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ADVANCED COMMUNICATION TOOLSUsing Chat, Virtual Worlds, and

Newsgroups

New Perspectives on

THE INTERNET

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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

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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.

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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.

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8What Is Chat?

Figure 8-1

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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.

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Internet Relay Chat

Figure 8-2

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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.

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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.

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Internet Relay Chat

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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.

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Internet Chat

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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.

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Instant Messenger

Figure 8-5

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Instant Messenger

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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.

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Web-Based Chat

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Web-Based Chat

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Web-Based Chat

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Finding Web Chat Sites

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Creating a Chat Room

Figure 8-11

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Creating a Chat Room

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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.

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Virtual Worlds

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Virtual Worlds

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Figure 8-15

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Usenet Newsgroups

Figure 8-16

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Usenet Newsgroups

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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.

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Web Access to Newsgroups

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Web Access to Newsgroups

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Web Access to Newsgroups

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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.

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Using a Newsreader

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Using a Newsreader

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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.

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Using a Newsreader

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Using a Newsreader