However, it takes so long to download anything that I can’t look at more than two or three sites at a sitting. Responding to this I have eliminated overseas URLs and tried only those ending in .za. That doesn’t seem to make much difference.
“Is this a common phenomenon? A temporary problem with our LAN? The SA telecommunications infrastructure? A specific problem with our service provider? Netscape Gold (it did not seem so slow before we got this latest version)?
“I notice that a lot of sites endorse MS Internet Explorer. Is Microsoft perhaps trying to gyppo Netscape? Or is the whole WWW scene really intended for kids, aficionados, latter-day hippies, techies, and others who don’t have that much to do anyway?”
That’s a pile of questions that amount, virtually, to the quest for the meaning of life. Some are answerable, while others remain in the realm of philosophy.
For my full response, see the online version of this column at http://www.mg.co.za/mg. Meanwhile, I want to deal with only one question here:
Yes, the WWW is intended for kids, aficionados, latter-day hippies and techies, but they are only part of the picture.
Companies that have learned to harness the Web’s commercial potential are making millions. Academics were using the Internet’s predecessor, the ArpaNet, as a powerful research tool a decade ago.
The Web takes that tool and propels it into the future, with vastly increased resources, and an astonishingly large base of experienced users who are constantly on the lookout for ways of making the experience even more meaningful.
The real problem with the Web is that, in its current form, it has only been around since 1993, and still has plenty maturing to do before it reaches the stage of intuitive access to its best resources.
You still have to work for your rewards. For now, the average human being is more comfortable gleaning information from print and paper. The Internet does pose a threat to newspapers, not because people prefer it, but because it gives them a choice.
But provide good content in print, and the Internet simply cannot compete with it.