Forms of Communication on the Internet
Internet Resources
Forms of Communication on the Internet
- A Very Brief Introduction
The Web
Pages
Pages link to pages by the same author, individual or organisation as well as
other pages that the page-author has chosen to link to.
Some pages have access restricted by password.
Some allow anyone to register to obtain a password.
Search Engines
Search engines are widely used.
They often contain small adverts in their pages.
Unsorted
These list matches to any search for information. The search is entered as a string of words and/or
operators. The results are listed according to how closely they were thought to match the search list.
The results are in the form of a list of web-pages. Often the search engine will attach a link to similar
sites to each page in the search results. These are most useful when searching for proper names like
Woolworths but decreasingly useful the more comon the words you use for your search.
- Global: Lycos, Excite, AltaVista, etc.
- Local: Guardian RecruitNet, etc.
Directory
Yahoo does not have the same breadth of links of say AltaVista, however,
the links are ordered into a directory. Thus searching for "economics"
with Yahoo will give useful results instead of 30,000 unsorted matches.
In some ways, directories are more useful when you don't know exactly
what you're looking for.
- Global: Yahoo
- Local: YahooUK
E-mail
Mailing Lists
If you subscribe to a mailing list then you will receive the same broadcasts by e-mail as all other
members of the list (e.g., the Irish Emigrant newspaper mailing list). You will not be able to braodcast
to the list yourself, however, there is always the posibility of mailing the list administrator to ask that
something be posted to other members of the list.
Discussion Lists
These are like mailing lists in operation except that all subscribers are invited to post messages. They are
forums for discussion. All messages posted to the list are mailed to all subscribers (assuming that they
pass the monitor).
- Unmonitored: Mail sent to the list by subscribers is sent automatically to all subscribers.
- Monitored: Mail sent to the list by subscribers is monitored by the list administrator and is
sometimes not distributed.
Newsgroups
Like discussion lists except there is no process of subscription, nor is there a mailing list. Newsgroups
are located virtually and can be viewed at your discretion. Anyone is free to look at any newsgroup.
Messages are archived. Anyone can post anything to any newsgroup. Many people send bulk e-mails to
disparate groups. Being in a specialist group does not necessarily protect you from anyone who thinks
you will be interested in some product or their opinion about Elvis.
Public Access Newsgroups on the Web:
by Yahoo (e.g.
FEEDME)
To read about the nature of different newsgroups, look at this page
here.
Gopher
A forerunner of the web. One way of archiving data.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
A way of downloading information. It is also possible to download web pages and images directly
from Web browsers.
IRC, talk, Webtalk, Video Conferencing
Ways of communicating with people in real time.
Other Introductions
-
Frames of Interaction.
An overview of the range of social interaction media
available on the net: email, discussion lists, conferencing systems
(particularly Usenet), MUDs, chat (particularly IRC), graphical "worlds".
-
Internet Environments
-
Interaction Media
- student projects on the IRC, MUDs and "chatting".
24 February '98
