ISOC Forum

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 From: au007@rs1.rrz.uni-koeln.de (Michael Uwe Moebius)
 Subject: I S O C Forum
 
 
 
                      THE I S O C FORUM
 
 international electronic publication of the Internet Society
 
 
 14 August 1995         * * * * * * * * *       Vol. 1, No. 1
 editor@isoc.org                         http://www.isoc.org
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 ISOC Forum is a twice-monthly electronic newsletter of the
 Internet Society comprised of timely information about
 Internet-related products and services, Internet Society
 updates, summaries of Internet news from the international
 press, and announcements of relevant conferences, seminars,
 and workshops.
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 IN THIS ISSUE...
 
 Internet Society Elects President, Officers
 O'Reilly to Release First Statistically Defensible Data on the
     Internet's Size and Composition
 Exploring the Web Population's Other Half
 Database On European Patents (EPAT) Available On Orbit
 The Language of the Internet
 Record Rates For Data Transfer Recorded
 Best Resources For Eastern Europe From Slovakia
 J.P. Morgan Securities Report
 Online Sports Novel Sporting Goods Locator
 Publications Of Note
 ISOC Staff Appointments
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 INTERNET SOCIETY ELECTS PRESIDENT, OFFICERS
      The Internet Society is pleased to announce the election of Lawrence
 H. Landweber as president. The announcement was made following the annual
 meeting of the Board of Trustees in June at the INET'95 conference in
 Honolulu, Hawaii.
      Previously vice president for Education for the Society, Landweber was
 instrumental in creating the International Networking Conference -- or INET
 -- which since 1992 has been the annual conference of the Internet Society.
 Currently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his recent research has
 been in the area of higher performance networks. He is leading a project at
 Wisconsin that is a component of the NSF/ARPA/CNRI Gigabit Testbed Project.
 In 1980, he was one of the founders of CSNET, an early NSF-sponsored
 network  in support of computer science. Later he helped to establish many
 of the early network gateways between the U.S. and other countries.
      Dr. Landweber received a B.S. in mathematics from Brooklyn College and
 a Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue University. He has been on the
 faculty of the Computer Sciences Department of the University of
 Wisconsin-Madison since 1967, serving as department chair during 1977-79
 and 1987-90.
      Other Internet Society board elections include Geoff Huston
 (secretary), Frode Greisen (treasurer), Scott Bradner (vice president for
 Standards), George Sadowsky (vice president for Education), and Haruhisa
 Ishida (vice president for Chapters and Membership).
      An updated list of the Internet Society Board of Trustees with
 biographical data is available at http://www.isoc.org.
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 O'REILLY TO RELEASE FIRST STATISTICALLY DEFENSIBLE DATA ON THE INTERNET'S
 SIZE AND COMPOSITION
      O'Reilly & Associates announced that in September it will release the
 results of the first statistically defensible survey of Internet users.
 According to a release by O'Reilly, preliminary results of the second phase
 of the survey indicate that the true size of the Internet differs
 significantly from current views based on less statistically accurate
 methods.
      Three points from the preliminary data stand out. The first is that
 women make up a higher percentage of users, with 34 percent. The second is
 that 52 percent had 1994 household incomes of less than $50,000, with a
 median income range of $35,000 to $50,000. The third is that 43 percent of
 Internet users work in corporations with 1,000 or more employees.
      The O'Reilly survey, entitled "Defining the Internet Opportunity
 1994-1995,"  is the first statistically accurate nth-number sampling of
 U.S. households. Working in conjunction with Trish Information Services, a
 leading market research firm in Hayward, California, this three-phase
 program is using random digit dialing procedures to determine the true size
 of the Internet audience with a less than one percent sampling error.
      Details about the methodology and the scope of the survey are
 available via the Web at http://www.ora.com/survey/
                          (Link inactive 27 May 2004).
 
