Newsletter No. 65
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Free Pint
"Helping 29,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
ISSN 1460-7239 22nd June 2000 No.65
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Liz Reiner
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"Internet Intelligence - analysing web-sites
for competitive intelligence"
By Arthur Weiss and Steve England
BOOKSHELF
"NetSlaves"
Reviewed by Simon Collery
FEATURE ARTICLE
"WAP Technology and Services"
By Martin White
FREE PINT BAR
by Simon Collery
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
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GO WIRELESS!
FT.com's FREE Wireless Newsletter and online guide to WAP
technology are essential reading if you need to keep up with
the latest developments in the Wireless industry, or simply
want to learn more about Wireless technology.
Sign up at http://www.ft.com/wireless
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>>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<<
Free Pint is a community of business professionals who use the Web
for their work. Members receive this free newsletter every two weeks
packed with tips and articles by information professionals who share
how they find quality and reliable information on the Internet. Sign
up at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/> for free access to the substantial
archive of articles, book reviews, industry news and events, and have
your research questions answered at the "Free Pint Bar".
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EDITORIAL
The Web is so un-touchy-feely. I mean, most of the companies and
people I deal with every day I wouldn't recognise if I bumped into
them in the street, and I'd have to guess if you wanted a description
of what the Free Pint Web site server actually looks like.
That's why it was such a delight to be able to spend a week at the
Special Libraries Association's conference in Philadelphia last week
picking up the "European Special Librarian of the Year" (ESLY) award
on behalf of the Free Pint team.
It gave me a chance to put faces to names for many well-known Web
personalities, including Gary Price (interviewed in the last Free
Pint) and Hal Kirkwood. Isn't it amazing how these great people never
look like you expected them to?! I also met with a large number of
Free Pint fans from around the world (the furthest away being New
Zealand - Hi Kevin!) and gave away a good number of Free Pint
beermats. My enduring memory however will be one of size: the million
square feet conference centre, the 7000 or so attendees, the few
hundred exhibitors, and the food. Oh, the food.
My special thanks go to the members of the European Chapter of the SLA
for their considerable hospitality and friendliness and to Factiva
(the Dow Jones/Reuters company) for sponsoring what was a most
enjoyable experience. We'll all be meeting up again soon at the July
Soiree, October conference in Brighton and when Free Pint makes it's
annual appearance at Online Information 2000 in December in London.
Therefore, a busy year lies ahead as the ESLY and it gives me a great
opportunity for promoting the Free Pint community to an even wider
audience.
We bring you some super content today with tips on how to find out
what your competitors are up to, an introduction to what all this
"WAP" hype is about, and a review of an extremely pertinent book in
this time of dotcom market correction. Watch out too as I'll shortly
be sending out the six monthly index to all the articles and book
reviews which have appeared in the newsletter over the last two and a
half years. I hope you find that useful.
Kind regards,
William
William Hann BSc MIInfSc
Founder and Managing Editor, Free Pint
e: william@freepint.co.uk
t: +44 (0)1784 455435
f: +44 (0)1784 455436
Free Pint is a trademark of Free Pint Limited
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
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FREE OFFICE TOOLS FROM FT.com
FT.com's free Personal Office provides web based office tools
for mobile business professionals.
Personal Office is the only free web e-mail account offering
unlimited e-mail storage. For more details visit:
http://www.ft.com/personaloffice
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The registered subscriber base is just the beginning.
Find out how you can reach this substantial and influential audience.
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Liz Reiner
* Latin American Network Information Center - absolutely essential
Latin America portal. Produced by academics, so it has links to
serious useful stuff, not holiday brochures.
<http://www.lanic.utexas.edu>
* News Index - Search engine for current news stories. Indexes about
300 sites going back about one month. <http://www.newsindex.com>
* FT.com Currency Converter - converts to and from any world currency.
<http://www.marketprices.ft.com/Quote.ft?query=now&view=currency-convert>
* World Maps Interactive Atlas - type in a place name in any country
in the world and it gives you a useful little map.
