Copyright 2002 by Richard Seltzer
Originally published by Wiley. The rights have reverted to the author
Please post your reactions/comments/suggestions at Blogging about Books
http://www.samizdat.com/blog/?cat=10
First, consider our initial purpose. You were to learn the basics of the Internet business environment so you could operate an existing online business at low cost, if necessary; and so you could see alternatives and opportunities that could help make that business successful. Or as an entrepreneur, you were to learn how to get started, to take care of all the basics of setting up an online business without depending on investors.
Still, it's only natural to look for the winning formula -- the insight that could lead to riches. It's simply not satisfying to hear that success depends on hard work, and is not guaranteed.
Cheer up. Today, we see two huge waves of business change and opportunity coming on the Internet. One is based on high-speed access. The other is wireless. These waves will bring new issues, new opportunities and new risks.
In this chapter, we'll give you some preliminary experience in those realms, adding capabilities to your experimental Web site and gaining insight into possible new business models.
Required assignment:
• use Realaudio to record and post a message (need microphone)
Electives:
• add voice chat to your Web site,
• use Napster,
• buy a webcam and use it at Spotlife
Then, last month, I put an audio book on the Web -- nearly 20 Megabytes for a single book. Before that, my entire Web site, which gets over 1500 unique users a day, took up less than 15 Megabytes. So why was I suddenly being so wasteful? What's going on?
What I hadn't realized, but should have, is that disk space on the Web, not bandwidth, was the main barrier to the proliferation of creative do-it-yourself multimedia.
Quality streaming audio has been available, working well even with a 28K modem, for years. With "streaming" media, compressed content flows to you continuously over the Internet. That means that you don't have to wait a long time for a file to download to your hard drive for you to play back later. It also means that you don't need a huge hard drive to save all the multimedia files you enjoy.
Real.com makes available for free both the basic player software (RealPlayer) and the software you need to create streaming media files (RealProducer). I had enjoyed audio and video on the Web as a consumer, but had never considered producing my own material and making it available on the Web because the files were immense compared to text, and my space on the Web was severely limited. Sure, I could experiment, making files for my own consumption, and taking advantage of the extra gigabytes on the hard drive of my new PC, but Web space was still precious.
Now, all of a sudden, disk space on the Web is abundant and free or inexpensive. That makes an enormous difference, unleashing my creative instincts, and probably the instincts of many others as well.
A couple years ago, free Web-hosting sites like Xoom (now NBCi), Geocities, and Tripod typically made available 10 Megabytes of space. Now they've all raised their limits considerably, and NBCi offers unlimited disk space for free. If you don't like the response time, or you'd prefer your own domain name, and you'd like a service that's set up to efficiently handle streaming media, professional Web hosting, with unlimited Web space is now very reasonable. I recently moved my Web site to www.hispeed.com. This new service is in California. I live in Massachusetts and my former ISP was in Massachusetts as well. But while it was a long distance call for me to get support from the local ISP, it's a toll-free call to reach the one in California. And while the local ISP didn't have support during the night and only a skeleton crew on weekends and holidays, the new one offers 24/7 support. At Hispeed, in addition to unlimited Web space, I get unlimited traffic, and an account with my own domain name for just $19.95 per month. For a couple dollars more a month, I get support for doing RealAudio and RealVideo. Suddenly, I can freely experiment with audio and graphics.
So I took The Lizard of Oz, a fantasy that my wife Barbara and I had self-published as a paperback back in the 1970s, and recorded it, chapter by chapter using the microphone on my PC and the RealProducer software. Then I used Bob Zwick's free eBookIt software www.cottagemicro.com/ebooks. I wound up with an online edition of my book that includes the text and illustrations very slickly and readably presented. To hear the narration, you need the RealPlayer, but the free version will do just fine, and it works great. Check the book out at www.samizdat.com/liz
In other words, anybody can now make attractive and useful audio books. A high school class or even an elementary school class could, with the equipment and Internet connection they already have, make online editions of public-domain classics -- recording the narration themselves, and posting the massive files in free Web space. They could do the same thing with their own writing as well. And anyone, anywhere in the world, with an ordinary modem-based connection to the Internet could enjoy these creations. And if you have a PC with a read-write CD drive, you can make copies of these books on CDs and sell them through online book stores, like Amazon.
In other words, a revolution has happened, quietly. And it didn't happen because of some great new technological advance or some massive increase in bandwidth. Rather, with the decreasing cost of high-capacity hard drives, unlimited disk space on the Web became available at low cost, and that has made all the difference.
