The Web has about 600M pages open to the public, with about 83% being commercial, 6% scientific or educational, and 1.5% pornographic. The NEC Research Inst. says that even top search engines index only the most popular sites. Northern Light comes in first at 16% of all pages, followed by Snap (15.5%), AltaVista (15.5%), Hotbot (11.3%), Microsoft (8.5%), Infoseek *8%), Google (7.8%), Yahoo (7.4%), Excite (5.6%), Lycos (2.5%), and Euroseek (2.2%). . [NY Times , 08Jul99. NewsScan.] (Metasearch may give up to 42% coverage by invoking multiple engines. I'd guess that much of what's missed is either new content or product description pages for online stores. Some people are concerned that the Web isn't a good publishing medium if information is not accessible, but it has always been true that some publishing channels are more accessible than others. License your content to a major site -- or at least get links from one -- if you want maximum exposure.)

Although the Web is expanding, the number of sites that people routinely visit is shrinking. The 10 most popular sites get 20% of Web surfers' time, and the 50 most popular get 35%. Word-of-mouth recommendations reinforce the tendency to cluster. [Bernardo Huberman, LA Times , 23Aug99. NewsScan.]

Advertisers like the new "affinity" portals such as NetNoir for African-Americans, Quepasa.com for Hispanics, Asian Avenue for Asian Americans, Gay.com for homosexuals, and Collegeclub.com for college students. Fringe groups that have few mainstream channels are likely to have well- established Internet groups -- and some of them represent substantial buying power. [USA Today, 06Aug99.] NewsScan.]

Women will outnumber men online 60% to 40% by 2002. Whereas men often go online for news, stocks, sports, and babes, women usually want content to simplify their lives, save time, pay bills, book vacations, research or make purchases, and build relationships. "Men want cut-and-dried information (81%), women value relationships (89%)." [NetSmartAmerica.com, PRNewswire, 03Aug99. Karen Ellis , DUC. net-hap.]

UMBC's Institute for Global Electronic Commerce (IGEC) has started an ecTechNews email/Web newsletter about R&D technologies underlying e-commerce: data mining and machine learning, agents, IR, security, negotiation, etc. Send a message to or visit for about 40 issues per year.

ecTech is UMBC/IGEC's mailing list where researchers and developers can describe their projects, problems, and results. Sign up with or , or via . [Tim Finin" , dbworld, 02Aug99.]

----- "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." -- W. Edwards Denning. [TFTD, 25Jun99.] -----

5> Website management: [Mike Hanafin.]

HerWebsite is a list for women to discuss Web pages and online business. . [Julie Klaus , NEW-LIST, 04Mar99.]

The Portal Juice company can help you develop your own "vertical" or "micro portal" or search engine. . [BotSpot News, 08Aug99.]

ISPcheck is a search engine that allows comparing over 1500 Internet service providers. . [, net-hap, 20Feb98.]

DigiChat is a client/server chat product. A free evaluation copy is available from . [Mitchell Martin , net-hap, 12May98.]

Wisebot checks out the links on your Web site, saving design time. You can also use the report to create indexes of other sites. . [Michael Pastore, BotSpot News, 08Aug99.]

InterNETACTIVE Weekly is a free weekly e-zine for webmasters and online entrepreneurs, listing free links, graphics, software, and promotional resources. [newjour, 11Feb99.]

The Missing Piece Journal is a weekly with useful Internet design tips, site reviews, and marketing news. . [Corie Conwell , NEW-LIST, 23Mar99.]

SiteMaven D-Zine is a weekly about website design, promotion, advertising, search engine placement, and maintaining a successful Web presence. . [Patricia Dollar , newjour, 07Apr99.]

Tech Tips Monthly News is a free newsletter about Web server administration, Internet commerce, merchant accounts, marketing, virtual hosting, and web design. . [, net-hap, 05Mar99.]

I-Search Digest is a twice-weekly email publication about effective Web design, search engine optimization, and portal news. . [Matt Hockin , net-hap, 05Mar99.]

Another free monthly newsletter about web design, hosting, and promotion is available at . [Jens du Plessis , NEW-LIST, 15Mar99.]

There's even an award for the most boring web site of the month: . [Stephen Pratt. mini-AIR, 31Jul99.]

----- "The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity." -- Leo Tolstoy. -----

6> Linguistics: [With Camille Petrocco.]

A dBase relational database version of the WordNet lexicon is available for downloading at . [Alpo Lind , comp.ai.nat-lang, 22Apr99.]

You can generate texts via Markov chains at [, comp.ai.nat-lang, 27Aug99.]

The Hebrew Translating discussion list covers Yiddish and Aramic idioms, translation software, and other professional resources. Contact . [David Grossman , NEW-LIST, 17Mar99.]

Webgrammar's Food for Thought is an e-zine for English grammar enthusiasts. . [Judy Vorfeld , newjour, 29Mar99.]

IN A WORD is an etymology e-zine for lovers of the English language. Send a "subscribe_to_IN_A_WORD" subject line to or visit . [, NEW-LIST, 31May99.]

Up-to-Date American Idioms helps you learn a phrase each day. Over 1K subscribers. Contact or visit . Back issues are at . [Candy Zhang , NEW-LIST, 23Feb99.]

Vocabulary Builder helps you learn English roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Contact or visit . [Ibid.]

Focusing on Words Newsletter covers Latin and Greek word derivations, plus book reviews, etc. . [, newjour, 31May99.]

Arabic Word A Day (AWAD) teaches Arabic words from the Quran. . [, NEW-LIST, 01Jul99.]

----- "Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge." -- John Locke, "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding," 1690. [AWAD, 29Jul99.] -----