1. 8 1 ADVANCED COMMUNICATION TOOLS Using Chat, Virtual Worlds, and Newsgroups New Perspectives on THE INTERNET

2. 8 2 Objectives Learn about and use Internet chat facilities Explore Web sites that let you create your own chat rooms and virtual worlds Explore virtual worlds that offer entertainment and learning opportunities Use the Web to find useful information in Usenet newsgroups Reply to and post original articles to Usenet newsgroups

3. 8 3 What Is Chat? Chat is a general term for real-time communication on the Internet or Web. Private chat – occurs between two individuals. Public chat – group chat area. Lurking – the practice of reading messages and not contributing to the discussion.

4. 8 4 What Is Chat? Chat rooms – Web chat sites that use the browser client software interface to create combined text and graphic environments for chat participants. Emoticons (or smileys) are used to display humor and emotions in their messages. Netiquette – Internet etiquette Avoid flaming and spamming.

5. 8 5 What Is Chat? Figure 8-1

6. 8 6 Internet Relay Chat In 1988, developed as a multiuser program at the University of Oulu in Finland. IRC uses a client-server network model. IRC servers are connected through the Internet to form an IRC network. Original network was EFNet, which is still one of the largest IRC networks today. Other major IRC networks: IRCNet, Undernet, DALnet, NewNet.

7. 8 7 Internet Relay Chat Figure 8-2

8. 8 8 Internet Relay Chat IRC networks organize their chats by topic. Each topic area is a channel. Channel heading use the pound sign (#) to indicate the chat’s topic. When a participant creates a new channel, he or she is responsible for managing the channel and is called the channel operator.

9. 8 9 Internet Relay Chat Participants select nicknames when they log on to an IRC server. Channel operator’s nickname is preceded by an “at” symbol. An IRC robot performs routine services on the IRC system.

10. 8 10 Internet Relay Chat

11. 8 11 Internet Chat Other programs use the Internet for chat communication links but do not connect to IRC servers. ICQ is one of the most popular Internet chat clients available. Created by small Israeli company in 1996 and purchased by AOL in 1998. It is freeware with over 117 million world-wide users.

12. 8 12 Internet Chat

13. 8 13 Instant Messenger AOL created its own chat software program called Instant Messenger. It is available to anyone for use on the Web. Use links on Yahoo!, MSN and other Web sites to locate and download an IM client.

14. 8 14 Instant Messenger Figure 8-5

15. 8 15 Instant Messenger

16. 8 16 Web-Based Chat Web-based chat is often easier to use. Allows participants to include multimedia elements and hyperlinks in their messages. Actions or feelings are indicated by enclosing the text that describes them in asterisks.

17. 8 17 Web-Based Chat

18. 8 18 Web-Based Chat

19. 8 19 Web-Based Chat

20. 8 20 Finding Web Chat Sites

21. 8 21 Creating a Chat Room Figure 8-11

22. 8 22 Creating a Chat Room

23. 8 23 Virtual Worlds Computer games date back to the early days of computing research. The creation of the Internet allowed game players to interact with each other. Multiuser dungeons and multiuser shared hallucinations are two types of gaming environments.

24. 8 24 Virtual Worlds

25. 8 25 Virtual Worlds

26. 8 26 Virtual Worlds Figure 8-15

27. 8 27 Usenet Newsgroups Usenet founded in 1979 at Duke University as a way of collecting information and storing that information by topic category. The topic categories originally were called newsgroups or forums. Usenet categories are also referred to as Internet discussion groups.

28. 8 28 Usenet Newsgroups Usenet was one of the first large distributed information databases in the world. A distributed database is stored in multiple physical locations, with portions of the database replicated in different locations. Newsgroups stores messages on an electronic bulletin board as articles or postings that are sorted by topic.

29. 8 29 Usenet Newsgroups A series of postings on a particular issue is called a thread. Usenet is a network of computers called news servers. Periodically news servers connect to each other and compare a list of articles that each currently is storing. After this comparison, each news server obtains copies of the articles it does not have. This store-and-forward process is called obtaining a newsfeed. Each news server site employs a news administrator, who specifies which other news servers will be newsfeed providers and newsfeed recipients.

30. 8 30 Usenet Newsgroups Figure 8-16

31. 8 31 Usenet Newsgroups

32. 8 32 Web Access to Newsgroups Newsfeeds use the Network News Transfer Protocol, which is part of the TCP/IP protocol. Newsreaders are programs designed for the sole purpose of communicating with news server computers. Most e-mail programs today include newsreader features. Tile.net maintains a comprehensive list of Usenet newsgroups in its databases.

33. 8 33 Web Access to Newsgroups

34. 8 34 Web Access to Newsgroups

35. 8 35 Web Access to Newsgroups

36. 8 36 Using a Newsreader Microsoft Outlook Newsreader is included as part of the Outlook Express e-mail software. Outlook Newsreader can be used to read, reply to, and create newsgroup articles.

37. 8 37 Using a Newsreader

38. 8 38 Using a Newsreader

39. 8 39 Using a Newsreader Netscape Mail newsreader is included with the Netscape Communicator software suite. Start Mail to use the newsreader. Use Mail to read, reply to, and create your own newsgroup articles. News.misc newsgroup provides a place where new users can send test messages and become familiar with using newsgroups.

40. 8 40 Using a Newsreader

41. 8 41 Using a Newsreader