<http://www.concierge.com/cgi-bin/maps.cgi?link=intro>
* Librarian.net - Links to bizarre and interesting news about
libraries and librarians. "putting the rarin' back in librarian
since 1993". <http://www.librarian.net/>
Liz Reiner is Americas Information Officer at the International
Secretariat of Amnesty International <http://www.amnesty.org>.
To submit your top five favourite tipples see the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/author.htm> or email <simon@freepint.co.uk>
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http://www.bvd.co.uk/freepint
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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/220600.htm#tips
"Internet Intelligence - analysing web-sites
for competitive intelligence"
By Arthur Weiss and Steve England
Five years ago only few companies had a web-site. Today, most major
companies and many smaller companies use the Internet as a key
communication tool accessible to customers, prospects, shareholders
and others interested in their company. As a result, the Internet has
been a boon to competitor analysts, who now have an easy source for
information on competitors. We regularly look at the effectiveness of
competitor web-sites on behalf of clients. The following is a guide to
some of the processes undertaken in analysing a company's Internet
presence.
Information provided by company web-sites does not just include the
obvious information held in the "About Us" page. Much more can often
be found by a judicious study of the site contents and overall
structure. As an example, we have come across companies that reveal
their complete supplier list on their web-sites, or even worse,
documents containing words such as "Confidential, not to be
disclosed". Such information was not held in password protected areas
but was available to anybody studying the company.
A good starting point for determining a company's Internet strategy is
to examine the company's domain names. Thus, Network solutions "whois"
service <http://www.networksolutions.com> allows the entry of a
company name and gives the first 50 web sites registered to the
company. These names can indicate a variety of different things - from
where the company hopes to expand, to how they perceive competitors.
For instance, the UK supermarket chain ASDA - whose price reduction
scheme is called "roll-back" is probably not pleased that competitor
Tesco has grabbed www.roll-back.com. This example is whimsical - but
often domain names can indicate the overall company approach.
We also consider how the web site is being used and what corporate
message is being relayed. Does the company advertise via banner ads -
and if so, where, what and how? Does the company accept advertisements
from other sites? If so, are these as part of a link-exchange program,
from paid-for advertisements (used to fund the site?) or most
importantly, from related companies such as customers or suppliers?
Are there any jobs advertised on any of the online job-sites or on the
site itself? Sometimes these can indicate completely new areas of
activity. Although checking job-advertisements has always been
important, the web makes it much easier. (Conversely, are there any
employees or ex-employees of the company looking for new jobs? Such
people can be good sources for information.)
We look at links going out of the site. Are these external links to
customers, suppliers, related sites, for general information or why
are they there? We also check to see how many other people have links
coming in to the site. Search engines such as Alta Vista are perfect
for this with their link search option. A comparison between links
going out of a site, and links to a site can highlight any reciprocal
arrangements between different companies and web-sites. As well as
checking for links, we also test where the site appears in several
search tools using a variety of key words. These factors give an
indication of how popular the site is - for visitors not going
directly to the company web site.
An important indicator to a company's understanding of e-business, how
it works and who its customers actually are can come from looking at
the site's use of technology. Oftentimes, this shows the relative
involvement of the company's marketing personnel in the site's design,
relative to IT functions. Many sites still seem to be designed by
technophiles who attempt to show their mastery of the web by putting
in every bell and whistle they can, rather than communicating with the
marketing department to ensure they are targeting the correct
audience. A prime example is the demise of Boo.com whose target
audience were high-spenders. The assumption that such people also had
computers and access speeds that could appreciate the 3D technology
that Boo used proved false. Boo failed to appreciate that it is not
technology that sells products but ease and attractiveness of use and
the site exhibited this failing which ultimately helped lead to Boo's
own failure.
Therefore it is important to consider the structure of the site and
how advanced the coding is. Many sites feature some JavaScript but
this is relatively easy coding to write. More technologically
intensive sites will also use Java - requiring much more advanced
programming skills. On many sites the site author or design company
and design tools will be listed. Whilst Microsoft's Frontpage is
favoured among home users Macromedia's Dreamweaver is fast becoming
the de facto tool for serious programmers and these factors give clues
to budget.