 EXPLORING THE WEB POPULATION'S OTHER HALF
 (Abridged from Exploring the World Wide Web Population's Other Half, 
SRI, http://future.sri.com/)
      Reporting results from one of the largest Internet surveys to date,
 SRI International released new data about users of the World Wide Web,
 including who is on it, how they use it, and why. The effort is the first
 to augment standard demographics (such as age, income, and gender) with a
 psychographic analysis of the Web population. Utilizing SRI's VALS 2, the
 survey explored the psychology of people's choices and behavior on the Web.
 The survey generated more than 5,500 responses between February and May of
 this year.
      The results paint a picture of two Web audiences. The first is the
 group that drives most of the media coverage and stereotypes of Web users
 -- the "upstream" audience. Comprising 50 percent of the current Web
 population, this well-documented group is the upscale, technically oriented
 academics and professionals that ride on a variety of institutional
 subsidies. Yet because this group comprises only 10 percent of the U.S.
 population in the VALS 2 system, their behaviors and characteristics are of
 limited usefulness in understanding the future of the Web.
      The second Web audience comprises a diverse set of groups that SRI
 calls the Web's "other half." Accounting for the other 90 percent of the
 U.S. society, these groups are where Internet growth will increasingly need
 to take place if the medium is to go mainstream. Among the SRI survey's
 findings of the Web's other half are:
 
 * The other-half gender split -- 64% male and 36% female -- is
 significantly more balanced than the upstream group's split of 77% and 23%.
 
 * Many information-intensive consumers in the U.S. population are in the
 other-half population rather than the upstream population. These particular
 other-half consumers report the highest degree of frustration with the Web
 of a population segment. Although they drive much of the
 consumer-information industry in other media, they as a group have yet to
 find the Web particularly valuable.
 
 * The "information have-nots" -- those groups not on the Web at all -- are
 excluded not because of low income but because of limited education.
 Although income of the Web audience is somewhat upscale, it includes a
 substantial number of low-income users. The same cannot be said of
 education, which basically has a high-end-only distribution: 97% of the
 upstream audience and 89% of the other-half audience reports at least some
 college education, including the low-income respondents. These results
 confirm that education is the key to Internet participation, which calls
 into question the effectiveness of proposals to empower information
 have-nots with income-targeted subsidies for Internet access.
 
 DATABASE ON EUROPEAN PATENTS (EPAT) AVAILABLE ON ORBIT
      Questel*Orbit, a member of the France Telecom Group, announced in June
 that the Database of European Patents, EPAT, is being made available on the
 Orbit online service. Produced by the Institut National de la Propriete
 Industrielle (INPI), the French Patent and Trademark office, covers all
 European patents issued since 1978, including published applications and
 granted patents.
      The database contains more than 500,000 records with abstracts in the
 language of publication (English, French, or German). All patentable fields
 are fully searchable and clearly labeled for ease of use.
      For more information, call the Washington, DC-area office of
 Questel*Orbit, Inc. at +1 703-442-0900.
 
 THE LANGUAGE OF THE INTERNET
      English may be the international language of business and science, but
 millions of Internet users outside the United States are intent on assuring
 that 'a thousand languages bloom' as the Internet becomes ever more
 globalized. For those people, relief may be on the way in the form of new
 technology. The New York Times reported on 7 August that a consortium of
 American computer companies has developed a universal digital code known as
 Unicode, which allows computers to represent the letters and characters of
 virtually all the world's languages.
      Although translation software is not new, Unicode offers the
 opportunity to make the Internet truly multilingual. The Times credits the
 proliferation of non-English-based Web pages as well as growing concern
 over the Americanization of the Internet as key issues for proponents of
 Unicode.
      Unicode is a standard born out of a collaboration among computer
 systems vendors. It was finally accepted by the OSI standards community a
 couple of years ago as the basis for depicting all characters in a common 2
 octet (16 bits) code.
 
 RECORD RATES FOR DATA TRANSFER RECORDED
      The January-March 1995 issue of Gather/Scatter, the publication of the
 San Diego Supercomputer Center reported that during a December 1994 test
 run across the 2,000-kilometer link between SDSC and LANL, the researchers
 attained data transfer rates of up to 500 Mbits per second for the TCP/IP
 protocol. These rates set a new record for dta transfer over a wide-area
 network using the TCP/IP protocol.
 
 In addition, during the same test run, bandwidths of up to 578 Mbits per
 second were measured for the UDP protocol between the two Cray computers,
 and up to 784 Mbits per second for the raw HIPPI protocol between the two
 HIPPI testers. The TCP/IP and UDP bandwidths are near the maximum that
 could be sustained by the Cray supercomputers in production mode,
 indicating that the wide-area network did not limit the achievable
 bandwidth.
 
