How to Get People to Visit Your Website

If you want to make money in any sort of way with a website, you have to get people (and lots of them) to visit. Whether you have paid advertising at your website, or products to sell, or just information designed to generate leads or orders, its all a numbers game. The more people you get to travel through your website, the more income you'll make. Thus, its crucial that you do two important things with your website: provide content that people will want to make the effort to see, and get the word out about your website.

PROVIDE IN-DEMAND CONTENT Lets suppose that you want to make money not by selling products or services from your website, but by selling advertising space to other businesses. You could easily create a classified ad website, or even a website with display ads. Big deal. Would you visit a website that was only classified ads more than once, out of curiosity? Probably not, unless...

A. Its devoted to a particular special interest. There are many websites with general classified advertising, very little focus. I don't look for many of these to generate a lot of long-term income for the person(s) who runs them. There are a few websites, however, with highly focused specialized advertising. These will, more likely, be successful (as long as they cater to a large enough group). For example, you could start a classified ad website devoted to buying and selling musical instruments. This would greatly interest any musician, who would tend to visit from time to time. The average person will, by nature, visit websites that cater to their individual interests more frequently than a generalized website that may or may not hold anything of interest to them. But, if the website only contains ads, just how often would they visit? Once a week? Once a month? You want them to visit as many times as possible. So, you need to provide...

B. Free worthwhile content. If your website is only ads, nothing else, then the only time people will want to visit is when they want to buy or sell something. That's ok, but wouldn't it be better if they wanted to visit ALL the time? You can accomplish this by providing good FREE informational content on your website, in addition to your ads. After all, this is how a traditional printed magazine or newspaper works: they provide information with the ads interspersed.

So, for the Musical Instrument Buy & Sell website, you could include relevant how-to articles written by yourself or others (put plenty of notes in your website requesting articles from readers - youll get submissions you can use, in return for free advertising or some other remittance that is low cost or no cost to you), short items of interest, etc. Change these frequently (and note on your website how frequently they change - this is important for drawing people back), so your visitors will have a reason to keep coming back.

To sum this section up, in order to have a website that people will want to keep returning to, you need to gear it towards a specific interest that appeals to a specific group of people (called targeting), and you need sprinkle it liberally with solid information that changes frequently. This will help take care of getting people to return. Now, how to get them to visit in the first place?

GET THE WORD OUT When you want to find a plumber, where do you look? In the phone book, of course. What if you want to find websites that have information about a subject you're interested in?

Luckily, the web has many phonebook-like databases which are relatively easy to get listed in. That way, when your potential visitors consult the phonebooks, your website will pop up in the list of their choices. The process of getting yourself listed in a search database varies from database to database. Usually, though, its just a matter of filling out a form with information about the content of your website, the URL (address), your name, etc. Each database is fairly clear about how to do this, with a link on their opening page to their respective how-to instructions.

Internet Marketing The Right Way

As with anything in life, there's a right way and a wrong way to use the Internet for marketing. It's especially important to know the difference at the beginning. Otherwise, you may make some mistakes which may jeopardize your chances at ever using the Internet for your business. Literally, you can be banned from the Internet. It's happened before. Don't let it happen to you promote your business the correct way, and you'll have a far better chance at finding success on the Internet.

MARKETING VIA EMAIL Email is the easiest method of Internet marketing for the beginner to understand, as it is so similar to "traditional" marketing methods. You're sending the prospect a marketing message, but instead of sending it through the regular mail, you're emailing it directly to them. It's quicker, cheaper, and more efficient.

Where do you find people to email your marketing message to? From other Internet marketing techniques that will be discussed later in this report. There is, though, one particular technique you should avoid. In the "real world," it's easy to rent a mailing list of people with a specific interest in the type of product or service you're selling. You can then send your marketing materials to the people on this list, feeling relatively sure that they may be interested in what you have to offer. It's hard to do this on the Internet, though, because of the sheer number of people accessing the Internet.

There are companies, though, that will do mass emailings for a price. One particular company advertises that they will send your marketing message to 6,000,000 email addresses for under $200. This naturally sounds attractive to the marketer in us how else could you contact so many people at such a low price?

Let's think about this, though. Is this a good deal? Maybe, maybe not. This is akin to sending your marketing message to everyone in the phone book. Probably 80 percent of the people will have no interest whatsoever in what you're selling. It's highly untargeted, which will result in low conversion percentages. More important, is it the right thing to do? NO

Mass emailing is called spamming, and it is the number one offense you can commit on the Internet. Most people have to pay for their Internet access, and many of them pay by the hour (and, thus, by the minute). Another large group of them have to call long distance, since they have no local access phone number. In other words, most of the people you send your mass email to are paying to download it and read it, without having requested it.

Now, most levelheaded people will see the first few lines of the email, recognize it as an unrequested marketing message, and will delete it without thinking twice. There are people out there, though, that take it as a personal affront, an invasion of their privacy, and a waste of their money to receive your spammed email. They will respond vigorously with pranks and threats. If you've put your phone number in your email, you will receive a ton of phone calls at all times of the night. If you've included your mailing address, you may find that your address has been passed on to military recruiters, religious organizations, pornographers, and all other kinds of people whom you may not want to receive mail from. At the very least, you should expect a flood of email full of complaints and vulgarities to your own email address. I've even heard of people replying to spammed emails with hundreds of pages of the same four letter word repeated over and over, so the "spammer" can get a taste of their own medicine.

It's up to you whether you want to market your business this way. I acknowledge that a marketing message going out to 6,000,000 people is bound to bring in some sales. However, you take the risk of receiving a lot of complaints and wasted time, as well as the possibility of losing your Internet access completely. How? You could receive so many replied emails that your service provider's computer system will get jammed up, preventing other customers from being able to use the Internet. Your provider will politely ask you to go elsewhere for your Internet access, and your name will go on a list of spammers which is circulated amongst Internet providers. You may find yourself unable to get Internet access in the future. It's up to you.

