= [Overview]
Created in 1992, the Etext Archives were "home to electronic
texts of all kinds". Created in 1993, the E-zine-list was a
list of electronic zines around the world. The first electronic
versions of print newspapers were available in the early 1990s
through commercial services like America Online and CompuServe.
In 1996, newspapers and magazines began offering websites with
a partial or full version of their latest issue, available
freely or through subscription (free or paid), as well as
online archives. In United Kingdom, the daily Times and the
Sunday Times set up a common website called Times Online. The
weekly publication The Economist also went online, as well as
the weekly Focus and Der Spiegel in Germany, the daily Le Monde
and Libération in France, and the daily El País in Spain. The
computer press went logically online as well, first the monthly
Wired, "the magazine of the future at the avant-garde of the
21st century", then ZDNet, another leading computer magazine.
More and more "only" electronic magazines were also created.
= Electronic texts and newsletters
The Etext Archives were founded in 1992 by Paul Southworth, and
hosted on the website of the University of Michigan. They were
"home to electronic texts of all kinds, from the sacred to the
profane, and from the political to the personal". They provided
electronic texts without judging their content, in six
sections: (a) "E-zines": electronic periodicals from the
professional to the personal; (b) "Politics": political zines,
essays, and home pages of political groups; (c) "Fiction":
publications of amateur authors; (d) "Religion", mainstream and
off-beat religious texts; (e) "Poetry": an eclectic mix of
mostly amateur poetry; and (f) "Quartz": the archive formerly
hosted at quartz.rutgers.edu.
As recalled on the website in 1998: "The web was just a
glimmer, gopher was the new hot technology, and FTP was still
the standard information retrieval protocol for the vast
majority of users. The origin of the project has caused
numerous people to associate it with the University of
Michigan, although in fact there has never been an official
relationship and the project is supported entirely by volunteer
labor and contributions. The equipment is wholly owned by the
project maintainers. The project was started in response to the
lack of organized archiving of political documents, periodicals
and discussions disseminated via Usenet on newsgroups such as
alt.activism, misc.activism.progressive, and
alt.society.anarchy. The alt.politics.radical-left group came
later and was also a substantial source of both materials and
regular contributors. Not long thereafter, electronic 'zines
(e-zines) began their rapid proliferation on the internet, and
it was clear that these materials suffered from the same lack
of coordinated collection and preservation, not to mention the
fact that the lines between e-zines (which at the time were
mostly related to hacking, phreaking, and internet anarchism)
and political materials on the internet were fuzzy enough that
most e-zines fit the original mission of The Etext Archives.
One thing led to another, and e-zines of all kinds - many on
various cultural topics unrelated to politics - invaded the
archives in significant volume."
Another list, the E-zine-list, was launched by John Labovitz in
summer 1993 to list e-zines around the world, accessible via
FTP, gopher, email, the web, and other services. The list was
updated monthly.
What exactly is a zine? John Labovitz explained on his website:
"For those of you not acquainted with the zine world, 'zine' is
short for either 'fanzine' or 'magazine', depending on your
point of view. Zines are generally produced by one person or a
small group of people, done often for fun or personal reasons,
and tend to be irreverent, bizarre, and/or esoteric. Zines are
not 'mainstream' publications - they generally do not contain
advertisements (except, sometimes, advertisements for other
zines), are not targeted towards a mass audience, and are
generally not produced to make a profit. An 'e-zine' is a zine
that is distributed partially or solely on electronic networks
like the internet."
3,045 zines were listed in November 1998. John wrote on his
website: "Now the e-zine world is different. The number of e-
zines has increased a hundredfold, crawling out of the FTP and
gopher woodworks to declaring themselves worthy of their own
domain name, even asking for financial support through
advertising. Even the term 'e-zine' has been co-opted by the
commercial world, and has come to mean nearly any type of
publication distributed electronically. Yet there is still the
original, independent fringe, who continue to publish from
their heart, or push the boundaries of what we call a 'zine'."
