[9576] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Internet in a box
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Galloway)
Tue Jan 11 17:38:19 1994
From: John Galloway <jrg@rahul.net>
To: peterd@bunyip.com (Peter Deutsch)
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 1994 14:36:16 -0800 (PST)
Cc: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com, jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9401111943.AA23773@expresso.bunyip.com> from "Peter Deutsch" at Jan 11, 94 02:43:05 pm
Reply-To: jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us
>
> [ You wrote: ]
>
> >
> > > 2) Once the end user has this (or any other IP) capability what purpose
> > > does the BBS serve?
> >
> > None, one hopes. (Well, I hope.)
>
> I must disagree with these sentiments, since I think one
> of the single largest business opportunities coming up in
> the next couple of years will be in "packaging"
> information for specific user communities.
>
> Now, BBS operators do need to recognize the extra value
> that exists in allowing users to "escape" to the net if
But the net IS the resource the users are accessing, they
don't escape to it. Your own system is your window to the
net, not the BBS.
>
> Remember, users don't care about connectivity, protocols
> or other wonders of technology. They want it to be easier
> to find things. Sounds like the role of a sysop to me...
But it will be advances in netwide searching and sorting and
information structuring that will make it easier to find things
and which site what is on will become less and less important.
This also means (I think) that more and more info will be available
directly from its source/generator rather than being "collected"
by anyone. Now the source of the info liekly will not want
to source it to the net directly, so there is a role for local
well maintained storage (sort of a local cache) with a big net pipe,
perhaps the BBS can eveolve into this role, but I'm not sure its a giant
opportunity.
-jrg
