Other Internet Media

Mailing Lists and Newsgroups

Mailing lists allow mail sent to one address to be "reflected" to multiple recipients. Most mailing lists are devoted to specific topics. Probably the most popular mailing list servers are  MajorDomo and  ListServ .

Usenet Newsgroups are similar to mailing lists, except that messages are automatically distributed to all the systems that participate (i.e., there is no need to "subscribe" with a central administrator, though the user may need to subscribe with his or her local system). Like mailing lists, newsgroups tend to be devoted to specific topics. Both mailing lists and newsgroups can be extremely high volume.

Forte Agent/Free Agent is a popular newsgroup client for Microsoft Windows. The author invites suggestions for Usenet clients for the Macintosh.

File-sharing Technologies

These technologies typically allow the user to share files by placing them in a specific folder on his or her hard drive. The transfer model is peer-to-peer (P2P, one user machine to another) rather than the more familiar client-server model (one centralized server connected to multiple clients). P2P technologies have some significant advantages over traditional client-server models. Since, in effect, each machine is acting as a server the network tends to be more robust. With a client-server model if the (single) server fails the entire network becomes useless. P2P is also useful for load balancing. A popular file will quickly become "mirrored" on multiple systems, which means that no one machine has to handle all the requests for that file. Unfortunately, file-sharing P2P technologies can be used for illegal or unethical purpose (of course, so can most other technologies). The best-known P2P file-sharing client, Napster, is currently in court on copyright violation issues.

Another problem with certain P2P clients is the "spyware" issue. Some P2P clients are free to the user because they are subsidized by advertisers. These clients often install so-called spyware which monitors your web-browsing activities and attempts to target advertising to you (e.g., you might be looking at a page on new cars and suddenly an auto dealer ad will pop up in a new window). There is a great deal of controversy about this issue, particularly because some of the P2P clients don't make it clear that they are installing spyware on your machine. If you use P2P clients, it is recommended that you verify that your client does not install spyware, and that you install good firewall software to prevent your personal information from being sent over the net.

Gnutella
Music City Morpheus
Kazaa

Spychecker is a good source for finding out about the latest spyware.

Lavasoft's Ad-Aware can detect and remove spyware from Windows systems. Thus far, few spyware vendors are targeting the Mac, though that could change at any time.

More information on spyware

MUD-like systems

MUD is an acronym for Multi-User Dungeon. These systems allow users to take on "personae", carry and exchange "objects", and converse with one another. Though originally developed for playing games of the "Dungeons and Dragons" type (hence the name) the technology is flexible enough to be used for many different purposes (for instance, rather than swords or magic wands, the Tapped In MUD described below has educational objects such as whiteboards and offices).

The MUD FAQ
Tapped In, an educational MUD developed by SRI International