MARKETING VIA USENET NEWSGROUPS Usenet newsgroups are individual special interest bulletin boards. You can post a question, an answer, information, whatever, to a newsgroup, and anyone else can read it. Likewise, you can read anyone else's postings. This is a heavily used area for information sharing. Used correctly, it can also be a successful marketing opportunity.

Before we go on, you should know that very few newsgroups accept blatant advertising. This is a very subtle

Technique that may take a few tries to perfect. The key is to frequent the newsgroups that have a connection to your products or services (if you're selling information that is helpful for small business owners, for example, then you should look for newsgroups that small business owners would read), and present pertinent useful information or answers to questions, and include a short marketing message in your sig. Your sig is your "signature" at the end of your posting. It can be up to six lines long (though a four line maximum is more universally "acceptable"), and can contain information on how to contact you (email, phone, and otherwise), as well as some short information about your business. Readers who are interested in hearing more about what you have to offer can then contact you. At that point, feel free to give them whatever marketing information you'd like; they requested it.

You will have the most success with this technique if you: a) stay "on-topic" in your postings - don't answer someone's question with a one-line answer, only to launch into a two-page sales letter, let your sig do the work; and b) don't overdo it - you should have the mindset that you are trying to help the readers of the newsgroup, and, afterwards, get the word out about your business, not the other way around.

A good idea would be to request and read the FAQ (frequently asked question list) from every newsgroup you plan to post in. That way, you will know their exact policy on advertising, information that may be included in a sig, the exact topics they cover, etc. This will prevent any postings that are "against the rules."

MARKETING VIA WORLD WIDE WEB The World Wide Web offers the most flexible solution for marketing on the Internet. You are free to put up whatever information you'd like, in whatever quantity you'd like. After all, you're the one paying for the space. Plus, you can put links on your pages so people can instantly send an email to you for more information, you can have forms for them to fill out, you can even take orders on your pages.

Preparing content for the web can be very easy. In many cases, you can use the same materials you use in your printed mailings. Of course, they will have to be converted to the HTML document markup language that web pages are made of. This is not difficult to do yourself, once you've learned how. If you don't want to learn how, if you don't have a scanner for importing any images from your marketing materials, or if you want a sophisticated website with forms and product order-taking and/or delivery capabilities, you should choose a professional website designer to take care of it for you.

Of course, there's more to it than just putting up your website: you need to promote it. Luckily, this is easy to do. There are over a dozen "search engines" (databases of websites) on the web, each of which you can submit information about your website to. All it entails is accessing the website of each search engine, and reading the details on submissions. If you have a professional design your website, see if they include this in their services - a good web designer will make this a part of the package. And don't confine your publicizing to online. Be sure to promote your website in the "real world" through paid advertising, press releases, etc., just like a product. You will need to ensure that people who visit your website will want to come back frequently. Do this by changing your content on a regular basis. For example, if you have informational reports that they can download for free, rotate the reports so new ones are available at least every two weeks. Contests can be a good idea, too. For example, give a free product to the person who collects all the clues that you sprinkle throughout your website over a two month period.

Put these techniques together, and you'll have an Internet marketing machine!

E-Mail, Auto responders, Information-on-Demand

Anyone who's used a fax-on-demand system knows how wonderful they are for both the customer and the business. If you need information, you can get it 24 hours a day with one phone call. If you're a business, you can provide your customers with detailed documents anytime they want, with no intervention on your part. It's a win-win situation.

There's a similar win-win situation on the Internet, and it's called an auto responder (some people also call it a mail-bot, as in mail-robot). This is basically a fax-on-demand system, but it communicates via email instead of over the phone line.

Here's an example of how an auto responder works: Suppose you sell audio cassettes and compact disks over the Internet. Rather than putting an extensive catalog on your website or as a printed booklet in the mail, you can make your catalog available from an auto responder. If someone wants your catalog, they just have to send an email to your auto responder's address ( catalog@musicstore.com, for instance). Within minutes (usually, within seconds, in fact), your catalog is automatically emailed to the customer. It doesn't matter if it's 2:00 pm or 2:00 am, or what corner of the world they're in - it's totally automatic.

Here's the best part. Most auto responders will, at the same time, also send an email to you with the customer's email address. That way, you have a record of how many people requested your catalog and when, and you can follow up via email. Fax-on-demand can't even do that!

How much does this cost? Well, like anything, the cost varies from provider to provider. An auto responder may be included with your basic Internet service. If not, you can purchase the use of an auto responder on a monthly basis from literally dozens of sources. You should figure on a $5 to $10 setup fee, and $5 to $10 per month for each auto responder you rent. If you pay more than this, you may be paying too much. Shop around.

So, how hard is it to set an auto responder up? Not hard at all. Once your provider has everything ready on their end, all you need to do is provide the information that will be sent to inquiries. This can be done by sending a printed document to your provider, by emailing the information, or by FTP'ing (uploading) the document directly. Check with your provider for their individual policy. Once your document is in place, there may be an activation code you need to send. After that, you're ready to go. That's it! What if you want more than one auto responder? There are two options. First, you can rent more than one auto responder. If you do this, each will have a separate email address (your catalog might be catalog@musicstore.com, your return policy might be return@musicstore.com). This is the usually the easiest and least expensive option, if you only plan on having a few documents, at most.

If you'd like to have many documents that your customers can access, you consider using a mail server. These are generally more expensive, however, they have a number of unique advantages. First, each document will have the same email address. To signify which document to send, the customer puts "send" and the document name in the body of the email (for example, send catalog or send return). This is an advantage, as customers don't have to remember a bunch of different email addresses.

