The Net has gone commercial in 1995 and the change has been fast:
* businesses have developed home pages by the score
* addresses have switched from .edu to .com
* numerous new companies have offered specialized Internet hardware
and software
* Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) have been made by Internet service
companies
The World Wide Web has been a major focus of this
commercialization. Web browsers, servers, and WWW databases have
become big business. Commercial firms have taken a major interest in
registering trademarks as domain names.
For years, some academics and researchers have bemoaned the
impending commercialization of the Internet, while others have argued
its benefits. Some have been concerned that the free or inexpensive
access that many researchers and academics enjoy would disappear,
that the collaborative nature of the Net would vanish, and that the
information resources would all become popular and less useful. None
of that has happened, yet. Instead, the cash that the commercial sector
has pumped into the Internet and its software and hardware
developments has helped spark improvements and more growth. For
good or for ill, the Internet has gone commercial.
THE NUMBERS
When will one of the countless Internet articles finally mention
that the Internet is shrinking? Or that the number of users is leveling
off, or even declining? Not this year. Between July 1994 and July
1995, the number of hosts more than doubled, to 6,642,000, and the
number of domains almost tripled, to 120,000 [1]. No one knows
exactly how the number of hosts and domains transfer into the number
of users. There are several competing theories, but they all
demonstrate a large growth in the number of Internet users in the past
year.
The commercial sector of the Net has been a major component of
this growth. According to figures from the InterNIC, the number of
commercial domains increased from 29,202 on December 31, 1994 to
86,469 on August 15, 1995. Part of this increase has come about due
to companies registering large numbers of their trademarks as domain
names, as can be seen at http://www.webcom.com/~walsh/procter.html, which lists domain names such as Crisco,
Pampers, and Pringles, registered by Procter & Gamble. A newly
instituted registration fee and $50 annual fee for such domain names
may help reduce the domain registration rate.
While 1994 saw Web browsers becoming the most popular Net
tools, the percentage of FTP traffic still greatly exceeded that of the
WWW. The traffic patterns changed considerably this year. In April
1995, the WWW became the most heavily used Internet protocol as the
Web packet and byte count surpassed that of FTP (based on Merit
statistics for traffic on the NSFNet portion of the Internet). Since Web
clients like Mosaic, Lynx, and Netscape can be used as FTP and gopher
clients as well, the packet traffic does not represent the full use of
actual client software.
WEB CHANGES
The World Wide Web and its popular browsers have had an exciting
year. While 1994 was dominated by NCSA's Mosaic, with Cello as a
contender, this past year saw the new Netscape take the sweeps along
with an estimated 70 percent market share. Netscape has continuously
improved its product, and at times, Netscape and Mosaic seemed to be
in a constant battle of one-upmanship. Netscape could handle fancier
layout and blinking words. Then, Mosaic introduced tables. Next,
Netscape added tables and background images. Both improved their
newsreading and mailing functions. Then, they updated their bookmark
management capabilities. Security features were implemented in both
browsers. The competition between the two has led to more
improvements in the programs, so users certainly win.
For many of these changes, the underlying HTML standard needed to
be modified. As HTML 2.0 was adopted, HTML 3.0 was being developed.
The standards process can be slow, especially when compared with the
rate of change on the Internet. Netscape constantly pushes the
standards, adopting and implementing proposed changes long before
they have become official. In the constant battle to stay on top, their
aggressiveness makes a difference. The expansion of HTML capabilities
has seen a corresponding increase in the level of creativity in
different Web sites. HTML authors and Web creators have a larger
arsenal of tools. Some use them well, and others show less talent, but
it has certainly broadened the options.
FROM .EDU TO .COM
So much of the development of Internetworking software tools and
protocol development has taken place in the university and research
communities. Often, significant developments have been the result of
an individual or small group of people implementing a good idea. For
many resources, 1995 was the year of commercialization for these
products. Major Internet resource-finding aids, such as Yahoo, Lycos,
and WebCrawler, were all developed in the university setting. All three
originally had Internet addresses ending in .edu. Times have changed,
and now they are all .com addresses.
WebCrawler, developed by Brian Pinkerton at the University of
Washington, has moved from its university home and is now at
http://webcrawler.com/. To help support the maintenance of this
indexing service, WebCrawler first found a couple of corporate
sponsors. However, the load soon became too much for the machine
that it was running on, and additional support was needed. Then,
America Online (AOL), in its quest to expand its Internet services,
bought WAIS, Inc., Global Network Navigator, and WebCrawler. Now,
AOL supports WebCrawler at its new commercial address, and it is
available to the entire Internet community, not just AOL customers.
The commercialization of Lycos has taken a different path. Lycos
was originally developed in the computer science department at
Carnegie-Mellon University. It is now at http://www. lycos.com/.
CMG@Ventures purchased exclusive rights to Lycos and formed a
subsidiary, Lycos, Inc. They plan to continue offering Lycos as a free
service and will seek income from advertising and licensing. Frontier
Technologies and Microsoft have purchased licenses to the database.
Frontier incorporated it into their CyberSearch CD-ROM. Microsoft will
use Lycos on their new Microsoft Network.
Two graduate students at Stamford, David Filo and Jerry Yang,
developed the classified catalog of Internet resources known as Yahoo.
This subject catalog is extremely popular and immensely useful but
the upkeep of the database and search engine takes time and energy.
