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I liked your article about the Web.

Here are some points to ponder based on my current "stream of consciousness."

Lack of Bandwidth

Existing Internet bandwidth is extremely slow when compared to the desktop computing that we are used to. I think most people tend to view this problem in two extremes. The first is that the bandwidth problem is here to stay or even may get worse. The second is that all bandwidth issues will go away. If you want to bet on the Internet you need to decide what will happen and when.

My contention is that the Internet will get faster not slower in the next two years. Consider the Internet backbone. NSF, the primary high speed Internet backbone provider just got out of the business less than a year ago. Before they left, they helped to jumpstart the implementation of T3 lines as the standard backbone speed. Most areas of the country will have T3 backbone service replace T1 and 56K lines in the next year. This will be an increase of at least 45 times. While Internet use is rocketing compared to most businesses, it is still being outpaced by backbone upgrades. I think that it will continue to do so for the next two years.

In concert with the backbone upgrades, the typical user access speed will increase as well. After the initial start up costs, group connections for ISDN, T1 and T3 increate connection speeds from 10 to 4500 times for nearly the same or possibly lower costs than modem connections when you consider the cost for an organization.

Evolving Standards

I think the "business must wait until standards evolve" argument has no basis in computer history. If you consider DOS, Netware, Intel CPUs and others, each is an example of the strongest leader drives the standards.

Low Interactivity

Someday soon, most people will realize that http and html are the things required for hyperlinked reference. Bell envisioned the telephone as a device for the transmission of music. Edison envisioned the phonograph as a device for the transmission of voice. It is hard to tell where things will go when the hype engine starts to go wild.

The Current Economic Model

There is no way for home catalogs or home shopping networks to get your payment authorization without a phone call from you. If the Internet never had direct automated payment model it would still be a very important medium.

Growing Pains

The advantage of growing pains is that it forces you to reconsider what you are doing.

Leo Lucas of Aimtech <[email protected]>

Nashua, NH USA - Wed Mar 13 15:57:21 GMT-0700 1996

The article, "Internet Mania, " was most interesting.

I guess I'm not suitably qualified to comment on those more technical aspects dicussed in the paper. But the language is a bit concerning . . . I will have trouble complying with Bush and writing to 'Congresspeople' as I am Australian. Many North Americans will be astonished to find that the majority of the world's population, and therefore potential WWW users, do not live in the USA. No, I'm not a 'Yank Basher', and it is obvious that the US leads the world in this sort of guff by light years. I just wish you guys could be a little bit more global in your scope. An incredibly simple example of how the world is disregarded is in how blistered with graphics so many US/CAN pages are. This causes such pain in form of delay as we inevitably access North American sites for the good oil. Talk about the World Wide Wait !. Enough Enough The Web Rules
Warren Steward <[email protected]>
Kalgoorlie, WA Australia - Wed Apr 24 01:56:36 GMT-0700 1996

As a computer illiterate student I enjoyed reading about the advancing technology. I'm new to the web and look forward to more web "stuff". Your excitement towards "Java" and other upcoming advancements sparked my interest--thank you
Shellie Demoulin
USA - Fri May 3 12:37:44 GMT-0700 1996

Mike....

I wanted to send my thanks to you for setting up the instructional technology web site at http://moliere.byu.edu/digital. I am teaching an undergraduate course in the Communications Department on new media technologies and I have found your references to be very useful for my students. In fact, my students have been reading the hard copies of several writings for which you provide web links. Plus, you have given them some alternative ideas that are valuable. (I have been projecting your page on a class screen for the students to follow the line of thoughts.)
Thanks again.
Allen

Allen W. Palmer <[email protected]>
Provo, UT USA - Fri Mar 21 15:55:41 MST 1997

Professor Bush,

As I was trying to respond to the following request, from our national computer network called "Profnet," a service that links reporters to sources at universities, I ran across the materials you had written for Multimedia Monitor. I was thrilled to learn more about your background as an expert, and also the publication that will almost certainly be helpful to our department as we try to keep up with technologies and applications. I not only used these materials to draft a pitch to send to Profnet, but I also shared the web links and your background with Brent Harker, the newly appointed Director of Web Communications who is a part of our department. I'm sure he would be interested in any input you can give as the university seeks to create Web-based materials and a means to navigate the information superhighway more effectively. Thanks again for making these informative, interesting and useful materials available. I'll let you know if we receive any response or feedback on this media request -- or if there are other media opportunities in the future.

Regards,
Julie Walker
BYU Public Communications

Julie Walker <[email protected]>
Provo, UT USA - Fri Sep 12 15:27:14 MDT 1997

Great job, Mike! Very interesting. I'll be surfing back to explore more.
A. Allen Rowe <[email protected]>
Colorado Springs, CO USA - Mon Sep 15 13:00:24 MDT 1997

I got your DVD updates via email [on the LLTI listserv], not the web. I must congratulate you on a service well rendered. Timely, informative, and detailed analysis of goings-on and status quo. A definite contribution - keep it coming!

