Sanford Ressler - The Art of Electronic Publishing: The Internet and Beyond

th eAf Electronic Anot Publishing

The Internet and Beyond

by Sandy Rcssler

The An of Electronic Publishing: The Internet and3eyond By SaiifordP.essUr, Sandy Ressler

PrenUce Hall Professional i echntcal Reference

*!$3.\rJ0/ASl\r: 0J34SSJ729

* ISBN-13/EAN: 9780124881720

* Binding: Paperback

2002 by Prentice Hall PTR Prentice-Hall, Inc.

PI I

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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A Simon & Schuster Company Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

Legal Statement .

Chapter 1: World Wide Web

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -Western Union internal memo, 1876

1 . 1 Introduction to the World Wide Web

So what's all this fuss about the World Wide Web? What's the big deal? Why should I bother to spend my time looking at all sorts of irrelevant drivel? These questions are a typical response by the non-techie to all the hype of the World Wide Web (also known simply as the Web). In fact, most of the content is drivel, and it takes far too long to get useful information, but the Web is a big deal and it is worth understanding it's implications.

Perhaps the most thoughtful and profound demonstration of the impact of the Web is the recently completed "24 Hours in Cyberspace" (1) project. In that event, 100 photojournalists around the world photographed events; transmitted them to mission control in San Francisco, where editors typed up stories about the events; recorded telephone interviews with the photographers; composed the entire product into Web pages; and built the information into a robust compelling instant publicationall in 24 hours. Viewed by literally millions of people, the site had approximately four million "hits" on that first day.

It was, and still is a compelling storyhow information technology is used in the daily lives of people, around the world. It used the technology to tell the story of how technology can enhance their lives. It was an elegant affair.

Is this journalism, radio, broadcasting, or what? Clearly the integration of all these technologies has created something much greater than the sum of its parts. The ability to assemble and edit information, including images and sounds, and make it available for instant reading/broadcast was phenomenal. The fundamental enabling technological glue and the cause of the Internet explosion is the World Wide Web (2) . So what is it?

Let's start in the middle of Web time with Mosaic. Mosaic, a Web browser, was the first "killer" Internet application. Mosaic was introduced to the net in the same way as many other university research projects. It's available for free, and, with source code, for nonprofit use. Like many other applications it is a product of the Internet community, specifically, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). It was the product of yet another unheralded government (National Science Foundation) grant.