Most designers are now familiar with the concept of Meta Tags and
these need to be checked to see how the site is attempting to promote
itself. For example, it is becoming quite common for companies to
include their competitors' names in the meta tags in the hope of being
found when a surfer is actually looking for their competitor.
Similarly the names used for individual site pages can be significant.
Highly numeric or systematic names suggest that the site owner is
tracking progress through the site. The page names usually appear in
the browser address bar - unless frames are used. In these cases we
also break out and examine individual pages indicated in the framed
version.
Other analysis will look at the images used. For example, do they
include descriptors and can the site be viewed with images turned off?
Some sites are highly image intensive, and this will impact download
time (another factor to be looked at). This can be important for
certain target groups, and shows the site designer's understanding of
who these groups are.
Many sites hide pages from obvious view. Links to such pages will not
be easily observable from the actual page. You may have to click on a
single full-stop or space to enter the unmarked area. In some cases,
pages may be publicly accessible, but without any pages physically
linking to them. Such pages may be used by internal company staff for
navigation or testing. They may be old pages not yet removed, or pages
not yet linked to the main site. Recently we were looking at the web-
site of the online retailer Intersaver <http://www.Intersaver.co.uk>.
They had announced that they were about to introduce a new "home &
garden" section to the site. We found that this section was actually
available with full details as a hidden link and was obviously being
tested by Intersaver prior to launch.
As well as pages that are not linked to the visible site, pages can be
password protected. It is often possible to gain access by signing up
for membership. In these cases (and for forms in general) we note the
information requested. A variety of other factors are also considered
- such as recent technologies like the "favicon" feature that allows
users of IE5 to see a company logo on their favourites list rather
than the default icon, the presence of a search facility, or the use
of site redirects. Again, these techniques help illuminate a company's
overall perspective on e-business.
The above examples look at technical aspects. It is obviously also
important to examine the site's actual content in detail. What is the
site saying? How easy is it to use the site? How attractive is the
site? The analysis here is broadly similar to that for any competitor
communication such as a brochure or direct mail letter. This analysis
requires an examination of most pages on the site - looking at terms
and conditions, pricing, delivery details, etc. Often these will be
different to those for non-Internet operations. (Many retailers offer
free delivery from the Internet but charge for standard mail-order,
for example.)
All the above helps us compile a picture of the overall company's
approach to e-business. Some sites may take the opportunity to say
everything about the company - irrespective of the fact that such
information is irrelevant for almost all users except competitors.
Conversely, there are companies whose web sites demonstrate that they
view e-business as a key channel for the future. These company web-
sites are structured so that they can be found. Only relevant
information - designed to attract visitors and keep them revisiting -
is displayed. The site loads quickly, is attractive and user-friendly.
Information on the company is given - including contact details - but
only that which would be available through standard off-line
channels.
The above gives some of the approaches that can be taken to analyse a
competitor web-site. However, like everything connected to the
Internet, the key thing is to keep up-to-date with developments, and
new techniques. Five years ago most companies ignored the web, so a
company with a web-site was making its views on the technology
obvious. Today it is much more difficult to interpret company
e-business strategies from their Internet presence. However it is
possible.
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Arthur Weiss and Steve England are partners in AWARE, a UK based
management consultancy specialising in competitive intelligence and
strategy - with a growing focus on e-business related issues. Arthur
has worked in competitive intelligence and the information industry
for over 15 years, while Steve has been actively using the Internet
since 1994 and uses his programming skills to exploit the Internet for
information. Both Arthur and Steve have contributed articles on a
variety of subjects including competitive intelligence, marketing and
the Internet. Arthur has also lectured on these topics in the UK,
Europe and the Middle East. Both can be contacted through the AWARE
web-site at <http://www.competitive-intelligence.co.uk> or directly by
e-mail: <a.weiss@competitive-intelligence.co.uk>
or <s.england@competitive-intelligence.co.uk>.
