Bellying up to the Web for Fun and Profit
                  Copyright 1995  by Lois B. Laulicht



 Anyone who frequents the business pages of the New York Times or reads
 the Wall Street Journal is acutely aware of the high level of business
 interest generated by the “Electronic Super Highway”.  News stories of
 exploratory agreements, emerging partnerships, recent Congressional
 telephone legislation, and Administration involvement have focused full
 media attention upon  the spectacular growth of the Internet. The locus
 of  this activity is the World Wide Web....the graphical point of
 engagement.

 For whatever it's worth, both new and experienced Internet users, are
 scurrying about trying to figure a way to make a buck out of the Web.
 The promise of large numbers of ordinary people owning computers is
 becoming a fact of life. Most of these boxes are now sold with internal
 modems already setup. The most inexperienced computer users now have a
 leg up to bop around the World Wide Web first time out. Should they have
 the good fortune of finding a hardware vendor working with an Internet
 provider who packages pre-configured browser software, it is a win-win
 for everyone and an old business gets a new twist.

 Once a user accesses the Web, they become a potential customer for
 anything sold in the real world of credit cards, automobile show-rooms,
 fine art, and mail order catalogues. It is the increasing volume of this
 activity which becomes the  fodder to create and do business.  In spite
 of the public promise of riches and glory there continues to remain a
 huge leap from enthusiastic expectation to that of  real world bank
 deposits.

 The Reality of the World Wide Web

 It has been said by some that " the Web is a cornucopia of information
 and an encyclopedia of places to go". The fact of the matter is that this
 very interesting place called the World Wide Web with its scads of
 information on a wide range of topics is almost more than what most
 people can absorb and/or utilize. As a result, the search for and
 compilation of data spread around so many different sites has created a
 rash of new browsers, search tools, and data base software, to name just
 a few categories. The plethora of homepages represent an expanding center
 of speculation of what and how  one can  market goods and services. We
 can read these in English or French, etc.,  but the Internet language of
 choice is originally written with HTML, the Hypertext Markup Language.

 After one gets into the thick of Web activity it’s almost impossible to
 avoid the queries for information, yells for help, and words of advice on
 how to create your very own homepage. The best advice I ever got on the
 subject was from my Sysop, Brian Miller of Channel One, about a year ago.
 He told me to learn to use HTML...yesterday!

 I frankly stalled as would any sensible person with too much to do, until
 I no longer had a choice.  If I wanted to be a part of the new wave of
 on-line publishing,  learning this language is a necessity. Not that HTML
 is hard. It isn’t.  Not that we publish an entire issue of WindoWatch
 using HTML...we don’t. However, if you want to have a presence on the Web
 and want to diddle and experiment with your own homepage,  nothing beats
 a hands-on approach.  For the moment at least, HTML is the language of
 the homepage and is the very guts of the Web. All of which could change
 tomorrow when a better mousetrap is written and released.

 A Minimalist Approach to HTML

 Given that I have no need or desire to become an HTML expert, were I to
 start all over, I would  tackle the vagaries of HTML quite differently. I
 do have to edit copy and recommend changes and additions to those who
 have primary HTML responsibility.  I care very much, not only about the
 voice we present but also about the public clothes we wear.  Mine is
 not the role of a technician but rather one of a nit picker.

 My revised game plan would focus upon careful perusal of many samples of
 working HTML documents that I liked. I would examine them using a
 familiar tool,  my trusty DOS ASCII editor, to get a feel for the
 language.   Using Netscape or Mosaic one can view  the original document
 and then experiment with the HTML tags in ASCII. Changing the copy and
 then looking at those changes using a browser gives one immediate
 feedback along with the freedom to experiment.  By  keeping the edited
 and revised copy  within the confines of a single working subdirectory,
 one can create the feel of really being on-line.  With practice and
 experimentation, one develops sufficient skill to do the rudimentary
 tasks  as well as greater proficiency with the tools.

 Some tips. . .

 Graphics are gorgeous and allow one to do very creative things on a
 homepage. Nonetheless, GIFs take time to bring up and view in a browser.
 On-line time costs your potential audience money. A 14400 modem is quite
 slow. Once surfers learn to keep track of costly on-line time it becomes
 a short step to upgrade to the faster 28800. The modem upgrade combined
 with a 32 bit operating system like Windows NT or Windows95  along with
 the  appropriate amount of on board cache is the difference between
 snowplowing down a hill and good, tight parallel skiing.

