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E-NODE: An Internet Rag
``` [This is a smart newsletter.]
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Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 12:43:23 -0800
From: "R. Anders Schneiderman"
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EEEEE N N OOO DDDD EEEEE E NN N O O D D E EEEE - N N N O O D D EEEE E N NN O O D D E EEEEE N N OOO DDDD EEEEE
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ENODE: to loose, untie a knot; to solve a riddle.
In the past two years, the Internet has exploded into the public mind. Like many people, you may have found that the Internet is confusing and it's hard to keep on top of it. You can use email and can "surf" the Web, but beyond that you feel a bit overwhelmed. Or you may be wondering if the effects of the Internet on society may be more than more cool toys. If that's how you feel, E-NODE is for you.
Once a month, E-NODE will help unravel some of your confusion by giving you an overview of some of the latest trends on the Net. Anders Schneiderman will discuss technical and organizational issues, ranging from discussions of Java to the problems organizations face when they try to maintain web sites. Nathan Newman will analyze some of the social, economic, and political issues that the Internet raises. In both of these columns, our goal is to help you make sense of where the Internet is headed and how it may affect you, your organization, and your community.
To subscribe to E-NODE, send the following email to enodelist@garnet.berkeley.edu:
subscribe e-node
E-NODE is a free online publication and can be freely redistributed to any individual. If you want to reprint E-NODE columns in a paper publication or to charge for access to it, please contact us at pcomm@ix.netcom.com. And if you have ideas for future columns, please contact us at newman@garnet.berkeley.edu.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Nathan Newman and Anders Schneiderman have spent the past three years working and playing on the Internet. Their Internet work has been cited by Business Week, the New York Times, and C-SPAN. They are founders of Progressive Communications, an Internet and policy research consulting company.
ABOUT ENODIA: Enodia was one of the manifestations for the Greek Goddess Hecate, who ruled the Underworld, the "mistress of ghosts and spectres and of everything dark and uncanny." She was known as Enodia when she roamed the roads, and "travellers or walkers by night might meet her in a lonely place as a terrifying apparition." It is clear to any Netizen that Enodia now travels the Internet, terrifying unsuspecting travellers, and we hope that E-NODE will help protect you against Enodia.
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 12:43:51 -0800
From: "R. Anders Schneiderman"
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JUNE 5, 1996 Vol 1, No. 1
JUST-TOO-FAST: WHY THE INTERNET CHANGES MORE RAPIDLY THAN IS GOOD FOR ANY OF US
--by Anders Schneiderman, PhD., pcomm@ix.netcom.com
As a Net consultant, one of the most common complaints I hear about the World Wide Web is that it's too hard to keep up-to-date. By the time you've figured out what "Web site," "links," and "GIFs" are, you're faced with a new set of features. This is particularly a problem if you are putting your information on the Web.
If you think the Web changes too quickly and you constantly feel out of touch, then I've got good news and bad news for you. The good news is that the problem isn't you, it's the Web. The bad news is that this problem won't disappear anytime soon. That's because the Web is driven by a variation on "Just-In-Time" manufacturing: "Just-Too-Fast" development.
Ironically, "Just-Too-Fast" development has its roots in one of the great features of the Web and the Internet: Internet software is free. The Internet was underwritten by the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation. Since the government was picking up the tab, researchers who developed Internet software could afford to give the software away. If you wanted a Web "browser"--a program to surf Web pages, like Netscape or Mosaic-- or a Web "server"--a program that lets you run your own Web site--you could just download it off the Internet.
Then one day the government decided it should hand the Internet over to the private sector. They believed businesses could run the Internet more efficiently. There was only one little problem. How could businesses make a profit when everything is free?
There was no way anyone would make big bucks targeting ordinary consumers. If Web browsers were free, it would be extremely hard to convince consumers to pay for them. And since the Internet wasn't designed to charge people when they viewed Web pages, there was no simple way to make money by putting information on the Web.
As a result, the only customers worth targeting were large corporations and other organizations who needed to build industrial-strength Web sites. If you could convince them to use your Web server and your tools for building Web sites more efficiently, you could make money.
But if the original Web programs were free, how could entrepreneurs induce corporations to pay for them? Netscape's answer was to make the free government software worthless by changing the Web's standards.
