9.1 GETTING SNARED IN THE WEB

As nice as gophers are, there's an even better way to navigate and find 
information resources on the Net -- the World-Wide Web. 

Originally developed as a resource for physicists, the Web today is 
fast becoming the Main Street of cyberspace.  You'll find interesting 
characters wandering around, museums and galleries to visit, schools to 
teach you new skills, even restaurants (some of which will deliver real 
food in response to e-mail). You name it, chances are somebody's created a 
Web server about it.  Growing numbers of people even have their own 
personal Web "pages" where they let the world know what they're 
interested in.  

The Web's exploded in popularity for two reasons.  One is that it is 
fairly easy to use.  As with gophers, you navigate the Web by making 
selections from your screen -- no more cryptic Unix commands to memorize.  
The Web also lets you connect to FTP sites, so you no longer even have to 
use arcane anonymous-FTP commands in most cases. 

But what really sets the Web apart is hyperlinks.  To understand 
hyperlinks, think of an encyclopedia.  As you read an article on, say, 
Africa, your eye is drawn to a picture of an elephant.  You want to learn 
more about the animal, so you get out the "E" volume and look up 
"elephant" and start reading. 

Hyperlinks are the online equivalent of this browsing process.  Tim 
Berners-Lee, who developed the original Web model, came up with a simple 
language that lets somebody developing a Web document embed pointers to 
related resources.  When you then call up that document,  you'll see some 
words in a different color or somehow otherwise highlighted.  By moving 
your cursor to one of those words and then hitting enter (or clicking on 
it with your mouse, depending on your interface), you'll then call up the 
linked document. 

Because these hyperlinks are easy to create (more on that in a bit) -- 
anybody can put together a Web resource that can become a central 
clearinghouse of information on virtually any topic, linking documents 
that could be physically stored in dozens of locations around the world.