 Keep the material on your page fresh. Create a schedule to replace
 material that has been on your homepage too long. I don’t spend much time
 on sites with teeny notices saying Last Reconstruction -May 10, 104 BC
 (before computers). We try to change content at least every two weeks.
 The operative word here is try. . Would you bother to return to a page
 with an old update sign and too often read  information?

 Try to find out who your visitors are. If you can, convince them to fill
 out a brief form to help you understand the constraints of their
 hardware/software, their level of interest and knowledge of your homepage
 offerings, and where they heard about you. What was it that brought them
 to your homepage? Would they visit your home-page again? Do you offer
 free software or special prices on goods and service?  While freebies and
 gimmicks are pretty transparent to savvy users,  good fun can be a
 service to be enjoyed by all.  My favorite gimmicky fantasy is a WEB
 tutorial, in the form of a WindoWatch scavenger hunt.  One way to find
 out if your readers would participate is to ask them and then use the
 forms feature for feedback and actual signup for the online event.

 Organize your page for ready access to information using links to other
 pages or other places and be prepared to check out those links often for
 continued quality.  Use  variations of font size, texture and color to
 help keep the page visually interesting . Background textures, while
 interesting, also slow down the time to read files.

 While visual appeal is important , we try to  emphasize content, not
 fluff.

 Hits and Misses

 There's a lot of chatter about the numbers of visitors who stop by a
 given site.  One of the functions where computers excel is in the area of
 counting. When a computer on a BBS counts the number of times a
 particular file is downloaded it is recorded within a piece of software
 charged to count each of the downloads. There can also be automatic
 counters installed on a Web site to count the number of visitors.
 Unfortunately the numbers are not always accurate and can be deceptive in
 terms of what they represent.

 Here is an example of why most people should be very wary of raw homepage
 statistics.  There are three individuals working the WindoWatch homepage.
 I log on at least once a day and sometimes more often than that.  I
 assume the others are counted as often.  Our counter was tied to users
 with graphical browsers so it didn’t register people coming on in text
 mode.  Therefore, to be honest, I must reduce the final monthly count by
 3 X 30 or 100 visits per month and increase it by an unknown number of
 people using text browsers. Windo-Watch,  like other fledgling
 organizations, would get more juice if we inflated that number.
 Obviously, many of the ozone layer numbers touted about are highly
 suspect. Notwithstanding the pros and cons, a count is a useful estimate,
 if  reasonably interpreted and used primarily to track increases and
 decreases of visitors over a given period of time.

 Security

 The second biggest issue on the Internet is that of assuring secure
 business transactions.  Given the horror stories of hacker intrusion into
 allegedly secure systems, it is not surprising that no one is willing to
 get too heavily involved in untested credit card transactions.  I
 certainly wouldn't want to take the responsibility for abuse of a customers
 credit card account and can understand the worries and constraints of
 international commerce where patents and inventions are at stake.

 One of the obvious drawbacks of HTML is its ease of replication.  One of
 the limitations of existing browsers is the simplicity of grabbing
 anyone's work and calling it your own. And finally, the notion of giving
 away ones creativity to the very open forum of the Internet is not
 exactly conducive to business to do much more than use the Web as an
 extension to their marketing department.

 It will be interesting to reassess my own conclusions in this area six
 months from now. I am also quite sure that the industry is creative
 enough to turn up a surprise or two. But it is business who has charged
 ahead in some of the most important areas we've discussed.  The recently
 released Server version of Netscape will go a long way in providing  a
 secure environment for clients.  Mastercard and Visa are preparing to
 make available secure credit card options as early as September of 1995.
 Agreements have been made between Adobe and Netscape relating to
 compatibility issues of the Portable Document Format of Adobe's Acrobat
 (their established authoring tool) and the Netscape browser. Costs for an
 Internet connection continue to drop and become more competitive daily.

 Whatever else happens in this area, more and more folks will be sharing
 the rapidly narrowing bandwidth of the Internet. Many will also come to
 share my conclusions and will learn HTML because they must.  Hopefully,
 they will be very aware that the WEB is rapidly changing place. The
 challenge to users is to keep up with emerging trends which quite often
 lead to the development of new tools.

 Although HTML is now it is not necessarily tomorrow. We must all remain
 flexible and ready to give up that old model T?  Do you know anyone still
 using Edlin?


 Lois Laulicht is the Editor and Publisher of WindoWatch.  She lives with
 her husband and their German Shepherds in the West Virginia hills.


                                    ww