Web4Groups - Improving usability of the World Wide Web
The Web4Groups service is a project developed and funded within the "Telematics for Research" sector of the Community's specific RTD programme in the field of Telematics Applications. Its aim is to make the World Wide Web more interactive through the provision of advanced conferencing and group support features. Despite its overall success, the Internet service "Usenet" is becoming outdated. There is no support for multimedia documents or html and no closed user groups. It also suffers from information overload, a low level of context information and no rating facilities. The Web4Groups project will design new methods and tools for agenda setting, rating and voting. Basic functionality of the Web4Groups service will include: - Multimedia asynchronous group communication; - Linking a forum to any web page; - Basic security; - MIME support for e-mail and attachments. Advanced functionality will cover: - Multi-language support; - Rating and voting facilities; - Shared document production support; - E-mail, telephone and fax gateway; - Enhanced security. Beta testing of the service will start at the end of 1996 and multiple demonstrations will follow in 1997. The server package will be free of charge for educational and non-profit research organizations.