Slashdot Log In
The Nine Continents of the Internet
Posted by
JonKatz
on Mon Feb 14, 2000 10:00 AM
from the kernel-to-chew-on dept.
from the kernel-to-chew-on dept.
Here's a Valentine's Day gift to you all (smooch!), my shortest column ever: As the Internet enters its second era, it appears to be evolving into a series of distinctly separate, different continents and sub-continents. (Continued below)
Here are my names for the nine continents of the Internet Planet. They speak for themselves:
- The Corporate Internet (the dot.coms, portals, big ISPs, e-traders)
- The Undernet (subterranean but thriving mailing lists, Usenet groups, messaging systems, Weblogs)
- TechNet (geeks, nerds, scientists and researchers, sites like this one, c.net
- X-Net (sex and dark and forbidden pleasures)
- InfoNet (news and information)
- BuyNet (auctions, products, retailing services)
- CultureNet (salon.com, movies, TV, pop culture, MP3s, DVDs)
- GameNet (the rich, complex and rapidly growing world of gaming)
- GodNet (the much overlooked but vast hive of spiritual and religous sites and lists)
Discuss among yourselves:
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Re:FreeNet (Score:2)
You can't exactly think that communists would want say their political beliefs being challenged would you? I can't say that you would. This is bad for keeping control.
All political movements are bad at handling open discussions of their doctrines -- one thing is preaching to the converted and booing at small number of opponents in presence of huge crowd of supporters, and another one is a discussion where both supporters and opponents have comparable opportunity to explain their views and challenge each other. Actually I have seen communists defending their views in open discussion with stronger arguments and in much more intelligent manner than libertarians ever did when placed in unfriendly environment.
Re:Better in what way? (Score:2)
How is communism a better system? It doesn't solve the problem of allocation of scarce resources as well as a decentralised system would, and then there's the small matter of it breaking down if central control is subverted (which means that all attempts to realise it require totalitarian authority).
I have never said that communism is a better system (previous poster said it, not me), but communism's main idea is that resources don't have to be scarce -- by communists' theory improvements in technology and society can cause abundance of all kinds of resources, and only greed can prevent people from using such resources responsibly, thus causing artificial scarcity for much longer time than it would be "natural". Therefore they claim that before abundance will be actually achieved people should become "better", more responsible and cooperative and less driven by primitive search of wealth and power (then in the case of true abundance people would feel guilty or even can become too bored if they would become worse slackers than the level where society sustains the abundance).
Countries that west called "communist" never claimed to achieve "communism" -- they called themselves "socialist" countries, and centralized control of the economy was claimed to be necessary only in socialist but not communist society. Communist governments of socialist countries were supposed to achieve the goal of building and advancing society that consists of those more responsible/cooperative people until the advancement of society will produce both abundant resources and responsible enough population to handle the abundance in the way that will allow true "comminism" to be self-supporting.
If by "better" you mean nicer in an abstract, non-practical sense, that could be argued. But an even nicer system would be for everybody to have as much of everything they want. It looks quite peachy, unless you actually try to implement it.
I agree with that. One can doubt that their goal was practical or achievable, and one can certainly point out that the way, "socialism" was implemented created totalitarian and corrupt governments. However they definitely weren't the first political movement facing this problem. Christian religion also taught that only development of virtues (whatever "virtues" are) can improve the life of people, and the same Christian religion caused quite a lot of violations of personal freedom, produced corrupt hierarchy of organized religion that supported the worst governments of the world, etc. Dominant ideologies of "capitalism", while probably being the most stable currently, have shown that they are, too, capable of producing social structures and political mechanisms that defeat their original purpose, reduce personal freedom, give people disincentive for productive work, and I believe that libertarian ideas, if implemented, will not be immune to this disease either (IMHO they are actually more vulnerable -- libertarians, even more than communists, ignore the fact that society always has forces that destabilize it, and even though stability is desirable for most of society members, without a mechanism that supports such a stability it can be easily turned into something that has a stabilizing mechanism -- anything between feudalism, military rule and current form of capitalism, dominated by few players with blatantly anti-consumer policy).