Second, if you have twenty documents, and you want to add another, it's usually far cheaper to add the document to a mail server than it is to get another auto responder. Economy of scale is the advantage here - you're using a larger quantity, so you get a better deal.

Mail server pricing varies wildly, and the setup charge can be high, so, as with auto responders, shop around. Also, be sure this is what you really want to do. If you're starting out with one or two documents, and you aren't sure that you'll have more, go with individual auto responders instead of a mail server. You can always upgrade.

To find auto responder/mail server providers, check the various search databases (Yahoo, etc.). Use these words for your searches: provider, auto responder, mail server, and email. If your Internet Service Provider doesn't offer them, at least ask them for any recommendations or referrals, as they may have someone they regularly work with that can give you a price break.

Should I Do Business on The Internet?

The popular news media has been glutted with stories about the Internet, so glutted that many people are
skeptical about what the Internet can do for their businesses. This is understandable. Everyone is saying that the
Internet is the "market of the future," that if you don't get your business on the Internet, you'll be left behind. What
none of them seem to want to tell you are the real reasons you should do business on the Internet. Before I do
that, though, let me dispel some inaccuracies that I've seen in many ads, flyers, and sales letters.

The most common piece of information quoted about the Internet, particularly by people who are trying to sell
Internet "home pages" to business opportunists, is that the Internet is the most expansive market in the world, with
estimates of 30,000,000 people or more currently using it, and tens of thousands more joining in weekly. Well, this
is partly true, but not really 100% true.

The first question you have to ask is where the 30,000,000 number came from. Personally, I don't know. However,
I do know that studies are showing a truer estimate is closer to 12,000,000. Where are the missing people?
Well, a lot of hypesters count every single person who's on an online service such as America Online or
Compuserve as being on the Internet. Unfortunately, not everyone on the online services uses the Internet. Many
of them are content to remain in the "enclosed" portion of the online services, rather than venture out into the web.
If they're only interested in stock quotes, or downloading files, they may never access the Internet (though they
should - they'd find more and better material!).

Also, many people try online services, find they aren't interested, and drop the service after their "free trial month."
The hypesters count these people as being among the fabled 30,000,000, as well as being part of the tens of
thousands signing up weekly. They shouldn't.

Another interesting tidbit I've seen frequently is something along the lines of "you can easily sell anything on the
Internet." Well, I don't know about that. While I've seen plenty of success stories about people selling tons of
personalized T-shirts, coffee mugs, books, cookies, vacuum cleaners, antiques, and other "hard goods," I know
that the percentage of success stories on the Internet are still far lower than in the "real world." The truth is, if you
want to sell a product on the Internet and be successful, you should be able to not only sell the product, but also
deliver the product on the Internet. Thus, information products are the best items to sell over the Internet. You can
sell the other products I named above, as well as a myriad of others, but it's tougher. Why? Because of the number
of people on the Internet, that's why.

Many hypesters make a point of the huge numbers of people on the Internet. This can work against you, because
it makes it tough to target your market. Just because there's 12,000,000 people out there doesn't mean that all
12,000,000 are interested in buying an antique chair from you. In fact, maybe only ¼% would be interested. That's
still a very respectable 30,000 people, and if you could sell 30,000 antique chairs, I'm sure you'd make a great deal
of money. However, you need to reach those 30,000 people with your message.

In the "real world," it might be easy to reach those people wanting an antique chair by advertising in
antique-related publications. That's targeted marketing. However, on the Internet, things work in reverse. In the
real world, the antique publication is delivered to the people. On the Internet, those people need to seek you out.
Thus, if you want to market on the Internet, you'd better be willing to work the "publicity machine," with entries in
online databases, advertising, press releases, etc. It's just like in the real world. Just because you put a home
page on the Internet, you aren't necessarily going to get rich overnight.

So, now that I've probably discouraged you, I'll again ask the question that's posed in the title of this report: should
you do business on the Internet?
YES!

How can I say that after sounding so much doom and gloom? Well, even if there are only 12,000,000 people on
the Internet instead of 30,000,000, that's still a large group of people, and thousands are joining their ranks all the
time. There's bound to be some people who are interested in what you have to sell.

Plus, it's the way of the future. Wal-Mart has just announced that they plan to make all of the products you'd find in
a typical Wal-Mart store available for purchase over the Internet. It might be awhile before that happens, but if it's
ok for Wal-Mart, it should be ok for you.

Another good reason is the equalizing factor of the Internet. Even if you're just running a small business from a

single bedroom in your house, you can compete on even ground with a large corporation. If your website is designed well, you can be as impressive looking and as technologically advanced (maybe even more - there are a lot of major corporations with crummy looking websites out there).

If you're on the Internet, you're poised to have instantaneous contact with your prospective and current customers. Through the use of email and autoresponders, you can deliver product information around the world for little or no cost 24 hours a day. You can't do that on the phone or through the mail.

If you're on the Internet, you can greatly expand your market. If you're only marketing locally, you can now market nationally. If you're currently marketing nationally, you're now in the International market with the Internet. As long as you have a product or service that is useful to people in other countries, you have a chance at expanding your profit base. Don't forget the publicity factor behind being on the Internet. Having an Internet website for your business is still a status symbol, if you will. Once you're online, put your email and website addresses on your business cards, your letterhead, your envelopes, everything. Also, send out press releases to your local press and any other publications applicable to your line of work, letting them know about your website. It might be deemed newsworthy, and you'll get some free publicity for your website, as well as a bit of status from being "technologically advanced."