Next go to Real.com Download and install the free basic RealPlayer, if you don't have it already. Or splurge and buy the higher quality latest and greatest version for $29.70. Also download and install the free version of their RealProducer. Don't pay for the professional version of that until you have experimented and have come up with a way to profit from the files you create. (Don't spend hundreds of dollars unless you are sure you will use it).
Real.com does an excellent job of hiding their free versions, in hopes
that you'll pay instead. Try navigating through their stie to the right
download page. This is what works today:
• On the home page, in the right column, in the section about learning
more about streaming media, click on "Streaming Media Starter Kit".
• In the left column, click on "Other Resources".
• In the Q&A under "Where can I get all these cool products", click
on "click here".
• At the bottom of the page, click on "Real System Producer Basic".
That free version works quite well, and will enable you to create both
audio and video files.
Once you have installed the software, run it and make your first audio
file. You'll see a choice of "recording wizards". Check "recording from
media device". That means record from a microphone. Click "OK". Under "Input
source", click "Capture Audio", then "Next". Give your file a title and
enter any other information you choose to. Then click "Next". Under "File
type", choose "single-rate for Web servers". That way you will be creating
files that will run fine on ordinary Web servers, instead of requiring
that your hosting service run special software. The fancier version gives
the receiver of the file a choice of speeds. This simple one sends everything
at a single speed -- which works just fine for audio. Video is more demanding.
Click "Next". Under "Target audience", select "28K". That works just fine
for audio. And if you are going to run at a single speed, you want it to
be a speed that will work for just about everyone. Click "Next". Under
"Audio Format", choose "Voice Only", then click "Next". Under "OutPut File",
either enter an entire file name (with the directory), or click "Save As"
and browse to the directory you want and then enter the file name, which
must end with the suffix ".rm". This is the file that you will later upload
to your Web server by FTP. Click "Next" then "Finish". Now you are ready
to record. Under "Recording Controls", click "Start", and start talking.
Read something you have written -- an article or memo. Keep this first
recording short -- just a few minutes. Click "Stop" to end. If you'd like
to record again overwriting the original file, just click "Start" again.
To listen to what you've just created, click "Play" or launch your RealPlayer
software and open the file. Connect to your Web hosting service with FTP
and upload this file. Now use your RealPlayer to open the file on the Web
(the Web address will be your site URL, with the name of the audio file
at the end, e.g., www.samizdat.com/test.rm). You can link to such a file
from any page at your site, just as you link to any other file. If a visitor
clicking on that link has the RealPlayer installed, that application should
launch automatically, playing your audio.
What else can you do with audio?
You can use that same RealProducer software to broadcast live. From the Wizard, choose "Live Broadcast". Under "Media Server", enter the name of your Web host, the same name you use for FTP; together with your user name and password and the filename, with ".rm" as the suffix. If that doesn't work, ask the support people at your hosting service for help. Once you have the setup right, anyone connected to that file on the Web will hear everything you say into that microphone, live. In that mode, you could think of yourself as a radio announcer, broadcasting to a global audience, consisting of the handful of people that you can convince to connect at that time.
You could also create a Web page with links to many saved audio files of yours -- or music files, if you are a composer and musician.
So start your imagination rolling -- if you can do this much with a cheap microphone and free software, what might you be able to do with a professional (but still not too costly) setup? And how could you build a business around audio on the Web? You don't need any kind of license to broadcast over the Web. If you can build a library of interesting audio content and if you can build your own audience, you could consider setting up your own online radio station. Otherwise, you might want to contact existing stations to see if they might be interested in your material. To sample a variety of stations, go to Real.com and under "RealGuide", click "RadioTuner". If your content is professional quality, contact RedBand www.redband.com and AudioBasket www.audiobasket.com for possible syndication.
If you are inclined toward becoming a multimedia publisher, download and try the eBookIt software that I used for my Lizard of Oz, at www.cottagemicro.com/ebooks. You can use that same software to create files for the Web and for CD ROM. If you decide to make CD ROMs, you can duplicate them with your PC (if you have a Read-Write CD ROM drive), and use your printer to generate professional-looking labels. Then you can sign up for Amazon's Advantage program and sell your CDs through them on a consignment basis. To do so, you'll need to get ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) for each of your titles. That's the number that all book stores and distributors use to uniquely identify the merchandise they have in their catalogs and warehouses. You buy those numbers from R.R. Bowker at www.bowker.com (the publishers of Books in Print). It will take you a week or two to get accepted into the Amazon Advantage program and once you get your first order from them -- probably for just a couple copies -- it may take a few weeks for them to enter the item in their catalog. But then anyone, anywhere in the world, looking for a book with a title like yours will be able to find yours. And if they decide to buy, Amazon will ship it to them within 24 hours. If you want to make significant profit, you'll need to find other outlets and do some marketing, but this is a simple and inexpensive way to get started and test-market your product.
