S P A C E   H O P P E R    Issue 2.09 - September 1996
Edited by Tom Loosemore



www.indo.com/distance/
www.subvox.com/bitch/
www.artworks.co.uk/
www.capitalusa.com/
www.sci.kun.nl/thalia/rapdict/
www.forbes.com/asap/6396/hack.htm
www.primenet.com/~keithr/nettrelate/
www.dreamleague.com/
pharmdec.wustl.edu/cgi-bin/jardin_scripts/SCG/
espnet.sportszone.com/
www.thesaurus.com/

Trigger blows other British webzines clean out of the water. Just watch for those hotspots. www.trigger.co.uk/

It can't be denied. Californians still give the best Web. Tottle over to www.jetpack.com/ for some quality kitschorama.

  eShop or Ye Shoppe?

What will Web shops look like in years to come? If there's a god, they'll look like the late, lamented eShop Plaza. Late, because in June eShop was bought lock, stock and barrel by Microsoft, after a prolonged ownership shootout with Netscape. Lamented, because eShop's software - now subject to The Empire's cruel and callous whims - was easily the best of its kind.

So what's the big deal? It's just another bit of online merchandising software, right? Well, not quite. The much-admired Plaza - until recently at www.eshop.com, but in the process of relocation to the dark depths of MSN as we went to press - built a strong reputation in its independent days for being fast, flexible and, well, just more shopper-friendly than anywhere else on the Web. Forget the majestic 3D interface; it was the other tricks eShop had up its sleeve that made it a winner with customers.

eShop was almost unique in that it guaranteed its customers against credit-card fraud - if anyone ripped off your numbers in transit, eShop picked up the tab. Whether that ever happened or not is more or less irrelevant - what matters is that the company saw a potential problem and fixed it before the fact, making its customers feel all warm, fuzzy and pathetically grateful. And it pioneered the concept of transferable shopping baskets for use in multiple online stores, as well as introducing cool ways of managing special offers, tokens, intelligent stock control and inventory procedures, and much more besides. In short, it built a compelling Online Shopping Experience - something that nobody else has quite managed.

Microsoft is unlikely to be making any money-back guarantees, even once it's added military-grade security to the core product. But the likes of Sainsbury's and Tesco could do worse than to draw attention to themselves via their own versions of this neat marketing trick. (They'd endear themselves to me even more if they set up a decent home-delivery service similar to the one that Peapod, offers in San Francisco and Chicago, but that's another saucepan of fish entirely.)

The eShop technology is currently being assimilated into Microsoft's now-delayed Merchant Server. Given the full-on Microsoft marketing treatment, this product could push online shopping over the confidence barrier currently curbing the natural desires of consumers and retailers alike. Whatever its effect, let's just hope that the predicted online consumer boom doesn't encourage more gruesome sites à la Buckingham Gate. This national disgrace gathers together the country's most unimaginative, nostalgia-ridden retailers in a blatant bid for US blue-rinse dollars. Even the best retailing software won't fix this site.

- Sean Geer

  Shunt and Grind

Porn, gambling and railway timetables: three dead-cert killer Internet apps. Sure enough, online gambling is booming after overcoming regulatory hurdles by secreting servers in places like Belize (see www.vegas.com/wagernet/, for example), while porn is, well, pretty much ubiquitous.

But you just try to use the Web to check what time the first London train gets into Derby. Go on. I challenge you. (It is possible, BTW. Start at www.germany.net/.) But back here in the UK, aside from some localised timetables maintained by exasperated philanthropists (thank you to Brian Meek for www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/off_campus/rail/railindx.html), the national train timetable remains marooned in an off-line siding.

Internal politics within BR's rotting carcass are to blame. If the newly-formed train operating companies and Railtrack would only stop bickering for a moment (see www.rail.co.uk/ for their assorted corporate detritus), the entire timetable could be up on the Web next week for a relative pittance.

What makes the whole debacle doubly galling is that, somewhere within the remnants of BR, there is rumoured to reside just such an online timetabling system. There's even an application that lets you check real arrival times as displayed on station indicator boards around the country. Could it be that the train operators simply don't want anyone knowing how punctual (or otherwise) their trains are? I dunno, but I'm mighty pissed off with them all for denying me access to information that would help me to use their services. Utterly insane.

- Russell Davies

  Drop the Pilot

Hacking your way through the online undergrowth can be a drag. What a relief it is, then, that kindly organisations such as Point, Magellan and Web Select sift through the dross and bestow upon quality sites their seal of approval. What lovely people, eh? Er ... no.

Carping though it might seem to query such splendid philanthropy, the only true beneficiaries of Web awards are the so-called judges themselves. Quality thresholds for such awards are low to non-existent; their raison d'être being simply to persuade gullible site owners to display a logo on their homepages. It's the Web equivalent of wandering around in a sponsored T-shirt. And it's just as sad.

Web Select is the most brazen, inviting you to award yourself its award. Point and Magellan are little better; they'll give an award to almost anybody who asks. Here's why: Point Communications is owned by Lycos, which uses the Point award to draw attention to its search engine. Funnily enough, Magellan runs a search engine, too.

Forget dubious Web site awards; intelligent agents will be the true online Sherpas, sniffing out pertinent content from the information morass. Keep a very close eye on www.agentware.com for the first signs of life.

- Steve Shipside