THE INTERNET'S 25TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION BEGINS
No word on who gets to blow out the candles, but the Internet's 25th anniversary lasts from September 1 through December, celebrating the 1969 installation of the first four network sites. The start date was chosen based on the first "Interface Message Processor" installation at UCLA, which occurred "around Labor Day." By December of that year, four defense research sites had been connected to ARPANet. More details about the Internet's history and growth can be accessed from Amdahl's special events coverage page. "http://www.amdahl.com/internet/events/inet25.html"
SPYGLASS RECEIVES COMMERCIAL LICENSING RIGHTS FOR NCSA MOSAIC
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has assigned all future commercial licensing rights for the NCSA Mosaic graphical Internet browser to Spyglass, Inc. The company develops and licenses its Enhanced NCSA Mosaic to networking software companies, systems vendors and online service providers for incorporation into their products and services. Since becoming a commercial licensee of NCSA Mosaic in May, Spyglass has licensed more than 5 million copies of Enhanced NCSA Mosaic to these companies. Spyglass also announced recent agreements with IBM, FTP Software, Inc.; O'Reilly and Associates, Inc., and Firefox, Inc.
FTC FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST DECEPTIVE ONLINE ADVERTISERS
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced this week that it had filed a lawsuit, apparently the first of it's kind, against an online marketing campaign which offered to repair credit files. The FTC says they are targeting deceptive advertising on the "information superhighway." On the one hand the law is finally here. On the other hand the darned legal bureaucracy is already here. The full press release is at "ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/lewrose/home.html"
IBM DEMOS NEW OS/2 INTERNET SOFTWARE BUNDLE
Grandly titled the "OS/2 Warp II, PowerPC & OpenDoc Sneak Peek," IBM recently orchestrated "an exclusive and advance look at IBM's next-generation of operating systems and object-technologies." The event included demonstrations of OS/2 Warp II, an Internet operating system that will be available this fall. It features a "One-Button" Internet client that uses IBM's Global Network and SLIP for worldwide access to Gopher, Telnet, e-mail, FTP, Usenet, and WWW resources; "3-D look and feel," "Plug and Play" abilities, and Win32s emulation and Windows For Workgroups support. Stay tuned for a battle of the giants as this software competes with the rumored built-in Internet offerings from Microsoft in their next generations Windows software due out in the spring.
$100 GRAND & NO RISK: MARKET GAME ON THE WEB.
Security APL, a company that offers portfolio management and trading systems to investment managers as well as free stock quotes on the Net is starting up a portfolio management game on the Web. You get $100,000 (settle down, it's just play money), some tools to manage your portfolio, and plunge into the seductive virtual embrace of rampant naked capitalism (Oooh baby! Your shares are rising!). The first game starts September 16, 1994 at 12:01 a.m. and will run until October 14, 1994 at 11:59pm (sorry folks, we got this too late to let you know ahead of time). The URL for this game and other info is "http://www.secapl.com/pawws."
INTERNET MARKETING SEMINARS BRINGS BIG BUSINESS TO THE NET
A new company has popped up which is offering seminars on marketing to the Internet. This is a major operation; Target Marketing has corralled a number of established Internet and Usenet figures, and the authors of "Navigating the Internet" and "Doing Business on the Internet" to help run these seminars in five cities. Only time will tell if these people are going be aggressively spamming or subtly persuading; they do seem to wish to take Usenet culture into account - Canter and Siegel are not listed as speakers, thankfully. At any rate, they may be making some money, at $650 per person for one seminar. E-mail for info: marketing-seminar@targeting.com with the subject: "send info" "http://www.targeting.com/seminar.html"
WOULD YOU PAY $50,000 FOR A HOME PAGE?
No matter how large your business, MecklerWeb will build web pages for you and convert your promotional materials to web format for only $50,000. This includes first year's service, only $25,000 per year after that. Must be a bargain! Digital Equipment Corporation is partnering with Meckler and doing the work. The press release contains an E-Mail address for info: mweb@mecklermedia.com. The URL below lists the names of 40 companies who can afford this but probably did not pay it. Rumors are that MecklerWeb is giving away free services just to attract some seed business. By the way, we here at Netsurfer are willing to do the same for a lot less money. Just ask. "http://www.mecklerweb.com/demo.html"
DIRECT FROM CHECKING BILLING SYSTEM FOR BBS SYSOPS
If you missed the recent BBS Conference in Atlanta, you probably missed the unveiling of a new service from The American Banking Systems Corporation. Now, a BBS callers checking or savings account information can be captured online and automatically processed for billing purposes. The method reportedly spans a variety of platforms and is compatible with all BBS and online software. This could be the viable alternative to the eternal hassle of getting a merchant credit card account. For more information, call Darren Humay at 904-729-3006.
MORE SHOP-AT-HOME MADNESS FROM BIG RETAILERS
Retail giants Nordstrom, Land's End and JC Penney have hooked up with Bell Atlantic Corporation to create STARGAZER, a market trial of video-on-demand service. With the aid of 2,000 Northern Virginia households, the service will test the online waters of the home shopping market. Customers can 'shop' at the store of their choice, view product videos and place orders via a toll free number. In 1995, online ordering will be phased in. The project is slated for commercial deployment by 1996. For further details, contact Bell Atlantic's Larry Plumb at +1 703 708 4360.
CANTER & SIEGEL MISAPPROPRIATE WWW PAGE (BRIEFLY)
Canter and Siegel, the infamous spam lawyer team, opened a WWW site, which closed after a few hours. The reason? Their home page was taken verbatim from Internet Marketing; in fact, many of the links did not work, being local Internet Marketing links. After an angry reaction from IM and others, the page was yanked. There was no comment from Canter and Siegel. It is difficult to believe that these people plan to sell their services as net.marketing experts, except possibly as counterexamples. As usual, the Tennessee Bar was informed of their misconduct.