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Related Free Pint links:
* "Millennium Intelligence" Bookshelf review in Free Pint No.62
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/110500.htm>
* "The Internet for Competitive Intelligence" article in No.35
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/010499.htm>
* Read this article online, with activated hyperlinks
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/220600.htm#tips>
* Discuss this article with the authors now at the Free Pint Bar
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar>
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DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER OUR 1,000+ INTERNATIONAL DELEGATES?
The Online Information 2000 Editorial Team, Executive Board and
Committee are currently looking for speakers from all industry sectors
and nationalities - whether academics or business professionals - to
present papers on those issues relevant to the online industry in 2000
and beyond. Submission deadline extended until 1 July 2000. For more
detail on themes and to submit your speaking proposals visit
www.online-information.co.uk
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>>> FREE PINT FACT <<<
The last edition of Free Pint caused a record-breakingly busy day on
the Web site when we welcomed 1,400 unique people who viewed over
10,000 pages. Last month was also the busiest month yet with over
20,000 visitors viewing 2.5GB worth of data. To put that into
perspective, that's the equivalent of transferring the entire
Oxford English Dictionary (all 59 million words) five times over!
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FREE PINT BOOKSHELF
http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf
"NetSlaves"
Reviewed by Simon Collery
NetSlaves are the exploited, badly paid, ill treated and sometimes
deceived workers on the Internet. Presumably there are equivalent
slaves in many other industries, and always have been, but the rosy
picture of the Internet painted by the media may have led one to
think that there were only winners on the Web.
At least that was the picture of the Internet a few months ago.
Now, members of the same media are falling over themselves to tell
us that everything has changed, that the dotcom millionaire, who
reigned for an even shorter time than the Yuppie, is dead. Events
that have occurred since the publication of the book allow one to
ask who was doing the deceiving.
But the writers of the book do point out that the victims of the
exploitation are often guilty of naivete and of not doing enough
research. The investors who ploughed money into lemons are similarly
guilty. In the two page afterword, the most sustained piece of
analysis in the whole book, they also point out that the book itself
is an alpha release of a story which is still in its early chapters.
There is even a half paragraph about how well some people can do
working on the Net, if they do their research first. And throughout
the book the Internet is shown to be the hub of one segment of human
activity. But it is human nature that is the problem. Far from
being the enemy, the Internet itself is seen as part of the solution
by a number of the slaves who decide to fight back.
In fact, given that the writers started their research several years
ago, their project shows great prescience. While many were trying to
get on the bandwagon, they were already standing back and asking if
the Internet was really a universal panacea, a place where there were
none of the traditional hierarchies, where anyone could be the boss
and everyone would make money.
Far from there being no hierarchy, Lessard and Baldwin set out the
structure of a caste system which they find on the Internet, where
people have a set place in a hierarchy and little or no chance of
rising unless prepared to resort to unscrupulous means. Ironic.
We are given a case study of a representative of each of the ten
castes they identify and the subject of almost every one of these
case studies comes a cropper. But another irony is that almost all
of them return to the Internet. Perhaps it's as hard to get out of
the caste system altogether as it is to move to a different caste.
I look forward to reading an update to NetSlaves in the near future.
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Simon Collery has been involved in editorial and research work for
the electronic media for a number of years, working for AND Data
Solutions, Oxford, and the Oxford English Dictionary Project. One of
his primary interests is the use of the Internet as a serious
research tool and a source of free, reliable information and software.
He enjoys pursuing this interest, and others, working full-time on
content development as a member of the Free Pint team.
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Related Free Pint links:
* Find out more about this book online at the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf/slaves.htm>
* Read about other Internet strategy books on the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf/strategy.htm>
* Read customer comments and buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071352430/freepint0c>
or Amazon.com
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071352430/freepint00>
* Search for and purchase any book from Amazon via the Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf>
To propose a business-Web-related book for review, send
details to <bookshelf@freepint.co.uk>.