Also, consider other outlets that might be interested in audio book content simply as files, not on CD, such as -- Audible.com and MP3Lit.com They sell their books as files for people to play on portable MP3 players in their cars or while exercising.
If you have found HumanClick a useful tool for starting a dialogue with your Web visitors and trying to turn them into customers, consider using voice chat in a similar way. First, go to Excite www.excite.com Click on "Help". In the "Directory" in the left column, click on "Excite Voice Chat." Register, follow their instructions and create your own voice chat room -- for free. Once you have done so, you can link to it from any page at your site. For instance, from the page I use to market my consulting business at www.samizdat.com/consult.html, I link to my free voice chat room at www.excite.com/communities/chat/voicechat/client/launch_vc?room=rseltzer5 Anyone who clicks on that link and has a microphone can start talking to me live over the Web. They can register and sign in, or just check in as a guest. The room can handle up to ten people at a time, and those people can be located anywhere in the world. And nobody is paying long-distance charges for this call. For professional quality solutions involving voice over the Web, consider the offerings HearMe at www.hearme.com If you happen to use Eudora for email, you can try out a free version of HearMe at www.eudora.com/products/voicecontact/
Such technology makes it easy to deliver voice support and help or long-distance consulting very inexpensively. Imagine how you might use this capability to serve your customers, and imagine the businesses you might create providing direct customer interaction for other companies. Also, imagine business models where you facilitate the conversations and interactions of others, helping Web visitors connect with one another, in an audio variation of an online community.
Once you have installed the camera, connect to SpotLife www.spotlife.com and sign up. In a matter of minutes, you can be available with video only or audio plus video through a "channel" of your own, delivered through their site. Your channel can be public (open to all) or private (requiring that the people in the audience have your authorization). You might only want to let in people who you know, or you might charge for membership. The quality of the image depends in part on the quality of the camera, but probably more on the speed of the Internet connections at your end and the recipient's end. Normally, the image is small and fuzzy; and the action is choppy. Check out what others are doing with this medium. Perhaps you can come up with another, more creative business model that works fine with low-quality live images.
SpotLife helps you connect to an audience of strangers.
You also can use your QuickCam without SpotLife. Simply launch the software and follow instructions to broadcast live, or record videoclips using your camera. Or use this camera as video input for RealProducer.
As an alternative, go to a shareware software site like Download.com or Tucows.com, and get the latest trial version of webcam32. This software lets you serve up still images to the Web at intervals of a few seconds. Because you aren't broadcasting live motion, the images can be larger and sharper; and they can be received much better over slow connections. The software automatically FTP's the images, in .jpg format to the Web address you assign at your site. All you have to do is connect to that page with a browser to see the latest image. I have a Web page -- put together by a friend, Anthony Alvarez -- that is set up so the image automatically refreshes. When I do my weekly text-chat sessions about Business on the Web, I usually turn my camera on, and those who wish can see my almost-live image at www.samizdat.com/cam/live.html If you'd like to do something similar, go to that page, save it to your hard disk, open it with WordPad, and edit it to meet your needs -- changing the address after "value=" and replacing my text with yours. To get the Java applet that Anthony wrote to make this work, go to www.samizdat.com/cam/JavaCam.class (the address is case sensitive) and save that file. Then upload that file to your server, together with your edited version of my live.html file, putting both of them in the same directory. And in the setup for Webcam32, send the camera images to that same directory, with the name webcam32.jpg
You might also want to experiment now with Microsoft's Netmeeting, CUSeeMe, and other video software -- to hold videophone conversations, and videoconferenced meetings. If quality is important, upgrade your equipment and software and make sure that all participants are well-equipped and have fast connections. Even in the worst-case situation, the creative, entrepreneurial possibilities are very interesting.
When video and audio are live and two-way, they can serve as a means to extend the ways that people relate to one another, and they also can become very efficient means for communication -- conveying non-verbal clues that are essential in negotiating and building relationships.
As mentioned in Chapter Two, in Neal Stephenson's cult-classic novel Snow Crash, it is the ability to recreate subtleties of facial expression in "avatars" (on-line alter egos) that makes virtual/alternate reality take off.