Communism may be a disagreeable philosophy, and it produced a large amount of grief and suffering, however your criticism of it shows that you are attacking some imaginary view of "communism", established by anti-communist propaganda, not the real thing. Any intelligent supporter of communism would point it out, and it probably would be a tough argument for "rah-rah, communism is bad" crowd.
ROTFL (Score:2)
Two issues:
One, I think that perhaps a "Cause Zealot" continent is in order. Consider how the internet serves as a connecting point for scattered populations with similar ideas. I just saw a piece last night about how McCain is doing his recruiting for volunteers almost exclusively on the net and using the net to organize them. Of course, then there are the usual suspects as well: Linux zealots, Mac evangelists, Amiga people, God-Hates-Fags morons, People for the Privitization of Sidewalks, etc.
Second, I think the "Corporate" and "Buy" areas should be merged as concepts and then subdivided into two catagories: Brochure sites and Useful Sites (where you can buy stuff, get research, insurance quotes or whatever). After all, corporations are at their heart and soul all trying to sell you something.
As for the general nature of the article, it's good food for thought and I didn't have to take a bathroom break in the middle of reading it. Bravo, Jon.
----
Re:Not very distinct (Score:2)
For the "corporate" sites, I'm thinking more along the lines of those fun brochure sites you get when you go to any major corporate site. Slashdot doesn't show off VA's product line or explain VA's corporate philosophy, and I have yet to see the VA "Vision Statement" on the /. front page.
Try this one out: FinanceNet. This continent would consist of the stock trading sites and message boards (etrade, fool.com, etc.) There might be less of these than others, but I'll bet they're some of the more popular destinations on the net (for some reason, I'm not supposed to surt /. from the office, but updating my stocks every 15 minutes is A-OK with management).
----
No Oceans (Score:2)
Re:Content Areas (Score:2)
... you'll note that every music shop in the world attempts to categorise CDs by genre, but nobody's every done a perfect job of it.
Come to think of it, Yahoo and dmoz both try and categorise websites, and they've got a lot more than nine root hierarchies...
--
Re: This reminds me (Score:2)
This reminds me (Score:4)
I defined any "congregation" of a large number of points as a "City", and smaller clusters as "Towns" and "Villages".
After a while, I realised that books weren't always absolutely uniformly consistant, from beginning to end. That they actually moved through Book Space, rather than occupying a point.
Using the metaphore above, some books could be described as "local inhabitants" (if they stayed within the limits of their city, town or village), "traders" (if they moved from one populated area to another), and "explorers" (if they ventured into otherwise empty regions).
A book, then, could be described by the journey through Book Space, from start to finish. This would not be a single number, but rather two numbers and a path. This would make it very complicated to write on the covers of books. :) On the other hand, seeing that path through Book Space would tell you more about the contents than the existing number ever would.
How does this apply to the Internet? I'd like to expand my concept of Book Space to cover all the content of the Internet. Instead of these 9 or so "Continents", I'd like to suggest that any Internet site or file also exists as an inhabitant of Book Space (which I guess I'll need to rename). Each physical site, virtual site, collection of pages/files, individual file will all have an identifiable path through Book Space.
Does this help any? Well, yes it does. You can define "similar content" in terms of a point and a maximum radius, depending on how similar you want. Anything inside that hyper-sphere is "similar" within the parameters you've defined.
How else does it help? Well, if any "continent" really exists on the Internet, it'll show up in Book Space. You'll be able to "see" a very sharp, distinct border, for a start. In the same way that very few towns can be found off the coast of Australia, you'll see very little in the way of habitation beyond such borders, except where two continents merge.
This is VERY distinct from unexplored territory within a country, as I've envisaged it. Such territory would be encapsulated, the way the deserts are encapsulated by the population.