Cheers!
Jean-Jacques d'Aquin <[email protected]>
Mobile, AL USA - Sat Sep 20 13:49:15 MDT 1997

Mike, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the articles posted at your site. I was already familiar with "Language Learning on the Web." In fact, I quoted from it in a forthcoming book I've co-written about using the Internet in German teaching. It is an excellent presentation. Also, I particularly enjoyed the "Fear and Loathing in Cyberspace" series. I feel that you summarized the reasons for the failure of companies like Apple and IBM (Lotus, etc.) to be able to compete legitimately with Microsoft in a very fair manner (and I just bought a PowerBook!). I have recommended the site to several of my slightly technophobic colleagues who also read the series. They communicated to me that EVEN THEY could follow your arguments and actually understood "for the first time" what all the fuss is about "those antitrust cases" against Microsoft. I'm not a huge Bill Gates fan but even I must admit that, after reading your articles, I have gained a lot of respect for him. Keep up the good work, Mike. I look forward to seeing more of your articles.
Donna Van Handle <[email protected]>
So. Hadley, MA USA - Fri Sep 26 16:14:23 MDT 1997

Mike- I enjoyed visiting your site and reading the articles. We are putting a link to it on our Duke ed tech page. I look forward to more interesting material in the future.
Rick Kunst <[email protected]>
Durham, NC USA - Mon Oct 6 22:13:32 MDT 1997

Thanks for the chance to comment. I'm currently undertaking a PhD in language and technology and its 'interfaces' into education policy and practice. I've been using (and developing Web pages) for about 3 years now, and through this very brief evolution I've come to the conclusion that it is - or will become very soon - the principal research tool on the planet. There's lots of reasons for this both theoretical and practical. Thanks for the articles and the site; I'll be referring to it regularly now - relevant stuff indeed! Peter White
Peter White <[email protected]>
Brisbane, Qld Australia - Thu Oct 9 16:27:25 MDT 1997

Nicely arranged set of documents. Very useful for those searching out a sense of the state of the art. Thank you.
Carla Meskill <[email protected]>
Albany, NY USA - Fri Oct 10 12:15:17 MDT 1997

A very interesting collection of materials, instantly accessible from all over. I'm forwarding the main link to my brother's friend at UMass... she's pursuing a degree in the field, and I know will find it useful and interesting. Also, I noticed the VISA page reference no longer goes where it used to... the bane of changing links will always be a problem. Maybe rather than trying to maintain all links within an article, we should establish a convention to indicate with an underline (but not blue) and then the letters, lnla (for Link No Longer Active) for online documents with inactive links... Anyway, good, professional, thought-provoking materials. Thanks for sharing.
Peter Lafford <[email protected]>
Tempe, AZ USA - Wed Oct 15 17:47:28 MDT 1997

Thank you so much for your insightful comments on the future of the web...and also for Dr. Bush's articles regarding Microsoft. I am confident that the use of web sites to enhance other educational platforms will continue to grow...making accessibility to valued educational tools an easy undertaking. I plan to return to the site again and again.... Thanks so much for your clear and concise articles.
Anna Lynde <[email protected]>
Ferndale, CA USA - Tue Oct 28 04:48:07 MST 1997

Your three part series now begs for Part IV, as Gates' vision of the WWW unfolds. The philosophers say that absolute power breeds absolute corruption- and attendant personal decadence. If Bill Gates can avoid this on a personal level, his ability to guide his corporation- and influence the world- will prevail. To the extent his success raises the standard of human existence, he will be a hero. To the extent he- and his corporation- fall prey to self-service, he will be a villain. In the long run, the world will take the best of his contributions and discard the rest, him along with it. Humanity will move on, improved in its understanding of itself by Gates' technology. Most of us are like those watching the chariot race of Ben-Hur, fascinated by the flash and fury, but barely able to grasp the intensity of being the driver of the chariot. We gasp at the dramatic public death of one driver being overrun by another, all the while cheering for our own champions and fearing that the same may happen to them. Gates is emerging as the Ben-Hur, but does he know it and can he carry off the role? I look forward to Part IV.
Glen Seabury <[email protected]>
Sandy, UT USA - Sat Nov 1 05:03:09 MST 1997

Can anyone get Laurie Anderson to do a microtonal album?
Sarn Ursell <[email protected]>
Wellington, New Zealand - Thu Nov 27 23:33:26 MST 1997

Hi Mike- I'm showing this interactive feature to my colleague, Prof. Miguel Garci-Gomez, in the Dept. of Romance Studies at Duke. The URL is to his Medieval Spanish texts website.
Rick Kunst <[email protected]>
DUrham, NC USA - Tue May 12 08:23:08 MDT 1998

First of all I would like to thank you for some very interesting articles on your site.I am presently writing a report mapping out the multimedia industry in California and therefore found several of your articles very interesting. However, the "Coming Soon" section especially caught my attention as you mentioned articles on: Defining the business model for online media; The business case for hybrid CD-Rom and online products; Multimedia as a natural step in the history of communication; and The impact of multimedia on education. These topics 'seem' to be quite close to what I am presently atempting to research and therefore I am very interested in acquiring these articles. Yet, your site was last updated on Feb.8, and so I was wondering if there might be a new update relatively soon, discussing the previously mentioned titles. Thank you in advance. Layton Andersen.
Layton Andersen <[email protected]>
Los Angeles, Ca USA - Mon Jul 6 13:07:57 MDT 1998

I'm actually writing to request a copy of your Power Point presentaion on the future of DVD that you gave in San Diego. I tried writing to your email address, but did not have success. Thanks! Lori Williams
Lorraine Williams <[email protected]>
Colchester, VT USA - Wed Aug 5 07:21:42 MDT 1998

THere should be no rules placed on technology that will speed up the internet. The faster the general public has access to faster modems or lines, there will also be an increase of people who use the internet.
ernie
provo, ut USA - Sun Sep 20 21:20:47 MDT 1998

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