The Online World resources handbook

Your electronic daily news http://home.eunet.no/~presno/bok/9.html
After a while, a list of files in the Global Interactive News Briefs Archive arrives in my
mailbox. Each brief contains a digest of articles about the Internet printed in media
around the world. I return the URL of the most recent news brief to the Agora server to
receive the full report.
Some time ago, a well known Norwegian industrialist visited my office. I showed
off online searching in Brainwave for NewsNet newsletters, and stumbled over a story
about his company.
"Incredible!" he said. "We have not even announced this to our Norwegian
employees yet."
Sometimes, American online services give news from other countries earlier than you
can get it on online services from within these countries. Besides, you may prefer stories
in English.
Most Norwegians prefer to read news in Norwegian. The Japanese want it in their
language, and the French in French. If they can get the news earlier than their
competitors, however, most are willing to read English.
Few master many languages. Unless you live in a country where they talk Arabic,
Chinese or French, chances are that you cannot read news in these languages. English,
however, is a popular second choice in many countries, and it has become the unofficial
Esperanto language of the online world.
Reading news translated from another language has its risks. Translators often make
mistakes. One common reason is time pressure, another inadequate knowledge of the
source language. Their cultural background may prevent them from writing an unbiased
shorter version of the source text.
The risk of inaccuracies increases when a story, for example initially translated
from Spanish into English, are being translated into a third language.
Avoid news that has been translated more than once, or risk the following type of
experience:
On September 19, 1991, Norwegian TV brought news from Moscow. They
told that Russian president Boris Yeltsin had a heart attack.
The online report from Associated Press, which arrived 7.5 hours
earlier, talked about "a minor heart attack" with the following additional
explanation: "In Russian, the phrase 'heart attack' has a broader meaning
than in English. It is commonly used to refer to a range of ailments from
chest pains to actual heart failure."
Still, expect your "personal online daily newspaper" capable of giving you the news
faster and more correctly than traditional print media. Some news is only available in
electronic form.
Seven minutes way back in 1991
On September 19, I called CompuServe to read news and gather information about
online news sources.
According to my log, I connected through Infonet in Oslo (see Chapter 13). The
total cost for seven minutes was US$6.00, which included the cost of a long distance call
to Oslo. (Today, using CompuServe's Standard Pricing Plan, the cost is much less!)
I read some stories, while they scrolled over the screen. All was captured to a file
on my hard disk for later study. The size of this file grew to 32.000 characters, or almost
15 single spaced typewritten pages (A 4 size). If I had spent less time reviewing the lists
of available stories, seven minutes would have given a larger file.
Right after having logged on, a menu of stories appeared on my screen. The
headline read "News from CompuServe."
The two first items caught my attention, and I requested the text. One had 20 lines
about an easier method of finding files in the forum libraries, the other ten lines about
writing addresses for international fax messages.
The command GO APV gave me Associated Press News Wires. You will find many
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