I suspect that there will be several stages in the development of video for the Internet -- tied to developments in visual quality (resolution) and speed (frames per second). What we usually see today is little better than still photos transmitted frequently (as with Webcam32) . You get to look at a still photo or a small, fuzzy, jerky video image while someone talks. There's a recognizable face, but there's no connection between the expression on that face and what the person is saying.
If you happen to be well-equipped and have a fast connection, maybe you can see something closer to smooth motion. Gestures may seem natural, and the person at the other end may look more like a human being than a poorly programmed robot.
Over the next few years, from both greater compression and faster connections, expect Web-based video to advance to the point the very high levels of resolution capture all the subtleties of human expression. (If we were going to be limited to today's speeds, detailed analysis of facial expressions could probably lead to low-bandwidth approximations of this level of quality -- focusing on just those aspects of the face that seem to convey the most information about a person. But since we won't be limited, and there will be little incentive for that kind of development.)
The real winner -- the Holy Grail of personal videoconferencing -- will be eye contact. How do you mount and synchronize cameras at both ends to create the compelling illusion that you are looking someone in the eye and that person is staring right back at you? Then you will be able to communicate a full range of emotion, with all the associated messages of sincerity and credibility; and video over the Internet will become a major, indispensable, business tool.
What kinds of business models might work today? The opportunities seem to fall into three categories: direct, indirect, and background.
Direct involves selling audio/video content and experiences over the Web (as through SpotLife), or selling advertising based on the audience that such content attracts.
Indirect would be use of audio and video to help sell products or to improve your online delivery of service (such as training and fix-it services). Imagine not just talking a customer through computer repair procedures, but demonstrating what you mean, live, in front of a webcam, and perhaps also seeing what the customer is doing through his/her webcam.
In background applications, the camera is on all the time. These applications include monitoring and security. Some daycare centers and summer camps are setup with webcams so parents can click at any time from work and see their kids in action. They could also set up to allow the kids to periodically see and hear their parents, if the parents are equipped with webcams and microphones.
With work-at-home arrangements becoming commonplace, webcams could enable bosses to see constantly see their remote employees.
Also, imagine a webcam embedded unobtrusively in your new car. Someone breaks in, the webcam clicks on, and you and/or the police or a security company sees who's in the car, what's happening, even where the car is.
Doing that with a car requires wireless access, but wireless, too, is becoming more readily available, with speeds increasing and prices dropping, leading to a variety of interesting new business possibilities.
Fixed wireless includes wireless over local area networks (LANs) up to a few hundred feet, and also wide-area wireless, which with fixed antennas can cover a metropolitan area. When a laptop with a compatible radio modem is within range of an antenna, it can connect to the Internet. For instance, a few years ago, when I worked at Digital, many of us had transceivers attached to our laptops. From most rooms in most buildings inside the company, we could connect to the LAN and therefore to the Internet, so we could do email and check documents on the Web from anywhere -- being productive during the most boring meetings. But you had to be within a narrow range for those transceivers to work. Wide-area wireless is what would probably be used for that webcam-in-a- car application suggested above. And wireless delivered by way of satellite could provide connectivity from anywhere.
"Wireless wireless" includes connecting cell phones, pagers, palm computers, or other gadgets to the Internet, piggybacking on existing wireless phone and data services. For instance, with a data service like Sprint, you would get Internet coverage wherever Sprint has voice coverage.
Wireless is an inexpensive and flexible way to build the IT infrastructure of a company or university campus. But the activities it supports are very much the same as usual -- whatever you can do with ordinary PCs and laptops. Fixed wireless capability can be tied to real estate value, like office buildings and convention centers. Eventually, you should have access to that kind of Internet connectivity from airports and other places where travelers with laptops often have to wait.
"Wireless wireless" involves a different set of limitations and opportunities. It's not just another way to get to the same old Web pages. The screens are small. There's little local memory. Input is slow and awkward. And access speeds today are very slow compared to what we've become accustomed to with full-blown computers. While the rest of the world is moving to multimedia, these gadgets thrive on plain text.
Services that want to appeal to people accessing the Internet with wireless gadgets -- major news services, online stock trading companies, and shopping sites -- find that they need new versions of their pages tailored for these gadgets.
First you need to get some insight into how these people use their devices, and the only way to do that is to buy and use one yourself.
Get a palm device, any of the many gadgets that are compatible with those made by Palm Computing. Depending on the model you choose and the deal you get, this might cost you $150 to $250. It need not be a wireless model -- any palm device will do. (If you get wireless, you'll incur the additional expense of a wireless service provider).
