Manifesto

In the first place the »Net.newbies« or »Net.Surfers« as they call themselves, (people who previoulsy hated to use computers in their daily work, now find themselves hooked into cyberspace spending hours on computer networks around the world; toying with the new notion of creating »virtual communities«) truly suffer from the information overload.

The »lost in hyper-space syndrome« prevails, since more and more of the good old 'net is turned into a netherworld of hypertextual lunacy. The 'net before its commercialization, used to be an intellectual playground linking ideas of the leading edge researchers of this planet. Today, it's turning into an unforeseen flatland of informational void. Nonsense at its best!

This makes newbies to the »info highway« easy targets for online services à la AOL, CompuServe, MSN, you name it. With all their small, BBS-like, closed-shop, single-mindedness. All of these services have a unique (hence incompatible) navigation frontend, and tie their users to the restrictions imposed by their edited, politically correct content. Access to the real thing only lurks in their backyards, and usually requires an extra fee.

Unfortunately, this is both good and bad. Let's face it: in fact, we all do require advice, assistance and consolence galore. The 'net is too often too confusing to »Surfers«. So, let's take the best of the two worlds: the »small is beautiful structure« of BBS-like systems, plus the myriads of alternate footpaths in the gargantuan galaxy of the 'net and »keep the resulting Webland strikingly simple«. Make it a KISS architecture.

Webland is thus a small but beautiful island in the yawning hyper-ocean, the menace of Cyberspace. Created by long-time hitch-hiker's who know most of the things out there. Webland is intended to serve as a candle, but it has to be turned into a flame by yourself...

Alice will soon help you on a guided, easy-to-understand discovery tour throughout the whole Internet universe. Stay tuned and look for the following graphical pointer:

There are some more projects that come with Webland that we will try to persue as time allows; one is the creation of an easy to use WinCIM®-like frontend to the Internet written in HTML which should be fairly straight-forward, and help AOL, CompuServe, T-Online/Datex-J, and other closed-shop users to easily navigate the 'net...

If you want to help, drop me a line. Your suggestions are welcome anytime.

Music was played by Extreme: Pornograffitti (A funked up fairy tale), A&M Records, 1990; Pink Floyd: P.U.L.S.E., Harvest Records, 1995; Marillion: Afraid of Sunlight, EMI Records, 1995; (Play it LOUD with lights turned off!)

...all else by -joke.