Finally, if you are selling information products, you can deliver the product immediately to your customer, and you'll have no printing expense, no delivery expense, nothing. That's a great profit margin. You need to go into the Internet with a clear head. Forget those overinflated promises and numbers that the hucksters are spouting. If it sounds like hype, and it smells like hype, it's hype, pure and simple. And very few things have generated the unadulterated hype that the Internet has. However, there are a lot of good, solid reasons to have your business on the Internet. You can be up in a week... so start today!

How to Find Anything on The Internet (Part 2)

FILE SEARCHES

Searching for a website is fairly easy. Searching for a single file or program across the wide expanse of the
Internet is another story.
Suppose you want to find a specific program, say a budget calculator you read about in a magazine review. You
know the name of the program (for this example, "budcalc.zip"), but you forgot where you could download it from,
and you can't find the article. Time to use a file searcher such as Gopher, Archie, Veronica, or WAIS.

Gopher is a document search and retrieval system on the Internet. It's fairly easy to use and doesn't require
special software. Basically, it's a menu-driven system that narrows down what you're looking for, then tells you
where you can find it. It is by no means comprehensive, and the results vary from Gopher listing to Gopher listing
(there are hundreds of them), but you'll usually find something close to what you're looking for.

To use Gopher, you must first access a Gopher site. Gopher site URLs look similar to website URLs, with the
exception that "gopher" replaces "http." You'll commonly find Gopher sites through university and government
Internet sites. The University of Southern California's Gopher site is a good one to start out with:
gopher://cwis.usc.edu

When you access a Gopher site, as noted earlier, you'll be presented with a menu of choices. Select the choice
that is closest to what you are looking for, and you will be presented with another menu of choices. Each menu you
reach will be narrower than the preceding one. In this way, you can manually "zero in" on the information you're
looking for.

For a complete guide on how to use Gopher, access this FTP site:
ftp://ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu/internet/gophern/

If you want an automated search that you don't have to manually work through, try Archie. Archie is a system
developed by two graduate students that scans FTP sites (which contain downloadable files) for the program you
want. In order to use Archie, you'll need Archie software. America Online and Compuserve are implementing
Archie, and should have it by the time you read this. If you are accessing the Internet on your own through a
SLIP/PPP connection, check with the manufacturer of your Internet software and/or your Internet service provider
for the program you should use. You should be able to get an Archie program as shareware.

Be forewarned, an Archie search can take a long time. Also, when our example search is completed, we have a
list of FTP sites that contain any file called "budcalc.zip." We won't have any descriptions, so we just have to
access an FTP site from the list, download "budcalc.zip," and hope it's the proper program. If not, try another site.

Veronica is an Archie-like search tool that works with the Gopher system. When you go through the Gopher
menus, you'll probably see references to Veronica searches. If you select a Veronica search, you will be Telnet'ed
into a computer containing Veronica software. You can then execute a search as you would with Archie.

The final file search tool is WAIS, which stands for Wide Area Information Servers. A WAIS search produces
results that are scored as to the similarity with your search criteria. For example, if you were searching for a
particular phrase ("To be, or not to be, that is the question," for example), your first reference in the results might
have a score of 1000. That means that the reference (probably a Shakespeare-related site or file) contains the
exact phrase you entered. Other references with less precision will follow.

Finally, if you don't want to use a search tool, and are just looking for files, there are a number of Internet sites that
contain huge numbers of files ready for downloading. Many of these sites include file descriptions, but some do
not. Here are just a few examples of some of the "file dumps" on the Net:

C-NET SEARCH: http://www.shareware.com
FILEPILE: http://www.filepile.com
JUMBO: http://www.jumbo.com/
SHARE: http://www.fagg.uni-lj.si/SHASE/
SIMTEL MIRROR: ftp://oak.oakland.edu

How to Find Anything on The Internet (Part 1)

Millions of people are accessing the Internet, and at least half of them put up "home pages" and websites, as well
as information files. That being the case, you'd think that the Internet would be a veritable encyclopedia, and you'd
be right. However, there's one small problem...

The Internet is somewhat of a chaotic mess.

This can wreak havoc on the inexperienced Net surfer who needs information and needs it now. However, if you
know the secrets, you can get around pretty well on the Internet, with the bonus of being able to find the
information you want, when you want it.

Website Search Databases

The first stop on your information-gathering expedition should be a search database. These are like the cardfiles
(or, more likely, the computer terminals) at your local library, and contain the URL's, or addresses, of thousands of
websites. You can search for websites simply by entering a word or words pertaining to the information you want
to find.

For example, suppose I'm writing a magazine article on the deforestation of South America, and I'd like to see
what information I can find on that subject on the Internet. My first stop would be the most often used (and,
arguably, the most comprehensive) search database, Yahoo. You can access Yahoo by typing this URL into your
web browser: http://www.yahoo.com
Yahoo is very simple to use. When you access this website, you will be presented with a box to type your search
words in, and a clickable button which will start the search. In this example, I might type "deforestation" into the
box and would then click the button. In a few seconds, I will be presented with every record in the Yahoo database
that contains the word "deforestation," whether or not it deals with South America (since I didn't specify South
America in the search box).

At this point, I can manually look through the entries for the ones I want to investigate further, or I can do a new
search (by typing "deforestation South America" in the search box) to weed out the records I don't want. If I see a
record I want to investigate, I can click on the record, and I will be transported to that website. It couldn't be easier!

A few guidelines to keep in mind while using search databases:

>Be as specific as possible in your search criteria, or you will be presented with a ton of records to look through.

>No search database contains every reference to a particular subject. In most cases, the only way a database will
have a record on a particular website is if someone specifically submitted information to the database. So, it pays
to search more than one database, if you want more information.