So, the two students found some capital, moved the database to
computers at Netscape Communications Corporation, and started
looking for sponsors for the database. It can now be found at
http://www.yahoo.com/. The two students formed a company, Yahoo!
Corporation, to develop and maintain Yahoo. Once again, access to the
database should remain free, and the company plans on using corporate
sponsorship and advertising for income.
All three of these examples are very useful Internet tools. Their
free availability to Internet users continues, even while they move
into the commercial realm. Advertising is becoming a common means
of supporting freely available Internet services, and, at least so far,
the ads are not as obnoxious and obtrusive as they are in other media.
DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL DATABASES
At the same time the free databases moved from the university to
the free market, other databases and services were developed as
strictly commercial services. To attract attention and solicit
feedback, some of these companies offer their services free for a brief
period of time before they begin charging. Others offer a portion of
their services free as a teaser for complete access. InfoSeek, at
http://www.infoseek.com/, is a commercial Internet index and
databank and is one example of this style of marketing (see my August
1995 DATABASE column for more information about InfoSeek).
The Library Corporation's NlightN combines the power of the
licensed Lycos database with standard library databases in a single
search interface. Searches and brief displays are available for free,
and only full records are charged. NlightN presents a singular
opportunity to try simple keyword searches across both Internet and
standard bibliographic databases (see my September 1995 ONLINE
column for more on NlightN).
The NandO Times (http://www2.nando.net/nt/nando.cgi/)
represents another approach to a commercial Internet database. It is
the best free source for national and international news on the
Internet, and it even includes AP stories. While registration is
required for access to some of the wire articles, there is no fee for
registration or viewing. This excellent service includes
advertisements, and a commercial version, the NandO News Network,
includes even more sources.
THE NET AS BUSINESS
Online searchers need to be aware of some of the Internet
companies that have burst onto Wall Street. The year 1995 was the
year for Internet service providers to go public, get swallowed, and
merge. Telecommunications giants, the big three consumer online
services, and Microsoft made grabs for budding Internet software
makers or access providers. Knight-Ridder announced plans to acquire
both the UnCover Company and CARL Corporation.
Most telling of all, when two companies with hot WWW products
came to Wall Street, investors went into a feeding frenzy. In 1994, the
World Wide Web and its sophisticated browsers fueled the already
sizzling interest in the Internet. In 1995, the small companies that
made the top browsers tried their luck in the stock market. Spyglass,
the company that owns the commercial rights to NCSA's Mosaic, went
public on June 26. The initial offering price of $17 per share for the
two million shares quickly jumped to over $40. However, it was
Netscape Communications Corporation that made the bigger splash. On
August 9, Netscape offered five million shares at $28, even though
their original plan called for selling shares at less than $15. In the
first hour of trading, the price had risen to over $70 a share before
ending the day at about $58. Netscape became one of the biggest Initial
Public Offerings in history, even though the company has yet to turn a
profit.
The Internet is both big business and small. While Netscape's stock
soars, numerous small firms have sprung up as Internet access
providers, networking consultants, and Web page designers. These local
companies aid the growing Internet industry by providing assistance
for the many new users riding the Net.
OLD FRIENDS
Knight-Ridder made some significant improvements to its Internet
services in 1995, recognizing the growing importance of the Net and
some of the opportunities it offers. The DIALOG home page debuted at
the end of 1994. Most significant for DIALOG users with Internet
accounts was the change in offline Internet delivery of search results.
It has been possible to send offline prints to an Internet address via
MCIMail for years, but the charges were confusing, difficult to predict,
and not necessarily any cheaper than an online download. The new
pricing scheme simplifies the procedure for establishing the Internet
email address, and reduces the charge to a flat $0.50 for each print
request [2]. DIALOG database Bluesheets were added to the DIALOG
home page in the summer of 1995, and demonstrating an increasing
level of Internet understanding, they are available in two versions: one
for most browsers, and the other for Netscape 1.1 and above. The
Netscape version even comes on a blue background. And, as I mentioned,
Knight-Ridder plans to acquire CARL and UnCover.
The UnCover service has been a popular and successful Internet-
accessible information resource; yet, UnCover made some strange
decisions in 1995. Unlike the marketing strategy used for products
such as InfoSeek, NlightN, and the NandO Times, the UnCover Company
offered the REVEAL current awareness service for free. Although there
were, and are numerous problems with the layout and reliability of the
service, as a free alerting service it was an award winner. However,
after receiving favorable reviews and getting many libraries to
promote REVEAL to their users, UnCover turned around and decided to
charge an annual fee. It is not that they should not be charging for
services, but rather, they should have planned better and announced
their strategy from the beginning.
The operative word for the Internet over the past few years has
been "change." New tools, more users, and changes every minute make
exploring the Net a constant adventure. Most of the changes in 1995
have been for the better, and the quantity of Internet-accessible
information resources has continued to grow. With the current rate of
change, users can expect more to come. Only time will tell what 1996
has in store.
REFERENCES
[1] Network Wizards. Internet Domain Survey, July 1995.
http://www.nw.com/zone/report-9507.doc.
[2] "Reduced Internet Delivery!" _Chronolog_ 23, No. 6 (June 1995): p.
104.
Communications to the author should be addressed to Greg R. Notess, Reference Librarian, Montana State University Libraries, Bozeman, MT 59717-0332; 406/994-6563; Internet-- greg@notess.com ; http://www.notess.com.
Copyright © 1995, Online Inc. All rights reserved.