These gadgets come with Schedule, Address Book, ToDo List, and Memo areas pre-configured. You enter information with an easy-to-learn shorthand version of normal writing, using a stylus (a pencil-shaped piece of metal with a smooth tip, so it won't scratch the screen). Or you can buy an add-on keyboard. You can also "beam" information, using a built-in infrared link, to other users of the same gadgets. And you can "sync" the information on your palm device with information on your PC, by way of a cradle that connects to a port on the PC and special software you get with the device. The screen is small, but perfectly adequate for the snippets of information that people normally use them to store and retrieve. Software companies have come up with many interesting and useful applications that you can add to your device -- from keeping track of golf scores to reading electronic books. You may soon take yours with you everywhere and make it part of your normal routine -- even using the built-in alarm to buzz you with reminders of when to do what, over the course of the day.
Since you can sync your palm device with your PC, if your PC is connected to the Internet, you can also receive information from the Web on your palm device. In fact, you can sign up at various "sync" services on the Web, like Avantgo www.avantgo.com, pick one or more "channels", and have fresh news on your selected topics loaded into your palm device whenever you sync. Since these devices have limited memory, what at first seems like a convenience can soon turn into a nuisance, with all this unorganized content using up your valuable space. And if you are a Web site owner, you need to negotiate with the different sync services to make your content available through them -- at significant cost and hassle, as a separate activity from running your Web site.
As a palm device user, you appreciate the ease of using the built-in applications. This isn't a PC with gigabytes of space where you can dump any and all information. This is prime real estate, private property. You want to put up "no spamming" signs. You want to keep your palm filled with the contacts, events, and notes that matter to you. You can surf the Web with your PC and input information you find there to your palm device, by hand. But you'd want to avoid that time-consuming, error-prone hassle.
Coola www.coola.com has a quick and easy way for transferring pre-selected chunks of information from the Web or an email message to a palm device (either wireless or non-wireless). [Author's note: this was a great business idea, but it didn't survive.] Go to their site, register, and download and install their software. One piece stays on your PC, and another small piece goes on your palm device. Then to test how this works, either use examples at their site or go to a page of mine where I use it www.samizdat.com/start.html Click on the Coola link you see there. Then the next time you sync your palm device, the information connected with that Coola link will be transferred to the appropriate application on your Palm device. In this case, the opening sentences of a good book will be placed as an "untimed" event in your Schedule for that day. You'll see the title at the top of your Schedule, and when you access the attached note, you'll see the quote.
As a Web site owner, you can create "Coolets" like this for free at the Coola site and then add links on your pages. These Coolets could be contact/address information, or scheduled events or reference information. You choose which palm device area the information belongs in when you create the Coolet. You could have a Coolet with your business card information. If you have a page targeted at your customers where you list the names, addresses, and phone numbers of your support or sales staff, with descriptions of their areas of expertise or their territory, you could have a Coolet attached to each. If you are putting on an event, you could have a separate Coolet for each agenda item or session. By doing so, you made it convenient for the palm device users in your audience to remember the kinds of things that you want them to remember; and you do so at no cost.
With this same service, people with PocketPCs and cell phones can access that same information through those same Coolets on your Web pages. And, with professional, paid services from Coola, you can set up to create numerous Coolets automatically, for instance for a large directory.
Today, we see 3D-like experiences on the Web in real estate for virtual tours of buildings. And some sites present products in 3D format, so customers can view them from a variety of perspectives.
It's easy to imagine 3D presentation of new cars, with the buyer able to check the look of all the options from a variety of angles. Also, a site selling home remodelling services and home furnishings could allow customers to experiment in virtual space, changing the color of the paint or the wallpaper or moving furniture around, or seeing what other furniture would look like there -- to experiment with the kinds of modifications that they are interested in making. That could be much more valuable than a physical walk through, but might be too expensive to implement.
Repair services and instructions could benefit from 3D. But 2D webcam images might suffice.
The real winner -- the application likely to make the 3D an essential part of our online lives -- is likely to be Web navigation.