I also think it's a more useful image, as it implies commerce and traffic between the different settled regions, allowing for a free exchange of ideas and growth. (It also allows for wars and conflict, but you can't have everything.) The image of isolated continents makes any exchange implicitly difficult, as you're conveying the impression vast distances, over difficult terrain (such as an ocean). I'd rather have an Internet where there was greater co-operation, closeness and contact.
Continents Colliding (Score:2)
The fact is that this whole thing isn't Internet-specific. The same idea can be applied to any culture at any time. We may have a few new continents here and there (TechNet?), but you can always apply whatever vague analogy to culture and have it make sense. It's like a horoscope in that sense, and it's worth about the same, too.
Welcome to Pangea (Score:2)
It is not difficult to imagine a rapidly growing "grass roots site", utilizing and propounding the usage of the latest technologies, arguing the sociopolitical gains of widespread distribution of stigma-free demand-met service. For a limited fee, legitimacy, superior service, or just plain recognition would be proferred upon the customer; the Decision Solution would be borne out tight integration between the objective fact, the groupthink bandwagon, and the means to complete the solving transaction. It'd be fun. It'd be sexy. It'd be commerce as God Himself must have intended it--it'd be huge.
And hungry...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re:Welcome to Pangea (Score:2)
GameNet, TechNet, Undernet, CultureNet, and InfoNet are always linking to eachother. CorpNet usually links to partners, allies, and "unbiased members of InfoNet, although it often owns EveryNet(or, The InterNet!). Lets not get into X-Net and links...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Better in what way? (Score:2)
If by "better" you mean nicer in an abstract, non-practical sense, that could be argued. But an even nicer system would be for everybody to have as much of everything they want. It looks quite peachy, unless you actually try to implement it.
Libertarians and scifi (Score:2)
Half-baked articles (Score:2)
And his previous, longer articles aren't much better. In general they consist of a rehashing of stories from two days earlier, with a modicum of facile "analysis", pompously restating the bleeding obvious from the mantle of journalistic authority.
Re:Better in what way? (Score:2)
Labels are slippery things. Though two things that can be inferred: states which call themselves Communist are likely to be horrendously oppressive, and organised religion is a tempting justification for all manner of atrocity.
Or, in the words of William S. Burroughs, "if you're doing business with a religious sonofabitch, get it in writing. His word isn't worth shit, not with the good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal."
Re:I'd call this "entering the third era", not sec (Score:2)
In summary, ya got the ages right... but this isn't yet the dawning of the third age of mankind, our last best hope for the . . . wait a minute . . . wrong group. . . . <*>
Re:GovNet, MilNet (Score:2)
Re:It Occurs to Me... (Score:2)
Just Nine? (Score:2)
What about the X-Files Continent. Yeap it was pretty shaken down for the last two years. People have lost interest because there were too many "conspiracy-hunters" and snake-oil sellers around. Besides it was well descridited and taken down by some smart fellows around. But it is still alive and it is not just "Entertainment->Paranormalia" as once Yahoo decided to turn it in...
The "national" Continents. Each country possesses a lot of specificities. For example in Russia there is a well set tradition for compromates and flame-wars. In one point the whole Rusweb looks much like the guys of that old Gaul village in the popular French comics "Asterix". Some countries have a too sexist taste on the web. There is sex everywhere, even if you trying to look at the weather in some city. Other are tremendously nationalist. You damn find anything in a common world language
And even if you look ta Katz continents then you will find that things are far from being so simple. One cannot mess Religion and Mysticism in many points. There is Erotics and Pornography and their audiences are frequently far from each other. There is a big gap between Tech & Science and it is a typical mistake of techies to mess both things. And besides he seems to forget the Economist (it is not about commerce!) and Humanitarian groups (History, Psychology, Archeology, Philosophy). I believe they are not so small to be ignored. And I think they should not be simply put inside the Tech Continent.
GovNet, MilNet (Score:3)
Though dwarfed by XNet and CorpNet, this is a signifigant ammount of traffic that doesn't easily fit into your other categories.
