One of the most exciting aspects of the Internet is the sense of the new! What’s online today that wasn’t there yesterday? What has been added to my favorite site? Where should I go to stay on top of my field? What is Dilbert (http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/) up to today? You know, important stuff! The Internet’s Web is fresh and new, and this freshness is often promoted with a sense of humor. The lighthearted approach apparent throughout much of the Web further reduces anxiety, rewards patience, and holds the reader’s attention. As we look for what is new and important, we have come to anticipate that it will also be entertaining. And in general, it is.

    Browsing the Web is an activity that has evolved from an exercise in frustration, to one of amusing and useless diversion, to an indispensable part of one’s day. We prefer “browsing the Web” to “surfing the Web.” Surfing implies a short but exhilarating activity that provides excitement and danger, packaged in short bits with pleasant lulls in an aesthetically enjoyable environment. Browsing, on the other hand, conjures up the image of wandering through the stacks of a well-appointed library where many arcane, profound, amusing, and appealing works may be happened upon by random chance in a non-randomly selected area. Browsing implies the serendipitous find. Surfing suggests “Oh Wow!” Both are valid descriptions of the ’Net, so take your pick.

    Whether it is looking up e-mail addresses, phone numbers, computer acronyms, government agencies, weather reports, or news headlines, the Web is now available as an integral part of the work and home environment. The number of sites that enter into everyday usage continues to grow daily, and some familiar old sites have put on new faces and new features.
So what do we mean by “New?” Well, for starters we mean

    Hopefully, after you read “Internet Resources for Government Officials” in the previous West Virginia Public Affairs Reporter (http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/IPA/PAR/Report_13_4.html), you went out, bought a computer, signed up with your local Internet service provider, and are ready to read this article - on the Web. One of the advantages of the World Wide Web is that the reader may follow an intuitive path due to the depth of the Web page format. This means that the topics on the current page have individual links woven throughout them that allow you to circumvent or follow embellishments upon the main theme. Though these sometimes seem to be more like the rabbit hole in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland than a concise predetermined exposition, it does give one an appreciation for serendipitous encounters. There are often illuminating nuggets of information that one stumbles upon on the way to something else.

    The following headings are listed in no particular order and can be read as you prefer, so follow your instincts. This printed version encourages you to read the article in a linear fashion because you have to flip those cumbersome pages. Only time will tell how much the way we package information will change due to the ’Net’s existence, but this article provides those new to the ’Net an idea of its ability to present information in new ways. How much it will truly influence our daily lives is, of course, a subject of much debate. But you can tell where we are placing our bets.

    One of the most interesting and exciting parts of the Web to emerge recently is the ability to personalize information retrieval. As a result, there has been a rapid increase in personalized Web sites. For starters, let’s look at one of the Web pages that helped start it all:

    Try this service. As it notes, “It’s Yours! It’s Free!” Yahoo! stores a profile that personalizes the information displayed by allowing you to specify the news you want, weather reports of interest, stocks in your portfolio (or the ones you would buy if you had a portfolio), and whichever sports teams you follow. It only takes a few minutes to set up a personal profile, and then click on the “Get Personal” link every time you return. In a cybernetic world where a few stray clicks can lead you down an interesting but time-consuming garden path, Get Personal’s filter allows you to take a quick glance at a single page that might otherwise require browsing a dozen.

    Yahoo! is not the only site to deliver personalized content. Perhaps the fastest growing such service on the Web IS

    PointCast provides personalized up-to-the-minute news and information from Internet “broadcast” channels. The sources are quite respectable, including The New York Times, CNN, Wired, The Miami Herald, and. The Chicago Tribune. The user personalizes his or her profile and, through updates as frequently as once an hour if desired, PointCast provides selected news, sports, stock quotes, weather, and lifestyle articles. From an office with a Local Area Network and high-speed Internet access, this service can run in the background, freeing the user to work and check in whenever desired. And just in case the user doesn’t remember, PointCast commandeers the screen saver, which provides a teaser to get you to look at the latest info. PointCast is not for everyone. It occupies a bit more disk space than many would prefer, and it has too many invasive animated ads flitting by for many people’s taste. It does, however, represent a glimpse of things to come. There is so much information of value out there, but it is lost among so much more information of no value whatsoever. Software that can intelligently discriminate which is which for you on an individualized basis is an invaluable tool. For the Web to bring information to you on your own terms with a single click of the mouse gives further evidence of how it will continue to develop and reshape our lives.
PointCast is not alone out there. There is also

    CastaNet, like Pointcast, installs software on your system and delivers channels based on your “tuning.” The information is downloaded to your machine ahead of time so that you do not have to wait on the information to load. Unfortunately, CastaNet is not, as yet, useful to a broad audience. It is interesting to look at since it moves Internet interactivity to new levels, but it provides a less accessible tool for the average browser. If you are developing a set of Web pages, give it a try. If you are using the Web as an information access tool, wait a version or two before investing much time in CastaNet.
Search engines, those indispensable tools that search for Web pages based on keywords, are even getting personalized.

    not only creates a personal profile for you, but it also has real people on the other end of your search. The visitor is asked to create a profile, and then using ratings based upon one of four people at The Angle your Web search selections are customized. While The Angle is also a web idea in its infancy, and the sites available seemed limited, the idea of personally tailored searches coupled with human interaction at the other end seems promising. The Angle tries to prepackage Web browsing by providing an expert who looks at the world from your angle.