Standards are absolutely critical to the Web. The reason you can look at Web pages created on different computers all over the world is that all web browsers and servers speak the same language, HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Most Web pages are essentially text files that contain HTML instructions for your browser: make "Welcome!" a heading, get the White House's home page if the user clicks on the word "Clinton", etc. If the Web is to operate as a seamless whole, there must be a single standard for HTML so your browser can interpret any Web page it finds.
Netscape seized control of the HTML standards by adding new features to Netscape browsers. For example, originally all Web pages had an ugly grey background. Netscape created a new HTML command to change the background color. At first, only Netscape browsers knew how to interpret these new HTML commands. Since users liked the new features, and since Netscape was giving its browser away for free, its browser spread like wildfire. Soon Netscape had gained de facto control of HTML because most people were using Netscape browsers.
Netscape then reaped the rewards of controlling the Web's standards, particularly in the market for Web services. Initially, their servers sold because Netscape was seen as the Web's standard-bearer and because the freebie servers had erratic customer support. Netscape moved swiftly to solidify their advantage by adding new features, such as password protection. These features changed the standards for servers as well as browsers (since, for example, password protection requires the server to store the correct password), making freebie servers obsolete.
This was a great strategy for making a profit--for a few months. If Netscape sat still, Microsoft and other competitors would quickly catch up, building free or inexpensive browsers and servers that fit the new Netscape-imposed standard. The only way Netscape could stay on top was to keep changing the standards as fast as they could.
What that meant was that the Web's standards would be driven by Just-Too Fast development. For example, the original HTML instructions for page layout weren't very useful because the physicists who created the Web weren't interested in layout. If Uncle Sam was still paying for Web development, someone could have taken the time to create a more sophisticated standard. But Netscape couldn't afford such a leisurely pace if they want to stay in business. Instead of solving the problem, they tossed in a hodgepodge of new HTML features, including backgrounds, tables, and frames (which I'll discuss in a future column). You could now create a neon green home page or a virtual rats nest, but if you wanted to design a Web page comparable to what Word or Pagemaker could produce, you were out of luck.
The latest craze over Java, Javascript, and ActiveX is another example of Just Too-Fast development. Sun Microsystems wanted to turn their programming language Java into the new standard for creating interactive Web sites. Since Java was too complicated for many ordinary tasks, Netscape added a slightly simpler language called Javascript. Before anyone had time to digest Java or Javascript, Microsoft introduced yet another interactive programming standard, "ActiveX." I'll talk more about these languages in a future column, but for now all you need to know is that the end result was a real mess.
In short, as a result of this breakneck competition, new features are being added to Web faster than anyone can absorb them. Moreover, this never-ending frenzy of features means that there's never enough time to properly debug programs, which is one reason why Netscape's browser crashes so often. Netscape's name for their new Web server, LiveWire, aptly sums up the state of the Net: you can never tell when you're to get zapped.
But in a strange way, this chaos may be good news for you. Although the Web is changing Just-Too-Fast, some of the most profound features of the Internet are quite stable. It is relatively easy to put up text documents on the Web, and email is still by far the most powerful tool on the Net. So if you want to use the Internet for what it does best--as a means for helping people to help each other--you can afford to slow down and hop off the Just-Too-Fast track.
R. Anders Schneiderman, PhD. pcomm@ix.netcom.com
Anders Schneiderman is co-founder of Progressive Communications, a research and Internet consulting firm.
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ENODE: to loose, untie a knot; to solve a riddle.
E-NODE is a monthly column about the Internet. To subscribe to E-NODE, send the following email to enodelist@garnet.berkeley.edu:
subscribe e-node
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 12:44:12 -0800
From: "R. Anders Schneiderman"
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EEEEE N N OOO DDDD EEEEE E NN N O O D D E EEEE - N N N O O D D EEEE E N NN O O D D E EEEEE N N OOO DDDD EEEEE
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JUNE 5, 1996 Vol 1, No. 1
VIRTUAL SUNSHINE MAY RAIN ON LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
--by Nathan Newman, newman@garnet.berkeley.edu
The Internet promises to bring electronic "sunshine" to local government, creating more open government. If anyone knows about something happening in government, everyone will know. For contractors doing business with the government, this promises to radically change how government business is done with the private sector. And for local government, virtual "sunshine" may permanently undermine traditional strategies for local economic development and job creation.