You will also notice that some of these categories get their own domain classes. (.mil
It would greatly serve the internet, IMHO, to have domain classes for each of these "continents". (.sex
This is what DNS was designed for, and it's sad to see this feature go unused.
Not continents but strata (Score:2)
I agree with the areas defined, but I see them more as layers. After all, we all have varrying degrees of technical interest (even those without any, who uses the net, have some interest in tech). We all have some sort of a belief system, be it religious or ethical - and even a lack of gnosis is a system of belief.
Each of these strata can be more specifically divided, horizontally this time, so that the Belief Strata would contain not continents and oceans but peaks and valleys. Say you'd have a Catholic peak and a Catholic valley, correspondent to the strength of that belief held by an individual. You would also have a Taoist peak and valley. If you're on one peak, you can not be on another, in a particular strata - since religions, for example, tend to be mutually exclusive in the extreme of subscription (a devout Catholic tends to reject other faiths). But the neat thing is that you can be half-way up two peeks, or complimentary faiths. The valley between some two is not that deep, while between another pair it is abysmal.
We all check up on product info online, and most of us shop here, so the continental divide between the shopping continent and the religious one does not apply (unless your religion forbids online shopping
Commercial and ISP's are also not continents. They were before the net became ubiquitous. Remember how cool it was when Compuserve email could reach Prodigy for the first time. That's when the continents began to sink. A huge percentage of us reach the net via ISP, many via business access and many via
I guess that the membership of the net defies classification, since so many of us share interests of one kind, and are diametrically opposed in others.
Oh, and Jon, I hope that the brevity and 'pro-discussion' angle of your article is caused by lack of time, and not because we finally stuck it to the pachyderm after the interview.
It Occurs to Me... (Score:3)
Since there are search mechanisms (google comes to mind) that are driven by who links to whom, it sounds as if the data exists to define 'net continents ("continets"?) based on interlinking volume. That is, sites among which the volume of hyperlinks is relatively dense would be lumped onto the same "landmass," and any comparatively sparsely linked regions on the graph (this is a !@@#!% big graph!) would be the "oceans" between them.
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
Speaking of web divisions... (Score:2)
Here's a suggestion (Score:2)
We should reduce the frequency to maybe 3 times a month, tops, and add another writer or two to do the same thing.
What do you all think?
--
grappler
Tectonic plates (Score:2)
I'd guess DVD support in Linux sits on one of these zones, in an area of high geological activity between CorpNet, TechNet & CultureNet
On the above premise, one could perhaps visualise X-Net, not as a continental plate, but as a huge oceanic plate, with deep abysses leading down to who knows where...
In addition, there are the many shallow seas of personal internet pages, created just becuase you've been allocated one.
Not very distinct (Score:2)
Re:What IS up with Natalie Portman (Score:2)
Re:13-18 year old "dimwits" (Score:2)
Re:oops! (Score:2)
Pope
"You are correct sir!!"... for now (Score:2)
Pretty good list, John.
Continents are a rather fitting metaphor, since even they aren't static. The tectonic plates shift, meld and sometimes grind against each other - I could wax poetic for quite sometime about these simliarities and what's happening with the "divisions" you described.
Some thoughtless types may think that they can pidgeon-hole people based on what type of sites they frequent, and therefore what "continent" they inhabit, or in a more sinister vein, should inhabit. The only thing is, that we have the capability to hop from "continent" to "continent" with the click of a mouse - we can reside in this world where ever we wish. If we could only transpose that to the non-cyber world - but there's no "Beam me to Punjab, Scotty" yet. *Sigh*.
If we could live anywhere on earth, it's rather obvious that we would get better perspectives on our fellow human beings, and there might be hope for this beautiful place callled Earth. That is the true power of the 'net - our hearts and minds can travel the world, and hopefully make it a better place.
yeah, kinda (Score:2)
As a species, it is very important for us to have a culture, and the culture we have is generally a combination of an initial choice of people or activites we like, followed by a winnowing away of the things which don't seem to fit our choice (even if we rather like them.) It is this tendency which the major corporations rely on in trying to steer the direction of our culture.
