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by Gert Gast
The toddler is growing up. Download speeds
on the web aren't frustrating anymore. Patiently we wait for
the mini-multimedia show which some cyberapplet promises.
With a grin on our face we watch thousands of quirky little
gif animations and are delighted by every squeaky sound and
shoddy video wobble coming down the pipe.
The search engines aren't search engines anymore, they are
Formula I racing cars with knowledgeable drivers. Also we
all know now where to go and aren't lost anymore in cyberspace.
Thanks to corporate Internet from Yahoo to Netscape/AOL and
Microsoft it's now an all in one-stop shop. On a few pages
there's everything, easily and conveniently, from stockmarket
to chocolate angels. And yet ... something else is changing
quietly and quickly. The toddler is starting to get chatty.
A new generation of internet users is discovering, that internet
is not only a place to find good stuff but an even better
place to socialise and make friends.
How does that work ? As usual, little freely available helpers
on the Internet make it possible. Download mirabilis ICQ (
speak as 'I seek you' ) and you become part of an international
paging and messaging network. Instantly you know who of your
friends, business partners, colleagues or family members are
online with you and you can initiate live contact.
If you decide for a lenghty chat, go to the Palace, a graphical
chat environment about which TIME magazine, 9 Nov 1998, wrote:'
"Now cyberspace offers us the Palace, a planetwide sprawl
of loosely interconnected chat rooms that in the past few
months has spread like kudzu across the Net. Still haven't
designed your own home page on the Web? Don't sweat it. This
fall, at least, building your own palace is where it's at.
" Moving from ordinary chat into palacespace is like reading
an animated coloured comic-book instead of a phonebook. Suddenly
you're in a bar, on a beach, or in Xena's Warrior Palace.
Or you visit an art gallery with a few friends, or watch a
mini-cybershow together.
Wandering through these computer-generated spaces are avatars
("avs"), visual markers and you as visitor manhandle your
puppet and let it interact with others, creating a vibrant
community with its own language, social structure, and economy.
Wizards and gods keep order and help get newbies their feet
wet. For more on Palace checkout Mullumbimby Access Point
at www.mullum.com.au
We all are very communicative creatures and thrive on good
communication in business, study and private lives. In the
past internet could not provide that. Bandwidth and computing
power today, however, allow us to turn the Internet into a
buzzing world-wide marketplace, sharing our dreams and visions,
trading our goods and services, and having the unique opportunity
for diverse cultures to meet for peace and welfare of the
planet.
Gert Gast,
Internet Publisher
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