NetWorld by David H Rothman

134 Pages·2021·1.49 MB·English

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Title: NetWorld!
What People Are Really Doing on the Internet and What It Means to You

Author: David H. Rothman

Release Date: June 28, 2017 [EBook #55002]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NETWORLD! ***

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Transcriber’s Note:

Each chapter heading featured graphical components that are not readily rendered here. See the note for
an example.
Footnotes appeared in a separate section at the end of the text, with the note number restarting for each
chapter. In this version, those numbers are retained, but are prefixed with the chapter number, e.g., 1.1,
2.5, 6.7, etc.
There are blocks of text with dotted boundaries, sometime spanning pages, which are inserted into the
main text. These have been moved to avoid falling on paragraph breaks, and sometimes joined where
page breaks occur. They are given here within a dashed border, in order to call out their separate nature.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end
of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
There are many URLs in the text, given the topic, but it is unlikely that any are still extant, given the
publication date in 1995.
Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will
produce the original text in a small popup.

NETWORLD!

what people are

really

doing
on the
INTERNET,

and what
it means
to you

DAVID H. ROTHMAN

“A considerable achievement.”—William F. Buckley, Jr.

Current Events/Internet

“A considerable achievement. You find yourself wanting to read NetWorld! even if you have no thought
of baptism into the great new scene.” —William F. Buckley, Jr.

“David H. Rothman has done the best job yet of illustrating exactly how and why the Internet will change the texture
of daily life. Most discussion of the information age is full of airy generalizations. NetWorld! is full of specific,
amusing, often racy illustrations of how people around the world have already put the Net’s possibilities to work.
This is a very useful and entertaining book.” —James Fallows Washington editor of the Atlantic Monthly

Exploring Life on the Net

Praised by the New York Times For his entertaining style, David H. Rothman has written a lively, revealing, and sharp-
eyed account of life on the Net. Read how a handsome young librarian in Adelaide, Australia, got engaged to a Kansas
City woman he’d never met​—except online. Discover why net.censors and other interlopers could eventually cost
America billions of dollars. Learn how an Anglican priest uses the Internet to “hear” confessions and help keep in touch
with his flock. From electronic libraries to the digitized cadaver of an executed killer, NetWorld! covers everything that’s
happening on the Net.

Whether you surf nightly or know the Net only secondhand, NetWorld! will shed new light on the cultural phenomenon
that is engrossing millions around the world.
Prima Publishing

I

NetWorld!

What People
Are Really

Doing on the Internet,
and What It Means to

You

David H. Rothman

PRIMA PUBLISHING

With 88s to Carly,
my dearest company

in life and on the ’Bahn.

© 1996 by David H. Rothman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written
permission from Prima Publishing, except for the inclusion of quotations in a review.
PRIMA PUBLISHING and colophon are trademarks of Prima Communications, Inc.
Cover design by the Dunlavey Studio

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rothman, David H.

Networld!: what people are really doing on the Internet, and what it

means to you/David H. Rothman.

p. cm.

Includes index.
ISBN O-7615-0013-8
1. Internet (Computer network) I. Title.

TK5105.875.I57R69 1995
004.6’7—dc20

95-5287

CIP

95 96 97 98 99 AA 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
How to Order:
Single copies may be ordered from Prima Publishing, P.O. Box 1260BK, Rocklin, CA 95677; telephone (916) 632-
4400. Quantity discounts are also available. On your letterhead, include information concerning the intended use of the
books and the number of books you wish to purchase.

II

Contents

A Note to Visitors (and Natives)
v

Acknowledgments
vii

1
The Terrain
1

2
Business on the Net:

From White Rabbit Toys to “Intel Inside”
27

3
EntertaiNet: A Few Musings on Net.Rock,

Leonardo da Vinci and Bill Gates,

Bianca’s Smut Shack, and David Letterman

in Cyberspace
80

4
Pulped Wood versus Electrons:

Can the Print World Learn to Love the Net?
105

5
Wired Knowledge:

When They Let a Murderer Loose on the Internet
172

6
Governments and the Net:

Making Sure Orwell Was Wrong
208

7
The Electronic Matchmaker
291

Notes
327

Index
335

iii

E

A Note to Visitors

(and Natives)

veryone in NetWorld! is real, even me. Chapter 1 tells how to reach some good people who let their electronic

addresses go on the Web site for this book.

In a few cases—most notably “Sue” and “Greg” in Chapter 7—I’ve guarded my subjects’ privacy with aliases and

changes of identifying details. Asterisks show up after the first occurrences of their revised names.

Please note, too, that I’ve smoothed out people’s informal online prose to accommodate the printed page. A “smiley”

on the Net is a good quick way to show a smile or frown; but I couldn’t think of anything uglier in print than a series of
symbols such as :-). So even in quotes, I’ve used them sparingly.

I wish Mark Twain were alive and cruising the Internet at 28.8 kilobits per second; I’d love to see how he’d have

handled net.dialect.

David Rothman,