    And when you get tired of the Web, and want to chill out in front of the tube, you can even click on

    and select what you want to see without all the noise of all the channel listings that you do not get or never watch.

    The growth of personalized services follows from several of the points made in the previous Reporter article. Web page construction is easy, fast, and very cost effective. Yahoo! and PointCast are able to provide their services for free based simply on advertising revenue. The cost of acquiring the information for the user is nil, and the cost of providing the information is covered by a third party who hopes to recoup their expenses from increased sales of their advertised product. As we think about the Web’s impact, we should keep in mind that the market forces at play are likely to play havoc within any economic sector where information collection is both expensive and valuable. For a better feel for this, look at
 

or any number of other consumer information pages before you buy your next car.

    Everything on the Web is new! Since the early days of the World Wide Web are basically pre-1994, everything on the Web is both new, and as is readily apparent to those who have been exploring the ’Net, constantly in a state of flux. Take, for instance, the
 

    Recently brought on line in 1996, the state’s home page has steadily evolved, both in coverage as well as graphic design, since we last visited it. StateSearch
(http:// www.state.ky.us/nasire/NASIREhome.html)
has finally added it to their list as well. In addition to changes in the state home page, several other state agencies are now online including:

    The state Department of Transportation provides a valuable resource for the state traveler with its West Virginia driving conditions page. If you do much winter driving, this site is one well worth adding to the bookmarks in your browser. The West Virginia Division of Personnel’s Job listings, in addition to providing a searchable statewide job listing, also provide links to job listings in many other states as well as a link to

    These are quite useful tools for those of us engaged in placing graduates of the state’s higher education system into the workforce. The posting of employment opportunities is an excellent example of how the Web can lower the costs of information collection substantially. Knowing where employment opportunities exist is an exceptionally valuable capability.

    The Council of State Governments has added several short features of interest to West Virginia‘s local governments to its “Issue Alerts” page, including:

    And, the country having survived its first election campaign waged in part on the Web, The National Conference of State Legislators provides election results for the state legislatures at:

Another site of interest that is worth noting is the

It has renamed its Center for Policy Research the Center for Best Practices. The NGA does not offer much other than a description of its mission, but this is a site to watch. In addition,

all contain a wealth of information about federal, state, and local government financial management.
Many other sites mentioned in the previous Reporter article have grown and improved. In short, everything on the Web is new, even the old stuff. The growth of material on timely policy issues is noteworthy as well. Space does not permit another lengthy excursion through various issue areas, but some umbrella Policy Organization sites are worth adding to your list:

    Several sites in West Virginia have also either come online or enhanced their presence since the last Reporter issue. A short, selected list includes:

    This last page provides the most comprehensive list of West Virginia sites available, and the list appears to be updated frequently. Watching this site evolve should provide an excellent indicator of the ’Net’s growth in our state. Pages under active development truly convey the sense of the new.

    There are so many new developments on the Web that “What’s New” and “Sites of the Day” are common vehicles for providing information about what is new, flashy, or recently discovered. Monitoring a few appropriate sites of the day can keep you abreast of things surprisingly well. And, if you are going to discuss “Sites of the Day” you might as well start at the beginning, and mention the one that appears to have begun it all. InfiNet’s
 

are Web Icons (and not just metaphorically). Having thought up the idea of putting up a list of interesting, innovative, useful, or sometimes simply strange sites, they have been imitated many times over. Someone else would have certainly come up with the idea, but InfiNet appears to have done it first and popularized the concept. Given their prominence, an InfiNet Cool Site of the Day “Award” is a token of envy and esteem on the Web. Sites that have won this approbation range from the useful and informative

    Cool sites of the day are noted for their striking manner of presentation, or their entertaining qualities. Those that are purely amusing occupy the same time honored place as the editorial cartoon and the funny pages (which can also be found on the Web).
There are a number of other Sites of the Day worth tracking. Yahoo! has several:
 

    Of course, no list of resources of interest to those involved in government or politics would be complete without a look at the

    All of these sites warrant an occasional daily browse as your interests dictate. Indeed, there are enough “Sites of the Day” pages out there that the interested browser should look at

for an extensive list. And, if there is a fitting place to end this discussion of “What’s New on the ’Net”, it is at “My Virtual Reference Desk.” Perhaps no other site on the Web contains as many valuable and useful reference materials as this one.

    Containing over 9,000 links to sites of various reference information, this one page represents probably the single most useful Web page on the ’Net. Although much of what is contained there is also available in Yahoo! and in other Web directories, My Virtual Reference Desk packages its information very well, making it one of the best guides for quick reference. It can save you days of time browsing. Perhaps no other site conveys the utility of the Web as quickly as My Virtual Reference Desk. If you haven’t looked at it yet, give it a try and encounter the shock of the new.

Corrections

    As pointed out in the previous Reporter article, a mistake in the Web version of an article allows for immediate revision, while the print media must wait for the next issue to be corrected. The Web site for the Lewis County Development Authority was misreported. Their site is:

Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

About the Authors

 Robert D. Duval is an Associate Professor of Political Science at West Virginia University. Rebecca Barrett-Duval is a social research consultant based in Morgantown.