Stamp Column Archives

The Glassine Surfer Column Archive

This column originally appeared in the American Philatelic Society's monthly magazine, "The American Philatelist." Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

April 2000

Surfing Chatters

The Web is just people doing what they've always done: Being social.  This time though, it's global and instantaneous and chat rooms are phenominally popular throughout the Web. It's what fueled AOL's early success, but the concept is changing.

Usually a Web site puts up a chat room so that people with like interests can meet each other in the ether, but if there's no chat room, there's no socializing at the site.  Well, things change.

Web surfers can now go to any Web site and chat with anyone else who is also at the same Web site.  No chat room required.  The only requirement is that the surfers use the same roving chat software.  

Gooey calls their service a "dynamic roving community on the internet," and it's rather simple.  Download and install Gooey. Choose a nickname and password.  

Gooey goes everywhere your browser does and then pops up a little screen of other Gooey users at the same Web site.  To chat with them, just click and type for instant messages and chat.

The program, now in version 2.0, goes beyond simple chatting and also  provides enhancements such as a top 100 list of sites, file exchanges and content boxes, which are pop-ups with news, games and video.

The significant trend in development here is that Gooey puts another layer of interaction between the original Web site and the surfer, allowing Gooey to regard the entire Web as its surfing domain, its worldwide chatroom.

It's very configurable, and unlike most of the US-dominated Web, this program comes in multiligual versions: English, Deutsch, Français, Português, Nederlands, Japanese.

Gooey
http://www.gooey.com

This trend of directly connecting surfers to each other was popularized by "instant messaging" programs, and the Web's largest is ICQ, which is now owned by AOL. (see AP Oct. 99)

Not to be outdone, ICQ now offers "ICQ Surf."  According to the promotional text, "you may ramble the vast Internet highways with fellow Internet travelers while enjoying mutually fun and interesting Web browsing adventures. ICQ Surf Alpha version allows you to communicate through public chat and personal instant messages with other ICQ Surf users while simultaneously browsing the same Web page."

ICQ Surf
http://www.icq.com/icqsurf/

It's sort of like walking around a vast public library and commenting on what everyone else is reading.

Cosmo Stamps

Space topicals are part of the future, of stamp collecting and of mankind's, and there's a worldwide fascination with the exploration of our last frontier that will only grow with more missions to Mars and as more of the Universe is revealed.

One very well done site to see how advancements in space have been commemorated on stamps is Sergay Okun's "Space Stamps" in St. Petersburg, Russia.  He has over 200 space topical stamps scanned and described, and the design is just part of the fun.

The Space Stamps site is in English and is part of the "COSMONAUTICS" Encyclopedia by Aleksandr Zheleznyakov, which is in Russian.

Space Stamps
http://stamps.transas.com/index-i.htm

Frank and Free in Oz

Hans Karman specializes in mail that has passed through the postal systems of the world "Free" and bears the markings to prove it.  He also happens to run a Web site on the "Free" markings and the "Frank Stamps" of the Australian colonies before Federation and the Commonwealth of Australia.  

The centerpiece of the site is his "Frank and Free Exhibit."  It's a selected page display of an eight frame exhibit, nicely scanned and annotated.  In 1997 he and it received a "Gold with special prize" in Taipei, Taiwan.