The Times released their archives for free on the web! I came up with some interesting searches under “world wide wait”, a coinage that is attributed to them on the Internet and I believe has some relevance to where virtual worlds are today. I am also on the trial “free” plan for HighBeam Research, that gives unlimited browsing for free provided you cancel your credit card after a week.

Herewith some interesting quotations:

The problem is that for most Internet visitors, flipping through the pages of the World Wide Web is about as exciting as turning pages of a book or magazine once every 30 seconds or so. (Even some people with fast modems call it the World Wide Wait.) Some pages are fascinating, others are dreary, but nothing really happens on the pages. Browsing is a passive activity once the reader lands on a page.

Imagine, instead, a Web where each page is active and interactive, instead of static. A simple graphic image becomes an animation. A photograph becomes a video clip. Stock quotes and sports scores are updated on screen as the user watches.

-By PETER H. LEWIS, The New York Times,
Published: October 17, 1995

Sloth, the transgression of the slow moving and the unproductive, notorious as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, is alive on the Internet.

I like to read magazine articles while waiting for my next Internet event: 30 or 60 seconds to load a Web page or a minute to access a large news group. Any process that’s easily interruptable qualifies as an Interleavable Internet Activity (IIA). When the most recent command is done, I rouse myself and click on my next selection. Then it’s back to my alternate world for 15 seconds, 45 seconds or two minutes. A few seconds here, a minute there — they all add up.

-”Welcome to the World Wide Wait”, William Casey, The Washington Post, June 12, 1995

READ about the Internet, and thrill to the notion of a world wired at the speed of light, with all the information anyone could want just a mouse-click away. But actually use the cursed thing, and a more prosaic picture quickly emerges. Delay, break-downs and glacial transmissions are part of everyday Internet life. New users are amazed: surely this tepid data trickle is not the fabled “information superhighway”? Veterans shake their head wearily: the Internet has always been swamped, and as long at it doubles in size each year, it seems likely always to remain so.

True? That question-whether the Internet can grow out of stumbling adolescence and become as delay-free and reliable as the telephone network- ultimately comes down to one of economics.

-The Economist (US), October 19, 1996

I’m using Google alerts for selective searches pertaining to Second Life and business. Here’s a fine article about IBM and virtual worlds.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9730042-7.html

From the article: “MIT Media Lab Director Frank Moss, who also spoke Friday morning, said society is in the very early days–”the first minutes, perhaps seconds, of the 3D Internet”

I disagree, we’re further along than that - by a couple of hours!