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>>> YOUR FREE PINT ACCOUNT <<<
If you're a subscriber to the newsletter then you'll find your
registered email address at the end of this issue.
Use this to login and modify your account directly
on the Free Pint homepage at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/>
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FEATURE ARTICLE
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/220600.htm#feature
"WAP Technology and Services"
By Martin White
The Technology
--------------
The last six months have seen a quite astonishing rate of development
in the provision of access to the Internet through hand-held
terminals, especially mobile telephones. For sure, text messaging
(often known as SMS for Short Message Service) has been available for
some time, and it has also been possible to read e-mails over a hand-
held terminal or a mobile telephone, but the idea that a device with a
small low-resolution monochrome screen, limited memory, a numeric
keypad and reliant on wireless technology could be used to access the
WWW initially seems impracticable, and rather like science fiction.
Now science fiction has become science fact, and it now seems highly
likely that there will be more mobile devices accessing the Internet
than PCs within a couple of years, offering users a wide range of
consumer and business services. In Japan already mobile phones are the
most popular way to access the Internet, with the NTT DoCoMo I-mode
service forecast to have 20 million subscribers by the end of 2001.
In addition this technology will also enable employees to link into
their corporate intranet from wherever they are in the world.
How is all this possible? As so often in high technology it is the
result of a number of different factors all coming together at an
opportune moment. For some years now the evolution of analogue mobile
telephony services to the current second generation digital services
(often referred to as GSM), and then in 2002 to the Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System (UTMS) has been quite carefully planned by
the International Telecommunications Union.
The ITU is responsible for setting the standards for world telephony,
and although there have been some problems along the way there are now
global standards in place, and hence a global market. This has
encouraged the hand-set manufacturers, notably Nokia, Ericsson and
Motorola, to invest in handset and infrastructure technology.
Meanwhile a solution was emerging as to how these handsets could
display HTML pages, and this was to develop a subset of the extensible
mark-up language (XML) called Wireless Mark-up Language. The link
between the handset and the web server is then managed by the Wireless
Application Protocol (WAP) which can be regarded as the wireless
equivalent of the HTTP server protocol.
There is no need to have a new URL for your web site. The WAP
technology ensures that the HTTP server recognises that the call is
coming from a WAP device, and routes the request to the section of the
site that has been created in WML. It is also possible to translate
HTML pages through the WAP server, but not all pages will display
properly. WAP and WML may in fact be interim technologies, as they
get round the current line-by-line screen display. As screen
technology moves towards the pixel-level displays that are used on PC
screens then many of the translation problems go away. This may be
around 2004 onwards, but market demand and the maintenance of a
competitive position are both powerful incentives to commercialise
research and development.
There has been a common view that wireless services would not be able
to offer the bandwidth of a terrestrial network. Certainly the
current bandwidth of 9.6kpbs is inadequate for all but short text
messages. UTMS technology will offer bandwidths of at least 512k,
which is four times as fast as ISDN can offer, and in the meantime
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology will provide 115kbps
bandwidth. The introduction of packet-switching technology will also
improve the quality of service, such as the speed of call set-up.
Overall the entire industry, from handset manufacturers,
telecommunications operators, governments (it was the potential
revenues from WAP services that resulted in the £22bn windfall for the
UK Government when it auctioned new mobile licences earlier this year)
and service providers, is working together to roll out services as
quickly as possible, with mobile commerce (m-commerce) applications
already seen as being of enormous potential. Nokia and Cisco are
already working together to combine their respective technological
strengths in mobile and corporate networking in order to develop the
m-commerce market, where the management of the interface between the
handset and the corporate network and databases needs to be slick and
secure. Security is a major concern in mobile applications, and more
work will need to be carried out in this area.
The Resources
-------------
Already there is a wealth of information available on the WWW about
WAP technologies and services.