After many years of maintaining this list, John passed the
torch to others.
"Chroniques de Cybérie" was launched in November 1994 by Jean-
Pierre Cloutier, a journalist living in Montreal, Quebec. As a
weekly French-language report of internet news, Jean-Pierre's
newsletter was sent by email to its subscribers (free
subscription), and available on the web on a dedicated website
(from April 1995). Bruno Giussani, journalist, wrote in The New
York Times of November 25, 1997: "Almost no one in the United
States has ever heard of Jean-Pierre Cloutier, yet he is one of
the leading figures of the French-speaking internet community.
For the last 30 months Cloutier has written one of the most
intelligent, passionate and insightful electronic newsletters
available on the internet, (...) an original mix of relevant
internet news, clear political analysis and no-nonsense
personal opinions. It was a publication that gave readers the
feeling that they were living week after week in the intimacy
of a planetary revolution."
"Venezuela Analítica" was a Spanish-language electronic
magazine conceived as a public forum to exchange ideas on
politics, economics, culture, science and technology. Roberto
Hernández Montoya, its editor, wrote in September 1998: "The
internet has been very important for me personally. It became
my main way of life. As an organization it gave us the
possibility to communicate with thousands of people, which
would have been economically impossible if we had published a
paper magazine. I think the internet is going to become the
essential means of communication and of information exchange in
the coming years."
= Print magazines go online
The first electronic versions of print newspapers were
available in the early 1990s through commercial services like
America Online and CompuServe.
In 1996, newspapers and magazines began offering websites with
a partial or full version of their latest issue, available
freely or through subscription (free or paid), as well as
online archives.
For example, the site of The New York Times site could be
accessed free of charge, with articles of the print daily
newspaper, breaking news updated every ten minutes, and
original reporting only available online. The site of The
Washington Post gave the daily news online, with a full
database of articles, with images, sound and video.
In United Kingdom, the daily Times and the Sunday Times set up
a common website called Times Online, with a way to create a
personalized edition. The weekly publication The Economist went
online, as well as the daily Le Monde and Libération in France,
the daily El País in Spain, and the weekly Focus and Der
Spiegel in Germany.
The computer press went logically online as well, first the
monthly Wired, created in 1992 in California to cover
cyberculture as "the magazine of the future at the avant-garde
of the 21st century", then ZDNet, as a leading computer online
magazine.
"More than 3,600 newspapers now publish on the internet", Eric
K. Meyer stated in late 1997 in an essay published on the
website of AJR/NewsLink. "A full 43% of all online newspapers
now are based outside the United States. A year ago, only 29%
of online newspapers were located abroad. Rapid growth,
primarily in Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway, Brazil and
Germany, has pushed the total number of non-U.S. online
newspapers to 1,563. The number of U.S. newspapers online also
has grown markedly, from 745 a year ago to 1,290 six months ago
to 2,059 today. Outside the United States, the United Kingdom,
with 294 online newspapers, and Canada, with 230, lead the way.
In Canada, every province or territory now has at least one
online newspaper. Ontario leads the way with 91, Alberta has
44, and British Columbia has 43. Elsewhere in North America,
Mexico has 51 online newspapers, 23 newspapers are online in
Central America and 36 are online in the Caribbean. Europe is
the next most wired continent for newspapers, with 728 online
newspaper sites. After the United Kingdom, Norway has the next
most - 53 - and Germany has 43. Asia (led by India) has 223
online newspapers, South America (led by Bolivia) has 161 and
Africa (led by South Africa) has 53. Australia and other
islands have 64 online newspapers."
The online versions of these newspapers brought us a wealth of
information. The web provided not only news available online,
but also a whole encyclopedia to help us understand them. As
readers, we could click on hyperlinks to get maps, biographies,
official texts, political and economic data, photographs, and
audio and video coverage. We could easily access other articles
on the same topic with search engines sorting out articles by
date, author, title, or subject.