>Be careful with the words you search by. Some databases will look only for records that contain all the words you
typed in, some will look for any record that contains one or more of the words you type in. In the example above, if I
used a database that uses the latter method, I would receive all the records that contain "south" and "america"
anywhere in their description. This would be a ridiculously long list!

Here's a list of the most commonly used search databases, and their URL's:
APOLLO: http://apollo.co.uk/
GALAXY: http://galaxy.einet.net/
HARVEST: http://harvest.cs.colorado.edu/
INFOSEEK: http://www.infoseek.com/
LINKSTAR: http://www.opentext.com:8080/
LYCOS: http://www.lycos.com/
PRONET: http://www.pronett.com/
STARTING POINT: http://www.stpt.com/
WEBCRAWLER: http://webcrawler.com/
WHAT'S NEW TOO: http://newtoo.manifest.com/WhatsNewToo/
WHOLE INTERNET CATALOG: http://gnn.com/gnn/wic/index.html
YAHOO: http://www.yahoo.com

Common Internet Myths

As with any other "hot topic," the Internet has been the victim of more than its share of myths, superstitions, and falsehoods. The media hasn't helped, to be sure, but uninformed people are just as much at fault. These rumors, if left to fester, will do nothing but damage the reputation of the Internet and those that use it. This report will debunk three of the most common rumors being spread about the Internet.

>Myth #1: The Internet is just a garbage dump of pornography, pedophiles, and other miscreants.

Untrue! While I will concede that there is some unsavory material available on the Internet, it is nowhere near as prevalent as the rumors would lead you to believe.

First, the percentage of material that would normally be considered objectionable is quite the minimum. While it's impossible to estimate the exact amount, my guess would be 1/2%, at most. In other words, no worse than your local bookstore that might have a copy of "The Joy Of Sex" and Playboy for sale. While even that much is too much for some people, most people would agree that it really isn't a problem.

In 1995, though, Time Magazine cited a study by a university freshman for their cover story on Internet pornography. This article grabbed headlines everywhere with its statistics showing huge amounts of child pornography, bestiality, and other sickness travelling across the Internet. What the article didn't tell you was that the statistics weren't based on any credible study, but were estimates that this one freshman, who went on to write a book about how to "pick up women online," had pulled off the top of his head. The study that the article was based on has been 100% discredited, and Time even published a large correction and apology soon afterward. Unfortunately, the rumor was in place by that time, and the retraction didn't get as many headlines as the original article did.

Second, a good percentage of people can't even access areas of the Internet that contain objectionable material. This is because those areas are blocked out by many Internet service providers. These providers either have a moral objection to making those areas available, or they don't want to leave themselves open for any legal issues. Thus, the people who have their Internet connections via these providers don't have to worry about encountering material they dislike.

Finally, if you have a child in the house who's allowed to access the Internet, parental responsibility comes into play. Just as you would make sure that your child isn't at the bookstore mentioned earlier, reading materials you would find objectionable, you should make sure that they aren't able to access raw areas of the Internet. How can you accomplish this?

>Use a service provider that does not allow access to these areas.

>Only allow your child to use an online service such as America Online, which has parameters you can set in order to screen out areas you don't like.

>Use a software program such as SurfWatch, which blocks out areas of the World Wide Web and other parts of the Internet that contain objectionable materials. SurfWatch has a subscription updating system that makes sure your child is always blocked from those areas.

Unfortunately, if you don't like sexually-oriented material, there's not much you can do to prevent it from being posted on the Internet. The Internet is a true bastion of free speech, and with that, comes that possibility that something you might not like will occasionally appear. If you attempt to censor the areas you don't like so that others can't see them, others will censor areas they don't like, so that you can't see them. These might be politically-oriented areas, or other socially acceptable areas that promote opinions others don't like. If it were even physically possible to censor the Internet (and it isn't, whatever politicians try to tell you), there would be such an outcry that it would never happen. Suffice it to say, though, that the sexually-oriented materials online are a severe minimum of what's available, and little, if any, truly perverted material ever makes it online.

>Myth #2: It isn't safe to send your credit card number across the Internet.

Yes and no. This is another area that has been unfairly exploited by the media. There are certain precautions you can take to ensure safety when paying for a product online. The advent of secure servers stands to change the way commerce is conducted on the Internet. The server is the primary connection to the Internet at your service

provider's location. Secure servers use encryption to ensure that anything that might be intercepted would be useless, as it would be scrambled. If you're accessing a website stored on a secure server, there will be some indication, which varies from program to program, that shows it's secure (Netscape Navigator, for example, has a broken key in the lower left corner for non-secure servers, unbroken for secure).

One thing to realize, however, is that you really aren't that much at risk if you transmit your credit card number through a non-secure server. Here's what someone would have to do in order to steal your credit card number from an email message: they'd have to intercept the single message that contains your information at the exact right time. Chances of that actually happening are low.

In fact, after doing some independent research, I wasn't able to find any instances of this happening. The credit card thefts that have occurred over the Internet have been mass thefts from banking and online service computer systems that contain databases of customer information. Wouldn't that make more sense, anyway? If you were a thief, would you rather spend a large amount of time trying to intercept individual emails, or spend a short amount of time accessing a single source where you could get hundreds or thousands of card numbers, all in one shot? True, criminals aren't always logical, but most of them want to do as little work as possible.

What it boils down to is that sending your credit card via email probably is no riskier than giving your information over the phone to an operator at a catalog company. After all, someone could be listening in on the phone call, or the person at the other end of the line (or someone else in that office) might be running a credit card fraud business on the side. Secure servers just enhance the safety.

>Myth #3: The Internet is a hostile place for newcomers. False, false, false! The only way you'll catch any guff as a newcomer is if you don't use common sense and jump into things without knowing the proper procedures. As long as you know some basic information, you'll do fine on the Internet.

