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A L S O__T O D A Y 21st Log CyberPatrol blocks a bookstore's catalogs - - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K Y2K: How bad will it really be? Defend or denounce apocalyptic visions of computer meltdowns and civil unrest in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y "We Were Burning" Reviewed by Andrew Leonard A new book tells us to forget about Japan Inc. -- Japanese entrepreneurs led the high-tech consumer electronic revolution (11/30/98) The 21st Challenge No. 16: Misdirected love notes By Charlie Varon and Jim Rosenau Answer the mystery e-mail -- win a prize (11/25/98) The Net never forgets By J.D. Lasica Everything you've ever posted online could come back to haunt you someday (11/25/98) Strange Web fellows? By Andrew Leonard What the AOL purchase of Netscape really means (11/24/98) Thought-activated computing By Sam Witt and Sean Durkin The brain/computer interface becomes real -- as a boon for the paralyzed (11/23/98) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.

THE BIRTH OF AN INTERNET NETWORK? | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - The trouble is, there's a good chance they're misreading the market. Consider the numbers for Yahoo, by most accountings the most popular site on the Web. If there were a true Internet-born-and-bred network, it would be Yahoo, not AOL. Yahoo is the company that started off as a project by a couple of grad students and grew as the Web itself grew, building a business exclusively on providing useful information and services to Net users. One reason so many people prefer Yahoo is that, better than any other "portal" site, it has found the right balance of no-nonsense information delivery and a level of marketing high enough to bolster the company's bottom line but not so aggressive as to drive users away in disgust and horror. Yahoo has a weekly "reach" of about 40 percent -- which means that in any given week even the Web's most popular site gets visited by a minority of Web surfers. In other words, Web use is radically decentralized in a way that TV watching never has been or could be. Commerce, online sales and ad-supported Web sites are a major part of the Internet's ecology, but there's a huge volume of Web traffic and Net activity -- by some counts, the majority -- that remains apart from this for-profit realm. So at best, a "network" on the Web is going to be a hobbled giant. Look at how today's big three TV networks are beginning to falter under the assault of dozens of alternative cable options. Then imagine how they'd fare if your TV screen brought you thousands or millions of alternatives, some supplied by big companies, some by small entrepreneurs, many by part-timers and amateurs and college students and kids. Individually none of these alternatives could ever attract more than a fraction of the audience of a true network; collectively, however, they dwarf the big boys. In the wake of the AOL-Netscape deal we have all heard a lot of puffery about how AOL is "the premier Internet media company" that, unlike geeky Silicon Valley companies like Netscape, "understands the consumer space." Led by former MTV honcho Robert Pittman, AOL may flatter itself that it has a deep understanding of what it likes to call "online programming." But AOL's unsteady record in assembling content for its users isn't what made it top of the online heap. And its obnoxious marketing tactics -- every time you log on to the service, you have to squash pop-up windows you never asked for touting products you don't need -- have not won the hearts of many customers. No, AOL's users have put up with its promotional onslaughts and service snafus for two reasons: One, AOL gets novices hooked up to the Internet with a minimum of technical fuss, and it still does so better than any other company; two, AOL provides the easiest and most convenient access to e-mail and chat for consumers who want just that and not much more from their online experience. AOL may have 15 million customers, but only a small fraction of them are using AOL's Web portal, buying products from Web malls or reading sites like Salon; most of them are chatting about TV shows or trolling for hot talk. Nothing wrong with that -- there's a business here, all right, but it's more like a telephone utility than a "media company." That's why I'm not lying awake at night worrying that the AOL-Netscape deal means (as Glenn Davis put it last week in Salon) "the death knell for the openness of the Web" -- or insisting, as Robert Scheer has, that the antitrust police step in and stop the merger. The new AOL-Netscape may present a more potent threat to Microsoft. It may build a bigger "reach" and pile up more Web traffic than before. It may accrue a bigger share of the least adventurous, most docile segment of the Net audience. It may even be able to squeeze out some less successful mid-size Net businesses, or force them into its orbit. But until it figures out a way to prevent people from leaving a bad Web site and clicking to one they like better -- or building one they like better -- it can't squash the medium's vitality or freeze its creative ferment. SALON | Dec. 1, 1998 E-mail Scott Rosenberg. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - R E L A T E D_.S A L O N_.S T O R I E S Strange Webfellows? What the AOL purchase of Netscape really means. By Andrew Leonard Nov. 24, 1998 The dumbing-down of programming, Part One Rebelling against Microsoft and its wizards, an engineer rediscovers the joys of difficult computing. By Ellen Ullman May 12, 1998