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Several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions,
but teachers should screen them first before recommending them to
students. They range from talk.abortion and talk.politics.guns to
talk.politics.space and talk.environment.
One caveat: Teachers might want to peruse particular newsgroups
before setting their students loose in them. Some have higher levels of
flaming and blather than others.
There are also a number of Bitnet discussion groups of potential
interest to students and teachers. See Chapter 5 for information on
finding and subscribing to Bitnet discussion groups. Some with an
educational orientation include:
biopi-l ksuvm.bitnet Secondary biology education
chemed-l uwf.bitnet Chemistry education
dts-l iubvm.bitnet The Dead Teacher's Society list
phys-l uwf.bitnet Discussions for physics teachers
physhare psuvm.bitnet Where physics teachers share resources
scimath-l psuvm.bitnet Science and math education
To get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in the GIF
graphics format, use ftp to connect to nic.funet.fi. Switch to the
/pub/astro/general directory and get the file astroftp.txt. Among the
sites listed is ames.arc.nasa.gov, which carries images taken by the
Voyager and Galileo probes, among other pictures.
CHAPTER 13: Business on the Net
13.1 SETTING UP SHOP
Back in olden days, oh, before 1990 or so, there were no markets in
the virtual community -- if you wanted to buy a book, you still had to
jump in your car and drive to the nearest bookstore.
This was because in those days, the Net consisted mainly of a series
of government-funded networks on which explicit commercial activity was
forbidden.
Today, much of business loan the Net is run by private companies, which
generally have no such restrictions, and a number of companies have begun
experimenting with online "shops" or other services.
Many of these shops
are run by booksellers, while business link the services range from delivery of indexed
copies of federal documents to an online newsstand that hopes to entice
you to subscribe to any of several publications (of the printed on paper
variety). A number of companies also use Usenet newsgroups (in the biz
hierarchy) to distribute press releases and product information.
Still, commercial activity on the remains far below that business loan found on
other networks, such as CompuServe, with its Electronic Mall, or Prodigy,
with its advertisements on almost every screen. In part that's because
of the newness and complexity of the Internet as a commercial medium. In
part, however, that is because of security concerns. Companies worry
about such issues as crackers getting into their system over the network,
and many people do not like the idea of sending a credit-card number via
the Internet (an e-mail message could be routed through several sites to
get to its destination). These concerns could disappear as Net users
turn to such means as message encryption and "digital signatures." In the
meantime, however, businesses on the Net can still consider themselves
something of Internet pioneers.
A couple of public-access sites and a regional network have set up
"marketplaces" for online businesses.
The World in Brookline, business loan Mass., currently rents "space" to several
bookstores and computer-programming firms, as well as an "adult toy
shop." To browse their offerings, use gopher to connect to
world.std.com
At the main menu, select "Shops on the World."
Msen in Ann Arbor provides its "Msen Marketplace," where you'll find
a travel agency and an "Online Career Center" offering help-wanted ads
from across the country. Msen also provides an "Internet Business
Pages," an online directory of companies seeking business loan to reach the Internet
community. You can reach Msen through gopher at
gopher.msen.com
At the main menu, select "Msen Marketplace."
The Nova Scotia Technology Network runs a "Cybermarket" on its
gopher service at
nstn.ns.ca
There, you'll find an online bookstore that lets you order books through
e-mail (to which you'll have to trust your credit-card number) and a
similar "virtual record store.'' Both let you search their wares by
keyword or by browsing through catalogs.
Other online businesses include:
AnyWare Associates This Boston company runs an Internet-to-fax
gateway that lets you send fax message anywhere
in the world via the Internet (for a fee, of
course).
For business link more information, write
sales@awa.com
Bookstacks Unlimited This Cleveland bookstore offers a keyword-
searchable database of thousands of books for
sale. Telnet:
books.com
Counterpoint Publishing Based in Cambridge, Mass., this company's main
Internet product is indexed versions of federal
journals, including the Federal Register (a daily
compendium of government contracts, proposed
regulations and the like). Internet users can
browse through recent copies, but complete access
will run several thousand dollars a year. Use
gopher to connect to
enews.com
and select business link "Counterpoint Publishing"
Dialog The national database company can be reached
through telnet at
dialog.com
To log on, however, you will have first had to
set up a Dialog account.
Dow Jones News A wire service run by the information company
Retrieval that owns the Wall Street Journal. Available
via telnet at
djnr.dowjones.com
As with Dialog, you need an account to log on.
Infinity Link Browse book, music, software, video-cassette and
laser-disk catalogs through this system based in
Malvern, Penn.
Use gopher to connect to
columbia.ilc.com
Log on as: cas
The Internet Company Sort of a service bureau, this company, based in
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