Just like in the real world, if you don't know how to do something, read the directions first. Almost all Usenet groups and email lists have what are called FAQs, which stands for Frequently Asked Questions. These documents will contain all the basic information you need to know before participating in that discussion group.

For example, suppose you want to participate in the fictitious Usenet discussion group Alt.Fan.Redbirds , a group which talks about your favorite rock group, the Redbirds. The FAQ for that group might have the biographies of each member (so people won't be asking the same "where was the lead singer born" questions all the time), a list of all their records, and any other basic information about the group. Having this information in an accessible document prevents discussions from getting bogged down with the same subjects over-and-over. Also, you'll find information in the FAQ about who the moderator (basically, the boss) of the group is, procedures for posting messages, subjects that are welcomed or should not be discussed in that group, etc. You'll save yourself a lot of grief by reading through the FAQ first thing!

How do you know where the FAQ is? That brings us to the second important skill Internet newcomers must have and use: the ability to ask. Just ask someone in the group, they'll tell you. They won't "bite off your head" or make fun of you because you're new. In fact, almost all discussion groups on the Internet welcome newcomers, because they bring with them a fresh perspective on whatever topic is being discussed. Just post your first message as a short introduction of yourself, along with a request for directions to the FAQ. Check back tomorrow, and you'll probably have a response, whether by email or posted in the Usenet group itself.

Read through this FAQ. If you need more help, contact the group's moderator by email. Either the moderator will volunteer to help, or you'll be given an email address of someone who can help you.

The Internet is, for the most part, a friendly place. And, if you're still nervous about dealing with the "old timers" on the Internet, remember this: they were "newbies" once, too!

Netiquette - Watching Your Online P's & Q's

An easy mistake that many Internet "newbie's" make is to forget what the Internet is. The Internet is, for lack of a better way to classify it, a computer network that many people are using all at once. The key word is people.

 

It's very easy, since you aren't face to face, to forget that people make up the entire Internet. And, as such, you should conduct yourself as good as, or better than, you would when face to face. Manners are just as important online as in the "real world."

 

Probably the easiest way to give guidelines for good Internet etiquette, or "netiquette," is to show some examples of the wrong way to act. First, and foremost, the worst thing you can possibly do online, that will rile the most people, is spam.

 

When you talk about spam in connection with the Internet, you aren't talking about the meat product by Hormel.

Spamming is sending large quantities of unwanted, unrequested emails, usually containing marketing messages, as well as mass postings to Usenet groups (commonly called cross-posting). It's the online equivalent to sending a mass mailing via carrier route, so that everyone at every house gets a copy. The difference is that, in the offline world, you pay for your mass mailing. Online, the recipient pays, whether through the wasted time it takes to receive your email, or through the fee they pay to access the Internet. While spamming is easy to do, and sounds attractive to the marketer in us, it is definitely the wrong thing to do, and you will be retaliated against, if you do it.

 

Retaliation for spamming comes in a variety of flavors. For one thing, your mass Usenet group postings may be cancelled by some self-appointed guardians of the Internet who have the technical wizardry to intercept your unwanted messages. They will always send you an email explaining why they did what they did, and, for the most part, they are very fair in doing what they do.

 

Individuals who are aggravated by your postings and emails may encourage others to reply to your emails en masse, filling your email box and clogging up your service provider's computers. This has happened many times, with spammers receiving literally thousands of email replies and service providers closing the spammer's account.

Even worse, some individuals with the proper know-how will look up whatever information they can get on you (personal phone numbers, etc.), and will mass post it, so other aggravated individuals can pester the life out of you. True, it's vigilante justice, but, in the unregulated world of the Internet, it works, and most people don't frown on it one bit. So, in other words, don't spam!

 

How else can you irritate large numbers of people online? Well, one way is to overtly criticize other people's opinions, taking things to a personal level. This is known as flaming. Here's an example: entering a Usenet group consisting of Macintosh users, and posting a message calling them idiots for using a Macintosh. You're going to get the same treatment as a spammer, and for good reason: they feel the same way you would if someone called you an idiot for using a PC. As I said earlier, never forget that there's a person on the other end of the line. It's alright to have a lively discussion online, but focus on the subject, and think before you post. It's a lot easier to say

something degrading to or about someone when you're online and not face to face.

 

One of the things you will undoubtedly do while online is download files. Some of these files will be large. If you download, for example, a large game file at 2:00 in the afternoon from a University computer, you're tying up a spot where a student could be. Use your head, and download unimportant and/or large files outside of regular business hours, the time when others have important work to be done.

When you send email, you can have what's called a sign (short for signature) at the end of your message. This should be no longer than 4 to 6 lines, preferably as short as possible, and can include information on how to contact you, a very brief description of your business, etc. Want to really get people's goats? Make your sign larger than the emails message itself. Make it a whole page long with all kinds of cute graphics made from letters, and lines of witty sayings. See, the longer the email, the more bandwidth (the capacity of the network at any one time)

it takes, and the longer it takes for the recipient to download it upon receipt. The Internet, vast though it is, only has a limited capacity for carrying data. Even though one person could never fill up the bandwidth, excessive junk in your email is still frowned upon.

 

Another great way to hog bandwidth is to place huge, unnecessary graphics on your Web page. Graphics take a long time to download, and, besides chewing up bandwidth, it frustrates the person trying to view your website.

You must remember that most of the people accessing the World Wide Web are still using 14,400 bps modems (many still use 9,600 bps), and graphically intensive web pages can take five minutes or longer to download, all on the recipient's dime. This is an easy sin to be guilty of - even corporations do it (see the Oracle Corporation website at http://www.oracle.com for a good example - unless you have a fast connection or your turn the images off in your browser, it will take you forever to get anywhere).

