Internet Outlook with Richard Wiggins | 10

East Lansing, Michigan
All Those Wonderful Web Sites: Will They Last?

By Richard Wiggins

any Americans are now busy trying to find the perfect holiday gifts, having made the annual transition from "Thanks" to "giving." While cataloging my list of things to be thankful for, and my list of gifts to buy for loved ones, I began to ponder what services on the Internet are available for the asking, and which ones we have to pay for.

Even revolutionary technologies tend to find their way into our everyday lives in subtle ways. We come to rely on these technologies as if they've always been with us. Today it's hard to imagine a world without the fax machine, the cell phone, the personal computer, the VCR, or the modern computer-controlled automobile engine. So it is with the Internet. Already the Net offers to us things we take for granted – things that no one even dreamed of just four or five years ago.

Yet many of the services that Internet cognoscenti have incorporated into regular activity remain unknown to the vast majority of the public. Recently I gave an overview of Internet resources to a group of medical professionals, many of whom were astonished to learn about some of the information services freely available on the Web. However, one should never underestimate how far and wide knowledge of the Net is spreading. Ask the guy who saw my "INTRNET" plate while changing my oil the other day -- he told me about several great new web sites I'd never heard of.

In fact I'm continually astonished at the breadth of information services on the Net. Just a couple of years ago I was preaching the notion that no provider of high-quality information – for which the author commands a fee in the print or traditional database world – would offer those services on the Net without charging a fee of some sort. Boy, was I ever wrong! Read on, and we'll review examples of vital, useful, current, accurate information sources for which you pay nary a nickel.

I think even the most jaded Internaut must admit, upon reflection, that we really are living through a revolution in information delivery and commerce. In this column we'll review some of the most useful and unexpected free services on the Net. Then, since the season is moving from one of giving thanks to one of giving gifts that cost real money, we'll close with some thoughts on the future of the free stuff.

Magazine Archives

Recently while on an out-of-town trip I happened upon a useful article in U.S. News and World Report, a publication I don't normally read. I wanted to refer back to that article when I returned home. Alas, that issue was no longer on the newsstand. I thought about checking the library, but it was Thanksgiving, and the library was not likely to be open. Even if they had been open, the library isn't as convenient as the cable modem in the basement, so first I decided to check out the U.S. News site on the Web.

Sure enough, they offer the full text of each current issue, and they also offer an archive of recent issues. I was able to find the article I needed within a minute of the time I sat down to search. This includes the time it took me to find their site on the Web – which I did by simply guessing that the URL was www.usnews.com.

I first became aware of magazine archives when Internet World magazine, for which I've written several articles, put up a web site with the full text of every article in each issue. Presumably readers find it useful to be able to refer back to recent articles when they don't happen to have a physical copy of the magazine handy.

Another magazine for which I write, New Media, offers especially attractive versions of articles on the Web. They obviously put a lot of care and effort into translating material from the layout of the printed page to the realm of the Web. Tables are endowed with hyperlinks so that readers can easily follow product information to the relevant pages on vendors' web sites. Sidebars are repurposed in ways appropriate to HTML. Tasteful animated GIFs and backgrounds are added. It's not too surprising to see a magazine intended for hypermedia professionals to do such a professional job, but it's gratifying compared to the sites prepared by some computer publishers.

Other magazines offer especially useful archives. Ziff-Davis, publisher of numerous computer-related magazines, offers a very nice searchable archive of past issues of PC Magazine. I find this especially useful when I want product reviews. For instance, right now I'm in the market for a low-cost scanner for my house. The PC Magazine site offers a reasonably powerful search engine, plus, in the spirit of FAQs, links to the most popular kinds of past content – which not surprisingly, includes product reviews.