COMMERCIALIZING YOUR GIRLFRIEND
PGG Graphics, having been hounded out of alt.binaries.pictures.erotica for posting insufficiently arousing (or disgusting, depending on your point of view) pictures, has set up a new newsgroup, alt.binaries.pictures.girlfriends, where you can post or get pictures of somebody's "girlfriend." The difference between this and many other sexy-GIF newsgroups is that it exists for promoting their business, which is selling semi-erotic CD's and scanning photographs into JPEG or GIF format. Furious debate about this commercial newsgroup creation rages across a number of newsgroups with the general consensus that the group does not violate any guidelines (beyond being in alt.* instead of biz.*). It's been pointed out that PGG Graphics is free to promote themselves, sysadmins are free to kill the newsgroup, and users are free to post anything they want in there, which so far is mostly flames of PGG Graphics. A very vocal minority has vehemently objected to such "commercialization" of the net and initiated a "slow mailbomb" campaign. The topic is hot and large, so we can't do it justice here. Tune into news.admin.misc, news.admin.policy and look for the large threads.
LED ZEPPELIN FANDOM LIVES ON VIA INTERNET
They're still out there. The Led Zeppelin mailing list is extremely active, at 20-30+ messages a day. Topics of discussion are far ranging - why was Robert Plant called "Percy?" Does wearing tight pants make a man effeminate? The lyrics to "Going to California" were discussed and the excitement over the upcoming MTV reunion was tangible. If you're a fan, check out the FAQ as well, which gives a good thumbnail overview of Led Zeppelin from inception (name chosen because "It'll go over like a fuckin' lead balloon!") to John Bonham's choking on his vomit, with thirteen years of great music in between. Subscribe by E-mail: listserv@cornell.edu, with message body: SUB ZEPPELIN-L [your name]
BIZARRE MPEG FILM FESTIVAL, COMPACT YET COMPELLING
There are 14 entries in this particular edition of the festival, a compendium of sometimes strange, sometimes bizarre, and sometimes mundane MPEGs. Alternative-film scene favorite "Wax, or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees" is here, as well as such interesting titles as "Mr. Splodgy Does Lung Cancer," "Harold's Date", the evocative "Raytraced Fruitfly Ovaries", and the ominously sounding "The Pinata Incident." You get a choice of looking at a fast, text only page, or a page with a frame from each MPEG. The latter gives you a good idea of whether you want to download the rest. Links to MPEG FAQs are also provided. Info from John Perry jperry@cs.ucla.edu or Roger Carasso carasso@netcom.com. "ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/jrp/film.html"
VIRTUAL RADIO BRINGS MUSIC TO THE WEB
This site is one of a number of venues springing up around the Web which offer audio files of various bands, and threatening to possibly unseat the music distribution monopoly of the big name labels. This site has 11 bands, with each band getting their own page with info, reviews, an image and one or more songs. The songs are available in either a short sample file (about 600K) or in their full-length glory (up to 2.5Megs). Good site both for aspiring bands, and for music browsers with fast links. E-mail: vradio@ugly.microserve.net "http://www.microserve.net/vradio"
"THE INTERNET FOR EVERYONE" KICKS OFF NEW BOOK REVIEWS PUBLICATION
We are happy to announce Netsurfer Books, our new publication dedicated exclusively to book reviews. Since Netsurfer Digest's format doesn't lend itself to in-depth coverage of literary material, this space will continue to carry short snippets, but with the new addition of pointers to full-length reviews on our archive sites. To inaugurate the new publication, one of our crack netsurfers, Joanne Eglash, has reviewed "The Internet for Everyone," one of the more useful entries in the recent flood of Internet books. This and all the reviews we publish under the Netsurfer Books banner will also be available in the form of a mailing list ("subscribe ns-books-txt [firstname] [lastname]" or "subscribe ns-books-html [firstname] [lastname]" in the body of an e-mail meesage to ns-books-request@netsurf.com), but if you're impatient, check our online sites: "http://www.netsurf.com/books/nsb.94.09.16.html" "ftp://ftp.netsurf.com/pub/books/nsb.94.09.16.txt"
HARPERCOLLINS TO PUBLISH BOOK BY CANTER & SIEGEL
The publishing house will reportedly publish a book penned by the infamous Net pair this February. The book will describe, in step-by-step detail, how to spam the net. Tentative title is "How to make a fortune on the Information Superhighway." There has been a call to let the publishing house know how the Net crowd feels about all this, but cooler heads pointed out that controversy and attempts to ban only fuel sales. The discussion can be followed on news.admin.policy, news.admin.misc, alt.current-events.net-abuse, and alt.flame.canter-and-siegel. Incidentally, HarperCollins is apparently owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Delphi.
MISSING/STOLEN BOOKS CLEARINGHOUSE NOW AVAILABLE
Collectible books and other valuable items are often stolen to be sold to unsuspecting buyers. The Interloc "Missing and Stolen Books" database is offered as a free service to the antiquarian, library and collector communities. Access is currently limited to E-Mail, but Telnet and FTP capability will be added by year's end. E-mail: interloc@shaysnet.com
Joel Furr, the man behind the Canter & Siegel "Spamming The World" T-Shirts (among others) is interested in collecting the various net-spam ads that have plagued the Internet in the last year. He has the Green Card Ad, but is looking for others that may be breaking the law or committing fraud. Help him out, but for heavens sake, don't spam him. jfurr@acpub.duke.edu.
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