 

Suppose you receive an email from someone, and you want to reply to it. In most email programs, you have the ability to include in your reply parts of the message you received. This helps fight confusion as emails go back and forth. However, be sure you delete any nonessential parts of the original message. If your reply deals with one paragraph out of the entire message, then keep that paragraph, but don't include the entire email you received in your reply! This just wastes the recipient's time. Taking care of this problem is simple: judicious use of your delete

key while replying to emails.

 

If you are posting a message to a Usenet group or an email mailing list, in which multiple people receive messages, be sure to identify your opinions and humor. If you make a strong statement, preface it with "in my opinion." If you use sarcasm, make sure that it's verbally understood that you are being sarcastic and not degrading or disagreeable. Remember, people can't hear your tone of voice online, and they can't see your facial expressions, both of which are key factors in understanding underlying meanings to what we say. Express yourself, but also define your expression. This takes practice, but it's easy to learn.

 

What should you do if someone sends you a derogatory message (whether or not they have a good reason)?

Here's what you shouldn't do: get all riled up and reply with as much vitriol as the sender used. I know, in the section on spamming, I said that people will do just that. Well, only a few people will, and those people would really probably be better off to ignore than respond. However, it will happen. Maybe you said something in a message that didn't quite come across the way you meant it. If that's the case, look at the problem with a clear head (sleep on it, if you have to). Then, reply with an apologetic message that explains what you were trying to say. Or, maybe

the person who emailed you is just a jerk. In that case, it's better just to ignore the email. Delete it from your system. Just like in the real world, some people online get their kicks from riling up other people.

 

Have you seen any trends emerging in this report? The trends are friendliness and consideration for others. The Internet is just like a big community and, like true communities, you need to work together. Keep things friendly, and if you make a mistake, own up to it with an apology. And don't take advantage of others online. This will only get you labeled as a troublemaker, and you could potentially lose your Internet access, or worse. People are even starting to get arrested for harassing others (or even stalking) online. Don't do it. Treat others the way you'd like to be treated yourself. It's the golden rule, and it applies as much online as offline.

How to Choose an Internet Service Provider

Choosing the computer hardware and software for Internet access is the easy part.

Selecting an Internet provider is the hard part. There are literally thousands of "onramps" to the Internet, each with their own pricing structures, advantages, and disadvantages. I'm not going to recommend any specific provider in this report.

Instead, I'll go through the steps you should take in order to weed out the providers who won't do the job for you, and find the ones that will.

 

First, you should know about the different types of accounts you can get. Not all service providers will be able to provide all types of accounts. The most common types of Internet accounts are (in relative order of expense):

 

>Email Only - As the name indicates, these accounts are only for sending and receiving email.

These accounts are rarely found today, accept in academic institutions.

 

>Terminal Dial-Up - A connection to another company's system, which, in turn, is connected to the Internet.

 

An example of this is the type of Internet access you have when you use a service like America Online or CompuServe.

SLIP/PPP Dial In - A more direct form of connection, you are connected to a computer with a dedicated connection to the Internet.

 

Dedicated - The most expensive type of connection, you are directly connected 24 hours a day to the Internet backbone with a phone line.

 

Which should you choose? It depends on your needs. I would recommend staying away from Email Only accounts, even if that's all you want, as you can usually enroll with America Online or CompuServe for the same money.

 

If you're only going to occasionally browse the World Wide Web, and will be putting very little, if any, material up on the Internet for viewing or downloading, your best bet may be America Online or CompuServe. However, if you plan to do more serious work on the Internet, including a website for your business, you should get a SLIP/PPP account.

 

To identify which SLIP/PPP Internet provider to sign up with, you should start locally. Check with local computer stores and computer user groups for the phone numbers of Internet providers within your local calling radius. Call them and get all the details on their services:

 

>How much they charge - Many will charge a flat rate per month, others will charge a per hour fee, still others will have a combination of both. Some offer lower rates if you pay in advance.

 

>How many hours of access you get - Most will have a time limit per month, while others offer unlimited access.

 

>How much storage space - If you want to have a website for your business, you'll need storage space on your Internet provider's hard drive. How much you need depends on your plans, but 58 MB should be sufficient for most people.

 

>What "extras" do they offer? - Do they provide all the software you'll need, or are you left to fend for yourself?

What kind of technical support is available? Do they have a "secure server" (one that can safely be used to send and receive credit card numbers and other sensitive information - important if you want to do business on the Internet)? Do they have auto responders?

 

Write all of this information down for each local provider. Next, check the "big" national providers. They can be found advertising in computer and Internet-related magazines. They may have lower rates than the local providers, but they may have two disadvantages: you may have to make a long distance call, which negates the lower rate; and, technical service may be hard to reach, due to volume of calls.

 

If you have friends who are on the Internet, ask for their experiences with their providers. And, if you can get on the Internet locally (at your library or a local school, for instance), check out The List, which can be found on the World

Wide Web at http://www.thelist.com

 

This database contains information on thousands of Internet providers nationwide and worldwide, including pricing, features, local calling information, even comments from users (the most valuable information). Weigh all this information, and take your time. Which provider to use is an important decision.