Government contracts are the classic example where government corruption and government activism for local economic development have gone hand in hand. By steering contracts towards local firms, government officials both nailed down political support but could also, informally, help out local businesses that needed a leg up. Governments might be targeting up-and-coming firms that are key to a neighborhood's development or the officials might just be lazy and call the same two or three firms and re mind them a contract was about to be available by the city.
The Internet and other on-line channels are beginning to change that. Many governments are beginning to list contracts on-line, opening up the bidding process to a much wider range of businesses. One of the innovators in on-line contracting has been the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority which established an electronic bulletin board in 1993 for listing all contracts by that agency put up for bid.
With hundreds of millions of dollars in bids, the MTA has seen a 7% overall reduction in costs due to increased competition since the bulletin board was established. Cary Paul Peck, Vendor Relations for LA Metro Transit Authority notes that the bulletin board started around procurement and expanded quickly around that. "As people saw how it worked in one area, they saw how it could work in other areas. Two years ago people saw it as a toy of the MTA but now they take it seriously."
With the new system, a whole new group of contractors had a chance to bid. MTA is the largest single procurement system in the nation, and one of the largest in the world, so the MTA board wanted to emphasize outreach to let people know bids were coming up. They had previously mailed monthly updates, "but as a monthly," Peck argues, "it is only good for construction contracts which are well spaced out. The real problem is in personnel services, those move up and down from the Board. It can only have ten days for bidding and a monthly misses it." With the information on-line, however, people can know what's coming up instantly. On hard copy, 30% of bids had been worthless because dates were outdated by the time people received it.
Most users are on line for as little as fifteen seconds. "The system has five guys from Bechtel who dial in every Tuesday. Some of the more sophisticated companies dial in more often." For smaller procurement items, often under $500, the on-line system contrasts with the past when "you'd make three calls and that's it." Many small businesses get a chance to bid who never would have in the past.
So far this seems all to the good: lower prices for government, more access for a wider range of businesses. The rub is that a wider range of businesses also can include businesses with no local connection to the local economy. The positive side is that a small earth moving company in one economically depressed part of a state may get to bid in another part to drum up business. However, it also makes it easier for giant Bechtel to scout out the largest and the smallest contracts in the state, tracking down contracts and displacing smaller local businesses where it would have previously been too expensive to spend the time keeping track of all the contract possibilities.
Any attempt by local government to build up local businesses may be undercut by global businesses scooping up government bids off the Internet and underbidding local contractors based on volume sales. Where the upside of Internet access had been more businesses trying to bid, the downside may end up being the narrowing of actual successful bids to a few global companies. Visit any local government convention right now and it is inevitably dominated by tables of new global companies seeking to supply everything from trash collection to food service for local jails. The Internet may be the tool that those global companies need to reach those governments and replace traditional firms that once had a "local advantage" in getting information at the town hall.
The other potential issue is the downsizing of government in favor of private global information "brokers." Where the Los Angeles MTA has moved forward on full public access to procurement information, California state government has been reluctant to move from an all-paper state bidding system which costs $42 million just for its printing bill each year. Instead of moving directly to on-line access, the state has been looking to sell its information to a private company who would repackage the information electronically and sell it back to anyone interested in getting information on available government contracts. In effect, this would transfer jobs out of state government procurement offices into the hands of private companies who would then profit from reselling public information back to the public.
If selling government information for profit becomes a model for more local government, not only will local businesses lose employment opportunities but local government workers may lose out to information brokers located far from their cities.
In all these trends, local governments will find their fates more and more controlled by companies located far from their region. With local services provided by far off companies and government information increasingly controlled by private companies, the public may find themselves losing political control of many economic development decisions they had previously taken for granted.
Nathan Newman is co-founder of Progressive Communications, a research and Internet consulting firm.
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ENODE: to loose, untie a knot; to solve a riddle.
E-NODE is a monthly column about the Internet. To subscribe to E-NODE, send the following email to enodelist@garnet.berkeley.edu:
subscribe e-node ```
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