It all really got started with email for most people

The Easy Way Out?

It all really got started with email for most people. We all discovered that communicating with friends and relatives was really fast and easy compared with traditional postal (snail) mail

My parents got their first computer basically to communicate more frequently with their oldest son who really hates writing and sending letters the old way.

Email is still the "killer app" of the internet. With the birth of the World Wide Web and development of high speed internet service just about anything can be done over the Web from buying a house to watching a movie. But simple old email still is the favorite net use of choice.

Email symbolizes what the best of the Internet and Web are all about, making communication fast and easy. Improved communication, after all, betters everything from business, learning, relationships, faith, and just about anything we humans do.

Back during my days as a newspaper reporter and editor-publisher, hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment were required to do basically the same thing we're doing with CStation for the cost of a used car. Thanks to almost easy to use software anyone willing to do a little work can run their own web site. Link to the Elkhart City Church of the Brethrens' web site to see what one local organization has done.

Now, thanks to Web technology, you can chat live with text or voice with friends or relatives. Telecos are combining Web access with local and long distance phone calling, and cell phones, for a combined package fee, more than we'd pay for regular phone use, but much less in price than each service would cost individually.

AT&T has announced development of a chip which within two years will place small voice activated computers five times more powerful than today's fastest P.C. in cell phones. By that time its likely that most gas pumps, cash registers, and thousands of other items will be connected by the communication matrix we call the Internet.

There are now probably more than 500 million Web Pages on the Internet. The Web, which up to now has been mostly an American event, is experiencing exploding growth all over the world.

As I write this column I'm listening to the New York Yankees play the Chicago White Sox over radio via the Internet. Whatever people need to do, find marriage or family counseling advice, join a Bible study, look up an old friend, get a medicine prescription from a doctor, buy a car, plane ticket, stocks, or just about anything else, can be done fairly easily over the Web.

Yes, there are drawbacks. Customer service for problem items purchased over the web is not usually good. Local merchants and organizations haven't, as of yet, really found a way to use the net to their advantage. The Web can be a dirty, dangerous, place for those who aren't informed are careful about its use. But the Web's potential for good far outweighs these problems. And the problems themselves can be dealt with over time.

For now it's enough that the Web is going to make our lives a lot easier.

-Monty Keeling
May 16, 1999

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