>From: [email protected] (William P. Barr)
>[from HTML Writers Guild mailing list]
>
>This afternoon, Marc Andreessen, inventor of Mosaic and now co-founder of
>Netscape, gave a lecture to a grad class at Stanford. Attending the
>lecture was a literal who's who of human-computer interface design.
>
>What follows is an embellished version of my shorthand scrawl:
>
>- Netscape estimates 6 million people use their browser; no market
>percentage was claimed
>
>- According to protocol analysis, the majority of IP packets being sent
>over the internet contain http, having surpassed email a few weeks ago
> - the majority of users access the internet via the web
>
>- Lots of old metaphors are now being used to display information, those
>metaphors will break down very soon (malls, newsstands, etc.)
>
>- Major Netscape customers are looking to the internet for salvation
>because they really don't know what or where their businesses are, anymore
> - communications and telcos
> - publishing
> - financial
> - computer/software
> - Global Fortune 2000 companies
>
>- Providers like Compuserve, AOL, Prodigy, etc. are in big trouble if they
>don't adopt an infrastructure that uses the internet model
> - currently, their backbones can't handle the increased level of
>traffic
>
>- Some of Netscape's first large customers were Penthouse, Playboy and Hustler
>
>- Proxy servers are a key software technology
> - without them, large companies won't hook up
> - security
> - content control
> - traffic control
>
>- Actual internet/web business application software is the growth market, not
>just browsers
>
>- A change of the page metaphor is imminent
> - HTML 3 will be the launchpad
> - interactivity will be responsible for new metaphors
> - interactivity will be the ultimate user control for page layout
> - interactive browsers will let users redefine the layout of a
> site on the fly, at will
> - indexing, navigational aides and content organization will quickly
> supercede current layout and design issues
>
>- VRML and Hot Java will support this change
> - "Doom!" like interfaces will be the next model for browsers
> - current VRML does not support views of other people using browsers
> on the same page, Java will change that
> - 3D scenes will be "commonplace" by the end of the year
> - Hot Java is actually about 6 years old
> - ultimately, user will have complete control over how content is
> viewed
>
>- Have computers become "geek-free" or have we all become geeks?
> - he suspects the latter, especially in light of the average user
> trying to network Windows 3.1
>
>- Privacy is still an issue, though not as big as before
> - current, publicly available encryption technology will require
> about 64 mips years of CPU time to crack a message
>
>- Netscape is now accepting advertising on it's site, but is not leasing
>space on its server farm for other external content
>
>- He forsees custom protocols being developed for interactive sessions
> - user connects to site, browser downloads protocol for interactive
> session, after session is complete, browser forgets protocol
>
>- HTML and PDF are complimentary technologies
> - soon there will be more browser improvements that will have little
> to do with HTML or page manipulation, but will facilitate data
> retrieval
>
>- Emphasized use of push-pull facilities as the basis for crude
>interactivity and background "multimedia" experience
>
>- Lost in hyperspace is still a big problem and lots more research needs to
>be done to solve this issue
>
>--
>William Barr, Stanford Computer Forum phone: 415-723-6632
>ERL 448/450, Stanford, CA 94305-4055 fax: 415-725-7398
>[email protected] finger [email protected] for PGP
><URL:http://www-forum.stanford.edu/~wbarr/wbarr.html>
>listowner: [email protected]
> "My opinions are mine and only mine."
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