Industry Forums
There are two important industry forums. The WAP Forum
<http://www.wapforum.org> was set up by Nokia. Ericsson, Motorola and
Phone..com in 1997, and is the focus for the setting of standards for
WAP technology. The mission of the Mobile Wireless Internet Forum
<http://www.mwif.org> is to drive a single open mobile wireless
Internet architecture that enables seamless integration of mobile
wireless telephony and Internet based services (voice, data, video,
web etc), meeting the needs of network operators and Internet service
providers, and is independent of the wireless access technology
itself. There is also a Eurowireless Forum based in Belgium
<http://212.53.86.122/eurowireless>
In the UK the WAP Group <http://www.thewapgroup.com> is a networking
community with over 550 members for professional decision makers in
the WAP/wireless space. Membership is by means of an invite
only/referral policy. Monthly meetings are held in central London in
order to broaden the knowledge share and allow members to network,
exchange ideas and forge business partnerships with like-minded
wireless executives. Future meetings are scheduled for Toronto,
Amsterdam, Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires, and Tel Aviv.
Major equipment manufacturers
Most manufacturers of mobile phone handsets have information on their
sites about WAP technology and services, but the leading companies are
Ericsson <http://www.ericsson.com/WAP/>
Motorola <http://gx-2.net/wwow/index.html>
Nokia <http://www.nokia.com/corporate/wap/future.html>
Phone.com <http://www.phone.com>
In addition it is important not to forget the market for hand-held
terminals
Handspring <http://www.handspring.com>
Palm <http://www.palm.com>
Symbian <http://www.symbian.com>
Resource Sites
--------------
I have listed here a selection of portal sites that provide
information about WAP and other wireless technologies. At this stage
of their development it is not possible to make any firm
recommendations. The problem that all these sites will face is the
effort that they will need to allocate to maintaining the coverage,
content and currency of the site as the WAP market continues to grow
so quickly.
For a general introduction to WAP technology try
<http://www.webproforum.com/wap/index.html>, which is an online
tutorial. There is a very good selection of FAQs on
<http://wap.colorline.no/wap-faq/>. As an indication of the lead that
Europe has at present over the USA in WAP service development there
are good sites from organisations in
Norway <http://www.gelon.net>,
Germany <http://wapjag.com>, and
Belgium <http://www.itworks.be/wap>.
There is also an Australian site which is starting to cover GPRS
technology <http://www.palopt.com.au>
For general collections of links <http://www.anywhereyougo.com> has a
selective list, but does provide good annotations, and
<http://www.itworks.be/wap> squeezes a lot into one long home page.
<http://www.links2mobile.com> claims to have over 800 links.
<http://www.wapwholesun.com/links> is spoilt by trying to put far too
many links onto one page, but the range is impressive if you have
patience and good eyesight. For a list of the WAP services that are
available try <http://www.gixom.com>. Of the many others I have looked
at there are four more that might be worth keeping an eye on, and they
are <http://www.wannawap.com>, <http://www.wapaw.com>,
<http://www.wapsite.com>, and <http://www.yes2wap.com>.
If you want news services covering the sector then
<http://www.moreover.com> has a category for WAP, and a number of
sites use this as an input to their own sites, including Free Pint
at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/news/?news_include=wap>. There is also
the Newsdesk service at <http://www.newsdesk.com>.
Finally just a few links to some representative UK service operators
<http://www.genie.co.uk>
<http://www.orange.co.uk>
<http://www.vodafone.co.uk>
and WAP services
<http://www.digitallook.com>
<http://www.kizoom.com/mobile.html>
<http://www.multimap.com>
<http://www.reuters.com>
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Martin White is Managing Director of Intranet Focus Ltd.
<http://www.intranetfocus.com>. His interests in mobile telephony date
back to 1989 when he joined Logica to manage their telecommunications
market forecasting services. Among his current consulting interests is
the potential for wireless technology in providing remote access to
intranets and corporate portals, and in mobile electronic commerce
market developments. He is a member of the Executive Board of Online
Information 2000, and a regular contributor to Free Pint.