 BEST RESOURCES FOR EASTERN EUROPE FROM SLOVAKIA
      According to the Slovakia Document Store
 (http://www.eunet.sk/slovakia/basicinf.html
  (Link inactive 27 May 2004)), there's something to be said
 for being Number 2. Overshadowed by the Czech lands in general, and the
 Golden City of Prague in particular, Slovakia maintains a distinct and
 fascinating culture to investigate. And you can do all the 
investigating
 you wish at this impressive Web site.
 
 Particular attention should be paid to the Media, News section, where you
 can access daily and weekly newspapers as well other news and information
 services from Eastern Europe. Included in the list are Pravda, SDS Media
 Digest, Voice of America, and Citizen's voice.
 
 J.P. MORGAN SECURITIES REPORT
      A J.P. Morgan Securities report, titled "The World Wide Web: Globally
 Connected, Plain and Simple!" was distributed in May to the investment
 community. The 20-page report provides an overview of many technology
 firms' initiatives to leverage the World Wide Web with their products and
 services. In addition, information is provided to develop a basic
 understanding of how the Web works. As part of this effort, J.P. Morgan has
 made the report available on their Web server (http://www.jpmorgan.com),
 located under "Products and Services, Industry Research." The Web version
 links to approximately 100 technology companies' home pages. Those
 interested in obtaining a hard copy of the report should send e-mail to
 Paul J. Dravis at dravis_paul@jpmorgan.com and include your name and
 address (via telephone call +1 212-648-9249).
 
 ONLINE SPORTS NOVEL SPORTING GOODS LOCATOR
      Making it easier for sports and recreation businesses and consumers to
 use and shop the Internet, Online Sports Monday released the Online Sports
 Web Site (http://www.onlinesports.com), a new resource for sports products
 and services. Similar to the mega directory YAHOO, the Online Sports
 catalog has thousands of links to sports equipment, apparel, collectibles
 and services. Products are indexed and cross referenced anticipating
 different shopping patterns and allowing users to browse by sport,
 department, item name, or to shop directly by supplier.
 
 In addition to the catalog, the Online Sports home page offers other sport
 resources including the new Sports Career Center.
 
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 PUBLICATIONS OF NOTE
 
 * Global Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Cooperation, United States
 Government Information. $4.95. +1 202-512-1800. Orders must cite
 appropriate stock number -- 003-000-00677-8.
 
 * The Future Does Not Compute, by Stephen L. Talbott. O'Reilly &
 Associates, Inc. $22.95. Available at bookstores or call 800-988-9938.
 
 * Using Email Effectively, by Linda Lamb and Jerry Peek. O'Reilly &
 Associates, Inc. $14.95. Available at bookstores or call 800-988-9938.
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 ISOC STAFF APPOINTMENTS
 
 DONNA LEGGETT NAMED DIRECTOR OF CONFERENCES AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
      Donna Leggett joined the Society on May 1st as the staff member
 responsible for coordination of the INET conferences, the Symposium on
 Network and Distributed System Security, and the Developing Countries
 Internet Training Workshops. She previously managed conferences for Educom
 and for the Optical Society of America, both located in Washington, DC.
 
 JAY WHITTLE NAMED SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR
      Jay Whittle recently joined the Internet Society as technical advisor
 and systems administrator. Following his graduation from Georgetown
 University in June 1989, Jay began working as a research programmer analyst
 at GU's Academic Computer Center where he was responsible for supporting
 faculty and graduate student research as well as maintaining the Internet
 systems there.
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Consider this is YOUR forum. Contribute news, information, queries, and
 other information via e-mail to editor@isoc.org. Please use ISOC FORUM as
 the subject line.
 
 Subscribe to THE ISOC FORUM by sending e-mail to editor@isoc.org. Type ISOC
 FORUM in the subject line and include your name and e-mail address in the
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 For information about joining the Internet Society, contact
 membership@isoc.org (individual membership), org-membership@isoc.org
 (organizational membership), URL: http://www.isoc.org.
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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