John's analysis may be cute and superficial, but some corporate schmuck is making a very similar analysis, and is going to try to turn it into money/mind control for the rest of us
Pigeonholing (and too many questions) (Score:3)
If we must make categories, then rather than continents, with the implication that they're separated by vast distances, I think a better analogy would be a spectrum. The "colors" of the various regions of the net blend into each other.
Perhaps even that is too much pigeonholing. What about the porn sites or the information sites that charge for access or have expensive banner ads to pay the bills? Or the "God" sites that ask the faithful for donations? Some of them take in a lot of money - why aren't they ranked with the big portals and commercial sites? Where is the cutoff? Is it measured in dollars or hits or souls saved? Is there a cutoff at all, or do the types (like the various types of students in a school) blend into one another at the edges? Some may be a blend of more than two types, so a linear continuum is inadequate. A multidimentional continuum might be in order.
Oh well...
Interesting. (Score:2)
Ipv6 will save us anyway..
Self Fulfilling Naming. (Score:2)
Because we just read it, and since most of us hadn't ever tried to classifiy these things, his classification will stick to us, and we as users, and Katz as an author will begin to deal with the net conceptual as though these classifications held.
Which will enforce them.
So by writing this, Katz might have just planted a virulent meme, if it sticks.
On a lighter note: Have any of you seen the window$ based virtual pet games 'Catz' and 'Dogz'? I if 'Katz' is just a test market case for a virtual pundit game.
x-net? (Score:2)
AudioNet (Score:2)
"radio" shows.
In fact, I've started searching for music I want to
listen to, not what the local radio stations want me
to listen to.
Personal homepages (Score:3)
Re:Not very distinct (Score:2)
Very accurate.
Slashdot USED to pay more attention to scientific stuff. These articles didn't generate 786 posts like the "Government Men In Black want to stand over your shoulder while you look at porn" stories.
As far as Linux-hugging, I'll just say this: It used to be I could come to Slashdot to get the whole story. By reading the articles and the posts, I could usually get past sound bites and bias and get some real facts.
Not anymore. Now I look for sites to give me the whole story beyond the "Microsoft sucks. Linux is awesome." stuff I read here.
I use Linux. It doesn't make me cool. It doesn't make me smart. I don't have to pat myself on the back for using it.
Proof that Katz's Analogy Is Invalid (Score:2)
Katz attempted to break down the Internet into "continents". A continent, by definition, is a partition of the set of land mass on a planet. Partitions are disjoint subsets of a set. Disjoint means the intersection of two subsets is the empty set. In other words, a place in Africa cannot be a place in Asia, etc. Katz's "continents" could overlap. Slashdot could belong
to InfoNet AND TechNet. Since there exists an element which belongs to the intersection of two of Katz's "continents", they are not partitions!
There are no special properties of Katz's stupid "continents" that make them worthy of being analogous to actual continents.
I wish there was a friggin' poll that suggested what college courses you'd force Jon Katz to take. I'd vote for Discrete Math.
Re:Here's a suggestion (Score:2)
Agreed wholeheartedly. A diversity of points of view would be healthy, and Slashdot certainly doesn't suffer from a lack of good rant...er...writers. Perhaps one of those spots should be a "guest writer" spot offered from time to time (monthly?) to another essay writer the editors or readers find interesting?
JMR
Actually, don't look at content; look at people. (Score:3)
I tend to think of the Internet as broken up into different regions depending on the primary intent of the people involved. Given that, there seems to be four types:
In the "people trying to get rich" I would place all corporate activitity and many X-rated sites. That's because the thing that motivates them is to make money. Since they are motivated to make money, their activities will eventually devolve into either becomming an "exclusive" hookup (VPNs), advertising like crazy (/.), or sell-sell-sell (Amazon).
In the "people trying to convert us" we have things like the "God" sites, as well as the racist sites.