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FREE PINT BAR
by Simon Collery
http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar
Here is your summary of what's been happening at the Free Pint Bar
over the last couple of weeks. To read a discussion thread you can
access this summary online with activated hyperlinks
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/220600.htm#bar>, visit the Bar
itself <http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar> or add the message number to
the end of <http://www.freepint.co.uk/cgi-bin/webbbs/config.pl?read=>.
I would have expected requests for software, technical questions and
Web development questions to be the easiest to answer. However
several such requests have not been fulfilled. One is for software,
or a technique, for saving keystrokes (3532) and another is about the
optimal use of colour in HTML pages (3548). Software for running
online polls (3590) and browsers that can be used offline (3592) are
also proving elusive, as is some way of monitoring page hits on
intranets (3596). Please lend us a hand if you are an aficionado.
On the other hand, there seems to be lots of information around about
Adobe and PDF (3547, 3561) and we have had a response to queries about
software comparison sites (3617), processing firewall log files
(3665), and indexing software (3562). Also forthcoming was
information on writing for the Web (3501) and administrating email
lists (3504). So the technical mavens haven't all been out to lunch.
On the searching front, I reviewed two families of portals (3516,
3659), a news search engine (3618) and a strange meta search engine
(3673) and a Free Pinter sent in a message about an unusual search
engine called WebBrain (3653), which is worth a look. There were also
queries about finding friends (3523), books (3531) and fathers (3600),
a question about search engine submissions (3544) and someone kindly
posted up the details of a very interesting paper on Google (3554).
There's some great insights inside.
Diverse resources were sought and supplied, as usual. I reviewed two
online encyclopedias which are still being built, and are at different
stages (3549, 3584). I also looked at a language learning site
(3637), a silent move site (3668), a site on biography (3684) and a
distance calculator (3693). And a query about freelancing (3689)
inspired a review of a great set of resources on telecommuting (3714).
If it kicks, we'll review it.
Many recent postings defy concise description, but there was one on
the definition or meaning of certain new media terms (3628) and
something similar for business intelligence (3643), along with a good
approach to business intelligence. Another interlocutor wants to know
the best way to approach ecommerce (3718). And there were questions
about seed capital (3696), bond ratings (3698) and registering band
names (3699). The list goes on.
Some requests would seem difficult to satisfy, such as requests for
online accounts of UK colleges (3545), international numbering
conventions like ISBN (3614) and statistics on Internet usage for
office assistants (3692).
But others didn't pose such a problem. There are student sites
(3512), there is information on waste trading (3515), the missing
survey on surfing has been found (3535) and there's plenty to be had
on the UK property development industry (3543). And Australian online
bookshops (3568) and vehicle production figures (3588) do exist.
Free Pints exist too, so do join us at the Bar.
Simon Collery, Content Developer, Free Pint
Remember, to read this summary with activated hyperlinks visit ...
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
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For the telecommunications bods, next week's Computer Telephony Expo
UK 2000 will be running cuncurrently with the Networks Telecom 2000
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will be interested in the eSelling conference, which will be held in
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In the US, the American Library Association holds its Annual
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Full details of these and many other forthcoming conferences and
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FREE PINT GOLD
This time last year we were given tips on the use of email and the
netiquette that has developed around it. It may be an informal
medium but there are still rules. The feature article explored the
rich archaeological resources available on the Web, with guidance on
how to get started on the subject.
Two years ago we were given the gen on finding information products
and services on the Web, commercial directories, exhibition
catalogues and trade and professional association membership lists.
We were also treated to an account of the bioscience resources
now available online.
Free Pint one year ago ...
* Free Pint No.41 24th June 1999 "Answering back" and
"Finding Links to the Past: archaeological resources on the Web"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/240699.htm
Free Pint two years ago ...
* Free Pint No.17, 25th June 1998 "Finding information products and
services via the Net" and "Bioscience Information on the Internet"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/250698.htm
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About this Newsletter
- Publication Date: 21st June 2000
- Plain text
- Link: https://www.jinfo.com/go/newsletter/65
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