Communication

The Communication Department was created to document the various means of communication that humans have developed with special emphasis on how computers and the Internet have aided in the greatest explosion of communication the world has known.

The following excerpt, entitled Internet Basics, appears in the book Turn Your Passion Into Profit by Walt Goodridge. It explains how the Internet has taken the concept of communication to a different level.

What is the Internet?
Before we answer the question of what the Internet is, let's address why the Internet is! You may not have thought about it, but in most situations, "why" usually holds THE KEY TO EVERYTHING. So our question is "Why does the Internet exist?" The simple answer may make this whole thing a lot easier for you to accept and, may ultimately be of more importance to you than anything else in this booklet.
Here's the answer: The Internet exists to help us communicate.


The human need to communicate has spawned some of mankind's most life-changing developments. The pony express, postal service, morse code, radio, walkie talkies, television, the telephone, overnight delivery and the fax machine, have all been ways to get words, pictures and ideas from here to there quicker and cheaper. In fact, communication, in the form of pagers, cellular phones, calling cards, long distance service, etc,(i.e. Telecommunications) is currently a 700 Billion dollar per year industry expected to exceed 1 Trillion dollars by the year 2000! Communication is a big need and big business! So now, what is the Internet?

The Internet is a means of communication. But it's not just any means. The Internet is probably the most awesome means ever developed because it combines two of humankind's most powerful inventions, speed, versatility, informational and computational capacity of the computer, with the global reach of the telephone network. From "hoofs in weeks" to "keystrokes in seconds" this latest advancement means you don't need horses, stamps, or even a telephone to reach out and touch one person in particular: now you can turn on your computer and be connected instantly to everyone in the world and they can potentially do the same! But the Internet is also a whole lot more! The potential of the Internet is limitless because....

The internet is an idea. It's a concept made real by the use of computers. The internet is the potential of what can happen when people use computers plugged into phone lines to communicate with each other. You and I may both have computers in our homes. But until we each use them to communicate with each other, we are not a part of the Internet. If we all decided to stop using our computers today, the Internet would not exist, because....

The internet is a relationship. If you and I are standing in an elevator, though we might be right next to each other, unless we start talking, we don't really have a relationship. Our relationship is determined by our interaction with each other. In much the same way, the Internet is a relationship between people using computers. It's because of this relationship that....

The internet is also a community. It's global neighborhoods of users with shared interests who can now connect with each other over land and sea to form bonds with each other that would never exist otherwise.

Our events, suggested reading list and physical archives provide a wealth of information for the visitor interested in researching the complete development of man's need to communicate.