In the "people having fun" category we have gamers, some technical folks (who apparently have fun writing code, though some of them are more "express yourself types"), and some X-rated sites where some guy with a digital camera is posting nudes of his wife on the 'net.
And in the "people expressing themselves" we have the whole art scene, as well as a lot of GPLed software sites and the like.
I think this is a better way of breaking up the regions of the 'net, partly because by knowing what motivates the people doing the site, you can sort of see in which direction they will "pimp" themselves to achieve their objectives. For example, we have 'www.fresnobee.com', a local newspaper site, with a "shop online" button. That's because the people running the Fresno Bee aren't interested in reporting the news; they're interested in making money reporting the news. And if they can make some additional money allowing people to shop online, why not? They're making money, after all.
Now of course people evolve and change over time, so sometimes these boundaries can be blurred. For example, the husband and wife posting nudes on the 'net for fun may suddenly realize they could make money charging for those pictures. Or the hacker who was having fun tinkering with stuff suddenly finding himself doing it as a form of expression because his 9 to 5 job doesn't allow him the luxury.
anyone else notice? (Score:3)
--- insert a/c evil ranting replies below ---
#----------------------------
$mrp=~s/mrp/elite god/g;
Continents (Score:2)
Given the general rule of everything being associative and uncategorizeable, I do see an exception. There are sites developed BY the community, then there are sites developed by entities outside the community which just need a presence. I guess you could call this a split between "commercial" sites and non-commercial sites (even though many commercial sites are part of the "community" and many non-commercial sites aren't).
I would consider places like *news.com and *BUYMYCOOLWIDGET.com in the "external" group. They are places people go, but are not a
It would be cool, though, if the net could be surveyed against several general attributes (say, N), and plotted in N-space. That would be some cool geography.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla [sourceforge.net]
Re:Really only two... (Score:2)
Which would be the second law, not the first.
Oceans = Continents yet to rise (Score:2)
Some of these are quickly evolving, for example NGO's are somewhat represented by charity sites like The Hunger Site [hungersite.com].
Others may never be represented well simply because technology is against the inherent nature of the offline structure, for example, the Amish. (Though maybe this example is just a lake on the GodNet continent?)
Presumably there are, or will be, fallen continents as part of the oceans. One example I can think of is the NCSA Announcement page, which from the time the web had roughly www servers, until it had about 4000, was probably one of the the most visited websites. It then slowly faded into oblivion, largely replaced by Yahoo, and search engines.
Re:Personal homepages (Score:2)
The exception might be personal pages for college students which have been around since the beginnning of the web (Yahoo started this way). These can be devoted to just about anything, with good percentage of them related to the students studies/major which I don't see as a real part of the Culture.
I'd call this "entering the third era", not second (Score:5)
First era, "Internet for techies", 1969-1993: Internet technology develops, rapidly grows in size as educational network and tech-corporate email gateway, spurred by government research grants and applications like email and USENET
Second era, "Internet for the masses", 1994-today: Internet enters into widespread use by consumers and businesses, spurred by development of the web browser graphical interface
Third era, "Broadband Internet", 1999-tomorrow: cable modem and DSL infrastructures remove bandwidth constraints and enable mass-market content delivery of all media types, spurred by the development of erbium-doped fiber optical amplifiers and dense wave division multiplexing.
--LP
Re:anyone else notice? (Score:2)
Nah. I think, it being Valentines Day and all, that he had a hot date, and was in a hurry to turn this in
The right divisions, the wrong analogy (Score:2)
However, I don't think that the analogy with continents is correct. Perhaps a better analogy would be with either cable channels or with magazines and newspapers. The reason is that we don't have to move physically to change our allegiance from one to another. In fact, we don't have to switch completely, and reallocating our time from one to another is even quicker than dropping one magazine subscription in favor of another. It is as quick as changing channels. And when you channel surf on the net, you never have to miss your favorite show.
Gore-Net? (Score:3)
Shouldn't Al Gore get his own continent where he can lord it over all other political candidates?
After all...he did invent the internet.