The authors of the article "The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet" remind us that the World Wide Web, or simply Web, is not synonymous with the Internet.  The Interent is made up of a variety of different kinds of applications and protocols that can be thought of as different kinds of spaces. The purpose of this field trip is to explore some, but not nearly all, of the spaces of the Internet and to practice some searching techniques. While you are all familiar with e-mail and the World Wide Web, there are some other spaces you should be aware of. As you visit these sites think about how they are like and not like spaces and places.

Assignment

For this assignment, browse the web sites and services indicated below and answer the questions. You may be tempted to just cut and paste your answers from web sites. Don't (or at least don't always do so). I'm interested in what you have to say rather than in your cutting and pasting skills. You will need to post your answers on a personal blog for this class that you will create at the end of the assignment.  Then you will need to send the address for your blog to me at mlongan@valpo.edu with VRFT1 as the subject line. In the meantime, you should paste the questions into an MS Word document, answer them, and then just copy the whole thing into your blog.  Due by the end of class on Tuesday.  You should seek to complete the entire field trip before class so that you can work on the Tuesday's assignment in class. Be sure to save freqently so that you don't lose your work. Talking with each other about what you observe is encouraged! You should be sitting next to someone.  

Newsgroups/USENET

Newsgroups were one of the first applications of many to many communications on the Internet. The USENET service has largely faded from memory though it still exists.  Institutions such as VU or an Internet service provider subscribed to a particular body of newsgroups. The messages were transmitted around the world to all institutions subscribed to a particular newsgroup. This network is called USENET. In order to view newsgroups you had to subscribe to them. Back when your professor was your age, he spent hours browsing newsgroups on a VT100 terminal in much the way you browse Facebook today. These days USENET and newsgroups live archived via Google Groups. This is a service that archives newsgroups on the WWW but also allows people to create new Google groups.  Original USENET groups are identified as such.

1 What is the most obscure topic that you can find in the Usenet Newsgroups (Hint enter alt in the search box and then browse the results)?

2. Read some of the messages in one of the newsgroups. What is being discussed? Is the discussion very valuable? Is it polite? Is it even a discussion?

Web Archives

One difficulty with the internet is that it is always changing. One effort to archive the Internet is the Wayback Machine. This is a great archive to use to better understand the historical development of the world wide web. But it also means that what you put on the web, even if you delete it, is likely to be around for a long time. Something to think about before you post those party pictures!

3. Use the Wayback Machine to find out what the VU home page looked like in 1996. What do you think?

Social Network Sites

Recently social network sites including Myspace, Facebook, You Tube and Flicker have begun to dominate what it means to be on the Internet.  These represent a newer and commercialized version of homepages, blogs, and other social interaction oriented technologies that have been part of the Interent from the begining.

4. You are already likely familiar with Facebook and Myspace but they are not the only social networks out there. Wikipedia has a long list of additional sites and it isn't even comprehensive. While Facebook is increasing in popularity around the world, different social network sites are more popular in other countries. Take a look at the demographics page for Orkut.  Where is it most popular?

5.  Visit Academia.edu.  Who is the social network site for?

6. You might not think about photo and video sharing sites (YouTube) as social network sites, but they are. Visit Flickr.com. What does Flicker allow users to do? How does it help people connect around shared interests? 

7. Visit Meetup.com. What does Meetup.com allow users to do? How does it help people connect around shared interests both online and offline?

8.  Visit Reddit.com.  This is a site for sharing links to interesting web content.  What method does it use to filter out uninteresting content?

9.  What are three important characteristics that distinguish social network sites from other services on the internet? 

MUDs and Virtual Worlds

MUD stands for Multi User Dungeon or Multi User Domain. Basically MUDS are are programs that allow bunches of people to interact in a text-based interactive space. They're kind of a primitive (yet still rich) form of virtual reality. We won't look at any today, but if you're interested in the future you can find out more informaiton about them from the list of links on Yahoo. We may do more with these later in the term. I thought we should at least introduce you to them.

More recently MUDs have evolved into Virtual Worlds or Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games or MMORPGs. World of Warcraft is immensely popular.  Second Life is another popular virtual world.   Take a quick look at the homepages for these services.  We'll talk more about them later.

You'll find some more examples and maps of some of these MUDS and Virtual Worlds on the MUD and Virtual World page in the Atlas of Cyberspace. Take a quick look and say OOOhhh Ahhh so I know you've done this part.

