Published March 1997 in Computing News & Review
I recently downloaded the new Netscape 4.0 Communicator integrated suite of applications, which includes a cool new browser, a great integrated email/news client, a built-in Web page editor, a teleconferencing client and a time-travel module which inexplicably transports you only two minutes back in time. I’m sure the next time I’m at a cocktail party and need a snappy comeback line, this module could come in handy.
While installing the trim, 12-megabyte compressed files, I was offered a chance to conveniently subscribe to a bunch of "push technology" sources for information. I chose to accept the easy offer. Big mistake. I’ve gone from getting maybe two dozen pieces of email a day to well over 100, with most of the new ones consisting of fact-and-URL-filled newsletters, newspapers, electronic magazines (e-zines), and my personal favorite: the current weather in my ZIP code. That’s right, if I’m feeling too lazy to look out the window to actually see the weather, I can read it right from the email/Web page "pushed" to me every day. There must be a message here somewhere, but I don’t think I’ve found the URL for it yet.
I first wrote about "Push Technology" in early 1996 when I discussed the PointCast Network, one of the first of a new breed of software technology vendors with software for the extremely complacent. "Push Technology" allows you to fill in a personal profile, then tailors the information to your individual needs, then crushes you under the weight and bandwidth of delivering it to your in-basket or screen-saver. In the case of PointCast, their product functions as a screen-saver and pushes your data to you on a predefined—and voluntary—schedule. The others tend to be more sporadic, and employ email as the principal delivery mechanism.
So if you judge your popularity by the number of emails you receive, you’ll love this new techno-trend. If, on the other hand, you have less than roughly 22 hours per day to read your email, then be careful in what you sign up for. It’s easy to sign up in one convenient place, but unsubscribing must be done on an individual basis. Trust me—I know. I didn’t even remember signing up for The Soy Farmers Field Gazette (motto: "We can make it taste like chicken.").
This technology has provided the motivation for me to step up my use of email-filtering rules, which is also a feature conveniently bundled into the new Netscape "Messenger" email client. I wrote about mail filters a while back in the context of filtering "spams" right into my digital wastebasket. While the filtering rules of Messenger are extremely intuitive and powerful, there’s not even a remote chance of staying ahead of the spammers. A few days ago, for example, I received an email from someone with the subject of "Life-Saving Technologies." Sounds good. I’ll bite. Two paragraphs into the message, after a tremendous lead-in about the need for establishing adequate security procedures for family and loved ones, I discovered that the message was a sales pitch for motor oil. Really. This particular motor oil, it said, could actually save lives. [delete]
But I digress. Back in the Middle Ages of the Internet (November 1995 to February 1996) you actually had to go through the tedious process of using your cunning, tenacity and skill at searching the Web for information. This process was apparently the basis of "Pull Technology"—you had to go fetch it. Today you can just sit back and wait for it to be "pushed" to you. And with the ability for email to now have a Web browser interface, your email can contain pictures, sounds, and links to other pages, just like in a Web page.
Just think of the possibilities here, say, for Bill Gates to make his next trillion dollars. When Micro$oft is ready to ship "BloatWare 97," for instance, they can merely "push" it to your machine, then "pull" the payment right out of your Micro$oft Money personal finance manager. Didn’t you wonder why, when you installed it, there was already a vendor item setup for Micro$oft?
Today’s hot media topic is "the battle for your desktop." This fight, allegedly being waged between archrivals Micro$oft and Netscape, concerns which of the two you will choose for your personal desktop interface. While the feature-for-feature war rages on, let us not forget that Internet Explorer is bundled ("pushed") with each and every copy of Windows 95/97/whatever, and will in time be able to claim dominance just by volume alone. To further the proof that Micro$oft will eventually rule the world, something I read recently said that Windows NT outsold UNIX platforms in 1996 for the first time. Business, it seems, is moving to NT.
So if you’ll excuse me now, I’m going to see what happens when I click on the time-travel module a few thousand times. I’ll get back to you when I hit 20 again.