Spring Internet World '97 Update

Ric and Doran spent March 12-14 attending Spring Internet World '97 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. If you heard the March 15th edition of Digital Village, you know we had lots of information. This is a special page to summarize what we found and provide links to some of the things we found interesting. Featured Interviews: Rob Glaser, President & CEO of Progressive Networks -Progressive Networks is the maker of RealAudio and the new RealVideo software packages, which allow for the playing of streaming media, which means you heard or see the contents of the file as it is downloading, rather than having to wait for the entire file to download before playing. This also allows for the broadcast of live audio and video. With RealVideo, Progressive Networks has been working with people like Spike Lee to create examples of content, and companies such a Macromedia to create applications which take advantage of the streaming media. Progressive Networks has also shown a commitment to Alternative Media with the development of it's WebActive site which features, among other things, RealAudio version of the Pacifica Network News. Sabeer Bhatia, President & CEO of Hotmail Corporation -Hotmail is a free, Web-based email site where anybody with access to the Web can sign up for a free email account (it's free because they sell banner-ads that are displayed on the screen as you read your mail). Also, if you have a "regular" POP email account with an ISP, Hotmail will allow to read that mail too. This means you can have access to your email no matter where you are, just as long as you have access to the Web and a forms capable browser (such as Netscape or IE). This is the mail service Ric used last year as he surveyed the Internet connectivity of several libraries across the country. Nick Grouf, President & CEO of FireFly Network, Inc. -FireFly started it's life at MIT's Media Lab as a way to prioritize incoming email messages so the messages the user is most likely to be interested in will be at the top of the list. It did this through the use of intelligent agents. Here's the critical point: These agents not only analysed that user's habits, but also communicated with other users' agents. The preferences of users with similar tastes could be used as a guide to predict what a person would want. The user, in turn, will tell their agent whether that prediction was a good one or not, thus further educating the agent. This smarter agent then communicates to the other agents on the network with regards to the success it's prediction, making for a smarter network of agents. To illustrate this concept, FireFly created a website which allowed users to rate their musical preferences. After the person rated a few dozen choices, the site was able to start recommending music, based on the choices of other users with similar tastes. The more music the user rates, the more accurate the predictions, not only for that particular user, but for everybody on the network. The success of it's website (millions of users served!) has now proved the concept works and the time has come for FireFly to begin selling this software to other companies for them use in there own way (which was the idea all along). FireFly will eventually offload it's music and movie site to avoid conflicts of interest, and devote all it's efforts to further developing it's software package. Matt Howard, Senior Product Line Manager, Cisco Systems -Cisco claims it makes about 80% of the routers that are used on the Internet today. Routers are the computers "behind the computers" that make sure your little packets of data make it to their proper destination, and then back again to your desktop computer. Another very interesting product of Cisco's is a modem-sized Micro Web Server which offers a simple entry-level solution for the person that wants a dedicated connection on the 'net or the small business that might need a small document or workgroup server on the office intranet. Joe Pistritto, VP Systems Engineering, The Pointcast Network -The Pointcast Network is one of the leaders in "Push" media, where information is sent to you based on your interest, rather than you going out and "pulling" the info from a number of different sources. PCN uses the idea of "channels" (much like television), and has a large number of large media companies, from the New York Times to Wired Magazine, delivering their product through The Pointcast Network. Now PCN is developing Connections, where any person with a Web page can configure their site to deliver their content to PCN users. Tracy Crowe, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Eudora -Together, Eudora Light & Eudora Pro are probably the most popular email programs in use today. Qualcomm, the maker of the Eudora products, has recently released Eudora Pro 3.0. It has improvements such as configurable filtering, support for multiple POP accounts and a new API which allows for third-party developers to create plug-in programs that take advantage of Eudora's mail functions. Susan Cooley, Director of Sales and Marketing, LinkExchange -If you've used the Internet for any length of time, you've seen those ubiquitous banner ads. Many of them are distributed by LinkExchange, which will distribute advertisements for your site if you agree to display other people's ads on your home page. Akila Krish, Director of Sales & Business Development, Durand -Durand makes CommunityWare, which they call a "Social Operating System for the Internet". It is used by many non-profit groups to create just what it's name suggests: A community. There were also a number of other products which caught our eyes, including: EC2, a high-tech business incubator at USC Hughes Direct PC (with 400kb/s download speeds!) Homesite 2.5 from Allaire (Used to write this very page) @Home & Cable Modems (Now available in Mission Viejo) The Network Computer (NC) by Idea (and others) Jamba, a Java development tool from Aimtech

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