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As far as publishing is concerned, Internet is causing a revolution. It is now within the reach of ordinary individuals to publish something and the reach is worldwide. This was a situation unthinkable in the past. Even desk top publishing came nowhere near this. Publishing in the past required large investments. Now, all you need to publish your material world wide is a computer and an Internet connection. Many large organizations are now offering free server space for Web publishing. They will host your personal Web site free in a bid to attract more hits and advertisements to their combined sites and services. The disk space they offer is substantial.
Even if you want to maintain an independent Web site with a direct link to the Internet backbone, the costs are very low compared to the kind of money you would need to set up a press and distribute your publication. Besides, the costs for publishing additional pages are marginal. (With print media, production and distribution costs would increase substantially, when pages or distribution volumes are increased).
The Internet now has more than 6600 electronic editions of commercial newspapers and magazines printed in English. The number of newspapers on line went up from around 1100 in 1996 to more than 2500 this year. The figures include 22 Indian newspapers and 40 Indian magazines in English. Some vernacular newspapers and magazines too have their presence on the Internet. The number of college magazines and non-commercial publications on the Internet is much higher and is multiplying every year. Some commercial Web newspapers (news sites) and magazines (e-zines) are offered for a subscription. Others distribute them free and manage the business with advertisement revenues.
Some journalists do run their own publications on the Internet in the West. If one's site is good enough, one will attract readers as well as advertisers. As the Internet is still not past its infancy, the opportunities offered by it are only beginning to bloom. In the West, some important news breaks and investigative reports have been published by journalists operating single-handedly. Some newsletters specialising in certain subjects are being distributed through E-mail. While many of them are distributed free of charge, some manage to collect subscriptions.
Internet is sure to emerge as major source of news in the coming years, though it may not displace any of the established media in the near future. The ability to combine text, voice and pictures gives added strength to Internet as a medium. Though Internet could not yet transmit long videos efficiently, convergence of various media, in a certain sense, is round the corner. Yet the text on the computer screen will not be a 100 per cent substitute for the printed matter. However, the impact of the Internet revolution, will be much higher than the print revolution in terms of published material. Internet publications would multiply like anything. It is no more many voices and one world, as the famous UNESCO publication (Many Voices, One World, Sean MacBride, International Commission for Study of Communication Problems, UNESCO, Paris) put it; but millions of voices (sites) and one cyber world.
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