The Way of the Web

By Richard Seltzer

The internet emerged and evolved so rapidly, that companies were faced with the need to adapt to a new environment.This early book focuses upon building communities on the Internet. It further provides information on establishing identity, motivation to succeed, and community. First published in 1995, many of the principals explained here still ring true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seltzer Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781455447954

Book preview

THE WAY OF THE WEB BY RICHARD SELTZER

Published by Seltzer Books

established in 1974, as B&R Samizdat Express

offering over 14,000 books

feedback welcome: [e-mail]

Books by the Richard Seltzer available from Seltzer Books

The Name of Hero

Ethiopia Through Russian Eyes (translation from the Russian)

The Lizard of Oz

Now and Then and Other Tales from Ome

Saint Smith and Other Stories

The Gentle Inquisitor and Other Stories

Echoes from the Attic (with Ethel Kaiden)

Web Business Bootcamp (2002)

The Social Web (1998)

The Way of the Web (1995)

Heel, Hitler and Other Plays

Dryden's Exemplary Drama and Other Essays

Copyright © 1995

Epigraph -- The Way of the Web

Introduction Definitions and Opportunities

Chapter 1 - The Giants Wore Velcro

Chapter 2 - Wake Up: Tomorrow Happened Yesterday

Chapter 3 - Business Trends

Chapter 4 - Curious Technology

Chaptrt 5 -  Building Communities on the Internet

Chapter 6 - New Ways to Perceive Cyberspace

Chapter 7 - Anonymity for Fun and Deception

Chapter 8 - Identity, Motivation, and Community

Epigraph: The Way of the Web

Who owns the internet? -- No one.

Who controls the Internet? -- No one.

Where is the Internet? -- Everywhere.

Can you understand all and penetrate all with the click of a mouse?

To produce things and to make them well,

but not to sell them,

rather to give them away freely to all,

and by giving to become known and valued;

To act, but not to rely on one's own abilty,

to build on the works and lessons of others,

and to let others do likewise --

this is called the Way of the Web.

The best is like water.

Water benefits all things and does not compete with them.

Water dissolves barriers.

Water reaches out and covers the earth.

This is called the Way of the Web.

INTRODUCTION: DEFINITIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES

We need to remind ourselves that rapid change is part of the human condition. Our current accelerated pace seems especially frantic because our society is emerging from a period when change was relatively predictable. However, in the broad perspective of history, the future shock we are now experiencing is not the exception, but the rule.

For those of us growing up in middle-class America, the period of twenty years after World War II was an anomaly. The world of Father Knows Best and Donna Reed and The Nelsons was a world where change was incremental and predictable. Cars would get bigger and faster, and highways would be built to accommodate them. Airliners would get bigger and faster, and airports would be expanded to accommodate them. When in the 1950s, General Electric proclaimed, Progress is our most important product, they meant steady, incremental, predictable progress. The original Tomorrowland in Disneyland -- both the themepark and the television show -- was a friendly, familiar place, a way of life you could easily extrapolate from the world you lived in.

We came to presume that such a level of social, economic, political and technological stability was the norm. As the pace of change has accelerated in recent years, we have had to scramble to cope. And we have come to believe that our situation is unique -- that we are being forced to face more rapid change and more difficult changes than previous generations.

But read Mark Twin's Life on the Mississippi and consider how rapidly the Mississippi steamboat industry rose and fell. Check on the Pony Express which only lasted 17 months before new technology made it obsolete. Read panoramic novels set in the 19th or the early 20th century, and see the world transformed again and again by technology or war or depression.

Rapid and unpredictable change is the norm. Future shock was a shock to those of my generation because we had the luxury of growing up in a time of extraordinary stability and came to expect that similar conditions would continue for the foreseeable future. We didn't develop the skills and attitudes needed to deal with rapid change. We didn't learn to expect the unexpected, to anticipate the rise and fall of entire industries.

Now we live in a world where the growth opportunities are in industries like computers and biotech that barely existed when we were in college. And the basic skills expected in most any job today were not taught when we were in college.

What's happening on the Internet today is both a symptom of the times and an opportunity for many of us to learn, to grow, and to reinvent our lives in greater harmony with the times. This is not a dehumanizing technology, but rather one with the capacity to help us rehumanize life -- the chance for a fresh start.

CHAPTER 1: THE GIANTS WORE VELCO

In 1993 a small change in technology -- the ability to navigate through the Internet by pointing and clicking -- began to make an enormous difference in the worlds of publishing, education, and government. The Internet, which had been a complex, techie environment for researchers, became a friendly, easy-to-use multimedia environment -- a new publishing medium, with enormous commercial potential.

Since then the impact has spread to other industries due to innovative use of what was already there, and also due to further expansion and refinement of Internet capabilities to make them more friendly to businesses of all kinds. The importance of the Internet continues to grow not only for business, but also as an integral part of the daily lives of millions of people.

What is this phenomenon? What does it mean to us? How can we use it? Where is it going?

While it's based on computer networking technology, businesses and individuals who are capitalizing on the Internet today often have little or no knowledge of or interest in that technology. In the words of Robert Burton, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.

For instance, when I needed to check that quote, all I had to do was click my mouse a few times to connect to the Internet and go to a site at Columbia University (the Bartleby Project), which has a searchable on-line version of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (from an old, public domain edition). It took me less than two minutes to make the connection and find the quotation. To do so cost me nothing, and I didn't need to know anything about how computers and networks work.

Yes, we stand on the shoulders of giants. And yes, that has been the nature of the advancement of human knowledge for centuries. The difference is that today the giants seem to be wearing velcro, because it's far easier to stand on those shoulders without falling off.

This means that almost anyone can play in an arena that used to be reserved for scientists and leaders in other fields of human endeavor -- helping to advance the realization of the potential not just of themselves as