Trenza, a company co-founded by my son Bob, has developed technology that has been described as "Myst meets the Web", presenting today's Web pages with the ease of navigation and the sense of physical presence that we expect to find in videogames, and opening new creative opportunities for use of the space "between the pages" for advertising and engaging new kinds of content. [Author's note: Trenza, too, did not survive. But it was a great idea.] Instead of just seeing a flat page with text and graphics, imagine a panorama stretching into the distance, populated with Web pages and related experiences. You see your navigational choices ahead of you. As you move forward and turn, some choices come closer, others move farther away, and your angle of view changes. You get a tactile feel for how you got to where you are, making it easier for you to remember. Standard Web pages appear as billboards in this landscape. 3D pages and experiences come in a variety of forms. In the space between the pages, you see avatars representing the people who are actually viewing those particular pages at this point in time, including yourself. And you have the option of engaging in voice chat conversation with one or more of them -- perhaps with support staff from a store, or with a remote friend who is on an online shopping excursion with you. A host can moderate a live discussion "around" Web pages. Users can browse together, fill out Web forms together -- generally collaborate with one another around Web pages.
This approach is particularly appealing with complex, rich Web sites that offer visitors a vast set of choices that can be confusing and overwhelming in 2D form, and could be far clearer and simpler in 3D. But it also opens interesting possibilities for any size business that would like to fully engage the attention of its audience and provide a memorable and useful experience. Today, you give your Web designers chalk and a blackboard to work with; tomorrow, with 3D, you could give them the equivalent of the Sistine Chapel to challenge their creativity.
Other 3D players that you should check include: Macromedia, which has authoring tools to help developers create 3D content, Adobe which is launching a 3D plug-in, and WildTangent which has a deal with Sony Pictures to create online 3D content and games to help market movies.
If you haven't already, go to www.napster.com, signup, and download and install their software. Then begin to use their service to fetch songs that you'd like to hear.
Regardless of the outcome of the legal battles regarding rights to and payments for music, the rapid, phenomenal success of Napster changes the Internet business environment. Yes, anybody could set up a Web server to make it easy for people to download music or any other kind of digital file. But what Napster did was to make it easy for Internet users anywhere to connect directly to one another and share files. The music doesn't reside at the Napster site. It sits on your PC and the PCs of millions of other Napster members. That's what makes such a service so impossible to police.
Napster uses a central site to manage the users, but has no control over what they put on their PCs and what they decide to share with one another. Napster just makes it easy for someone in Peking to find out that you have a particular file that he or she wants and to make a copy of it on his or her own PC. Individuals can name their files however they want. So automated efforts to block the sharing of particular copyrighted material can be circumvented simply by individuals changing the spelling of names or adding a letter or number here and there.
What works so well for music could work just as well for any other kinds of digital files -- text or graphics or video or animation. And while Napster is set up as a global system connecting tens of millions of people, the same technology could be used to link together much smaller, more focused communities of users.
Another approach to P2P sharing known as Gnutella does the same thing without any central management of users. Gnutella client software is basically a mini search engine and a file serving system in one. You search a Gnutella Network and get the files that you want -- any files at all: music, pictures, video, text, software -- anonymously. To learn more and to download the software, go to http://gnutella.wego.com
The music industry should love Napster and do everything it can to help it thrive. Napster is an identifiable responsible party who can collect fees for them. If Napster goes under, anarchic Gnutella-style file-sharing will get an enormous boost, resulting in an environment where no one is in charge, no one is accountable, and the music companies get paid nothing.
While Napster and Gnutella connect individuals so they can share the files on their hard disks, other P2P setups are designed for individuals to share processing power, for distributed computing -- making it possible to do work that normally would require enormous and expensive supercomputers by using the idle cycles of home PCs.
The first highly publicized instance of that was the SETI@home project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), where individuals connected to the Internet volunteered to make unused computing capacity of their PCs available for doing calculations that normally would require an expensive supercomputer.
Now dozens of companies have started or announced plans for similar services, where they will recruit participants and sell the cumulative processing power for business, science, medicine, etc.
One of the most publicized of these projects is Juno's "virtual supercomputer project". Juno, the free ISP we discussed in Chapter One, has over 4 million active members. It wants its members to give up a part of the processing power on their PCs to run data analysis which Juno will put together for paying customers. Rumor has it that they might make participation in this project a requirement for free access. (See Internet World, April 1, 2001).
Other companies experimenting in this new realm of shared distributed computing include DataSynapse www.datasynapse.com, Porivo www.porivo.com, Distributed.net www.distributed.net, and United Devices www.uniteddevices.com
One of United Devices's projects is for cancer research. As they explain "Download the UD Agent and truly be a part of a world-changing project. The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) Centre for Drug Discovery in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford, England, is working with United Devices and our Member Community in the search for new drugs in the treatment of cancer." As of today, they boast 318,612 members with 443,579 total devices connected, having donated 39,834,919 hours of computing time.
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