At the same time, the Internet has became multi-faceted and now requires more and more efficient tools because of the "enrichment" of content (or rather of what contains it, because as far as the real content is concerned, there's no enrichment, except of the firms that sell it). The Internet needs strong systems, with good memory and powerful microprocessors. Development of the non English-speaking Web will be mainly aimed at people who have no way of getting powerful systems or the latest software and operating systems, or of upgrading or renewing it all every year. Also, communication infrastructure is sorely lacking in many places outside Europe and the United States. So there is a problem of bandwidth.
I've been noticing this phenomenon since the very beginning of Chroniques. Some readers (in Africa, Asia, Caribbean, South America and the Pacific) tell me they like being able to suscribe to an e-mail version. They can get Chroniques as a single message, read it off-line and choose the sites they want to consult later. Often they have to plan their time online carefully because of poor communication links.
The Web is going to grow in these non English-speaking regions. So we've got to take into account the technical aspects of the medium if we want to reach these "new" users.
I think it's a pity there are so few translations of important documents and essays published on the Web — from English into other languages and vice-versa.
Let me explain. Jon Katz published on the Web an analysis of the "Goth" culture which the perpetrators of the Littleton slaughter were into, and of the term "Goth". The French-speaking press quoted one or two sentences of his analysis, lifted a few of his ideas, made an article out of it and that's all. But it wasn't enough to allow one to understand Katz and his analysis of this youth culture.
In the same way, the recent introduction of the Internet in regions where it is spreading raises questions which would be good to read about. When will Spanish-speaking communications theorists and those speaking other languages be translated?
= What is your best experience with the Internet?
It's not a very cheerful one and has nothing to do with the significant influence Chroniques de Cybérie has gained over the years.
At the beginning of 1996, I got a message which roughly said: "My son, in his early twenties, has been very ill for months. Every week, he looked forward very much to getting your newsletter in his electronic mailbox. As he could no longer leave the house, the newsletter allowed him to 'travel', to open his mind and think about something else other than his pain. He died this morning. I just wanted to thank you because you lightened his last months with us."
When you get a message like this, you don't care about speaking to thousands of people, you don't care about lots of statistics, you tell yourself you're talking to one person at a time.