Intranets and other Private Cyberspaces

There is much information online that you can not access. This so called "private interent" consists of corporate networks and other private spaces behind security walls. VU has a multitude of different kinds of Intranet space that you probably interact with everyday. Among the most prominent is the VU Intranet, Blackboard course system, the library's article databases, and the Data VU system.  Another form of cyberspace you can not access is the "dark internet," consisting of all those websites that are not linked to anything. Since internet search engines find sites through links, pages that are not linked to any other page are invisible to the world at large.

10. Go to the VU Intranet. What kind of data is available here? Why is it stored here rather than on the public internet? Should it be there or should it be more public?

11. What are the benefits and costs of having a course on a private network versus on the public internet?

Searching the Net

The Internet is basically a ocean-sized boiling soup of both information and junk. One of the interesting questions that some geographers have asked is how does one find their way around an information space. One can follow links from one to another indefinately.  This is what we mean when we talk about surfing the Internet. Search engines are of course another method of wayfinding.

Let's try a scavenger hunt. You are probably familiar with what a search engine is. They are services that help you to find resources on the Internet. You probably know about Google (who doesn't these days) but there are others including Bing.com Yahoo.com, Wolfram Alpha, Lycos and Alta Vista among others. There are also more specialized search engines out there. Scirus for example is a search engine that specializes in scientific information. Use one or more of these search engines to find the answers to the following questions. List the URL or URLs (that's its address--you know the http:// thingy) where you found the answer. Try some different search engines and see how the results compare. These are all questions about some interesting places in the world.

18. What is the name of the man who created the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota (the second largest in the world) and in what town is it located?

19. What large feature is Garrison, MN famous for?

20. What is the name of the new tourist attraction in North Platte Nebraska? 

21. Where will you find the world's largest Holstein Cow and what is her name?

22. What famous person is from a town that claims to have the world's largest watermelon?

23. In the United States there are two other towns named Valparaiso. In which states will you find these other Valparaisos?

24.  Use Wolfram Alpha to answer the question. What is the average cruising airspeed of a laden swallow?
 

Blogs

We begin our virtual field trip out of order by necesity.  Blogs or "weB logs" are an advanced form of the personal homepage. Blogs have likely been around for a long time but they have become especially popular in the last four years or so. Blogs come in many flavors. Some Blogs are simply online personal diaries where individuals share their thoughts with the world. Many focus on political discussion and encourage feedback. Often blogs are places for sharing (through links) and commenting on material found on the Internet. Typically blogs rely on specialized software that allow them to be updated through a web browser interface. A variety of service providers offer space to host a personal blog, or you can set up the software and host a blog yourself. The blog has become so popular that they influence professional journalism. To some degree blogs have democratized journalism by creating an army of citizen journalists who can get their message out to the world without having to go through a gatekeepers (editors and publishers).  The term "blogosphere" is often used to refer to the collectivity of the discussions on blogs.

25. Go to Blogger.com a popular web log hosting service (so popular that it is owned by Google) and click on the link to "Take a Quick Tour." What is a blog? What can you do with a blog?

26.. One of the most popular and highest quality blogs on the Internet is written by Roger Ebert.  Take a look at one of his blog entries.  You probably don't have time to read it, but skim through and then take a look at the coments. How would you describe the nature of the communication this blog enables? (one to many, many to many, one to one, public, private? etc.)  What spatial metaphor might you use to describe it? (for example is it a town square? a Movie theater? A classroom? A sidewalk? )

27. Let's get a sense of what the bloggosphere is like. Go to Google's Blog search.  What are the latest topics being discussed in the bloggosphere?

28. Finally it's time for you to create your own blog. If you do not have a blog on the university's blog server go to http://blogs.valpo.edu/wp-signup.php and follow the directions there to sign up for a blog. 

If you already have a blog on the service go to http://blogs.valpo.edu/ and sign in using your username and password. Once you are logged in, go back to the sign up page,  http://blogs.valpo.edu/wp-signup.php ,where it will give you an opportunity to sign up for a second blog for this class.

Once you have your blog, create a new entry and enter the answers for the assignment. You can worry about sprucing it up later.  Feel free to explore the various settings.  As someone once told me, "You can't break the Internet!"  Additional posts that you make on your own on your blog will count toward your participation grade. You might use it to organize your thoughts on readings and as a space to keep notes.

E-mail the address for your blog to your professor.

Whew, that was quite a tour, but we've only seen the tip of the iceberg that is the Internet Super Iceberg Highway.  Hope you enjoyed it.