More Internet Terms & Definitions

MODEM: Modulator Demodulator. The card that allows your computer to connect to the phone line and communicate with other computers. Mosaic: The first major browser, now losing popularity to Netscape Navigator. Netscape: Makers of Navigator, the most popular and most flexible browser. Highly recommended. Newbie: Someone who is new to the Internet. PPP: Point To Point Protocol. Faster than SLIP, this method of communications sends TCP/IP information across a line attached directly to the Internet. Protocol: A method or language of communication. Search Database: An "address book" for the World Wide Web. In general, you type in the topic you're interested in, and the database will provide a list of all of the locations it has that meet your requirements. The most well-known search database is Yahoo. Server: The computer hardware that stores your home page, and sends and receives information through the World Wide Web. This hardware is maintained by the Webmaster at your Internet Service Provider. Shockwave: A helper co-developed by Netscape and Macromedia, which allows animations and interactive Programs to be embedded into HTML pages. Requires Netscape Navigator browser for viewing "Shocked" Documents, and Macromedia Director, a high-end multimedia development program, for developing "Shocked" Documents. Sign: Your signature at the end of an email or Usenet posting. Signs commonly consist of up to four to six lines, and can contain whatever you'd like, usually your email and/or other contact information, very brief information about Your business, even just a witty or humorous phrase. SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol. Communications method that allows a computer to use TCP/IP over a telephone line. SPAM: Unwanted, unrequested mass "junk" email. TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol. Software that allows your computer to communicate on the Internet. Telnet: A method of remotely "logging on" to a computer system across the Internet, as if your computer and the other were directly connected. Upload: Transferring a file from your computer to another computer. URL: Uniform Resource Locator. Simply put, this is the address of a site on the World Wide Web. Here's an example URL: http://www.schma.com/home/index.htm The "http" stands for "hypertext transfer protocol"; "://" signals the beginning of the address; "www.schma.com" is the domain name, similar to a street address on the Internet; the "/home" tells the computer to look in the directory called "home"; and "index.htm" is the name of the HTML document to access. Usenet: A section of the Internet divided up into "newsgroups," or individual special interest bulletin boards. You can post a question, an answer, information, whatever, to a newsgroup, and anyone else can read it. Likewise, you can read anyone else's postings. This is a heavily used area for information sharing. VRML: Virtual Reality Markup Language. A still experimental website language developed as a replacement for HTML. At a VRML website, one can explore environments in three dimensions, and can interact with other people who are visiting the same site. VRML requires a special browser. Webmaster: The person at your Internet Service Provider who is responsible for maintaining the server. This is the person who can answer your service-related questions, such as what CGI scripts are supported. Website: A collection of HTML pages. Wide Area Network (WAN): Large computers linked together over a long distance via phone or wireless communication. World Wide Web (WWW, or Web): A section of the Internet containing "pages" of information, including text, photos, graphics, audio, and video. You can search for documents by using one of the many search databases. To access the web, you must use a browser. Yahoo: The most famous and, arguably, the most comprehensive of all search databases on the World Wide Web. Yahoo's URL is http://www.yahoo.com.

Introduction To Internet Terms

The Internet brings with it a whole language of its own. This report explains the meaning of the terms most

commonly used. Many of these definitions rely on other terms for their explanations, so terms defined elsewhere in

this report are in italics.

There are a lot of terms here, and some can be a bit technical. If you don't understand them at first reading, keep

this report handy as you start using the Internet. As you gain experience, the terms will begin to make sense.

Autoresponder: An email robot that sends replies automatically, without human intervention. For example, if you

had a page of marketing information, you could ask prospects to send email to " info@yourname.com," the address

of your autoresponder. The autoresponder will automatically email the person your information document. Many

autoresponders will, at the same time, send an email to you, listing the requester's address and the document they

requested. This is an important tool for conducting online commerce.

Backbone: The primary WAN of the Internet.

Browser: A program that allows you to access and read hypertext documents on the World Wide Web.

CGI Scripts: Programs that perform certain functions in connection with your HTML documents. For example, a

common CGI script is a counter, which keeps track of the number of people who access your home page. Many

CGI scripts are available for free use on the World Wide Web. Always check with your webmaster before using a

new CGI script.

Download: Transferring a file from another computer to your own.

Email: Electronic mail, a message sent to another Internet user across the Internet. An email address looks like

this: jimsmith@schma.com, whereas, "jimsmith" is your user name, your unique identifier; "@" stands for "at";

"schma.com " is the name of your Internet Service Provider. The most common email names of Internet Service

Providers are " aol.com" (America Online users), "compuserve.com" (Compuserve users), "prodigy.com" (Prodigy

users), and " ix.netcom.com" (Netcom users).

FTP: File Transfer Protocol. This is the Internet communication method that allows the transfer of a file from one

computer to another.

Gateway: See Internet Service Provider.

Gopher: An Internet tool that searches and retrieves specific documents based on your specifications.

Helpers: Programs that work together with your browser. For example, if you download an audio file, a separate

audio player (such as the Media Player that comes with Windows) is needed in order to play the audio file.

Home Page: Your primary HTML page, the first page anyone would see in your website.

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. The primary "language" that World Wide Web documents are created in.

HTML documents can, with practice, be created fairly easily from scratch in a simple word processor, such as the

Windows Notepad, or with the aid of specialized programs created for such a purpose. Many advanced word

processors, like Microsoft Word and WordPerfect, have "add-ons" which will translate a typed document into

HTML.

Hypertext: A hypertext document has references to other documents sprinkled throughout. If you click on one of

these references, you are transferred to an entirely different document. For example, if this report was a hypertext

document, you could click on any italicized word, and you'd instantly be transported to the definition of that word.

Internet Service Provider (ISP): The company you call from your computer to gain access to the Internet.

IRC: Internet Relay Chat. A section of the Internet that lets users enter a "room" and communicate with others in

the room via the keyboard.

Java: A new programming language developed by Sun Microsystems for developing software applications that

work over the Internet. Java is, at the time of this writing, only starting to gain popularity, with its greater capacity

for animation and graphically interesting effects. Java requires a browser compatible with Java.

Local Area Network (LAN): Computers linked together in a central location, such as a business or government

organization.

MIME: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. Allows an email message to contain non-text data, such as audio

and video files.