Platform Independant and Many Information Sources?

Platform Independant

The Web is accessable to any platform connected to the Internet. It is not limited to any one kind of machine, it has no vendor specifics. Client software (often called Browsers) are available for almost any network capable host.

Many Information Sources

It is currently the most advanced information system deployed on the Internet, and embraces within its data model most information in previous networked information systems. In fact, the web is an architecure which will also embrce any future advanaces in technology, including new networks, protocols, object types and data formats.

Currently the Web offers (among others) the following through a hypertext, and in some cases, hypermedia interface:

Anything served through Gopher
Anything served through WAIS (Wide-Area Information Servers)
Anything served through anonymous FTP sites
Full Archie services (a FTP search service)
Full Veronica services (a Gopher search service)
Full CSO, X.500, and Whois services (Internet phone book services)
Full Finger services (an Internet user lookup program)
Anything on Usenet
Anything accessible through Telnet
Anything in Hytelnet (a hypertext interface to telnet)
Anything in techinfo or texinfo (forms of campus- wide information services)
Anything in hyper-g (a networked hypertext system in use throughout Europe)
Anything in the form of man pages
HTML-formatted hypertext and hypermedia documents

Electronic Commerce on the Internet - WWW (World Wide Web) - the "Glossy Brochure"
Rodney Campbell [Rodney.Campbell@Telstra.com.au]
(c) Copyright 1995 Telstra Corporation.

Last modified: Sun May 7 15:47:56 1995