WEB SITE SPOTLIGHT.

Online research comes full circle

December 31, 2001|By Dave Peyton, Tribune Media Services.

Tired of using search engines that locate hundreds of sites far from the target topic you want? Try Web rings, the fastest growing method of organizing Web sites.

In its basic form, a Web ring is a collection of sites on the same topic. For example, all the sites in a Web ring may be devoted to Elvis. They all may have Christmas themes. All of them may be about rock collecting or a rare disease.

Some are commercial sites grouped by what they sell or the country of origin.

To surf a Web ring, you click on a Web ring graphic, usually found at the bottom of the home page for each Web ring site. That graphic will identify the Web ring, link you to the next site, the previous site, or a random site in the ring.

You also have the option, in most cases, of listing the next five sites in the ring, the previous five sites, or to look at the entire index.

Web rings have caught the attention of Information Age gurus because some of them suggest it's a new way of thinking about information on the Web. Most Web searches on online search engines are linear.

You go to a search engine that connects you with a site "down the line." That site perhaps leads you to another, then another ad infinitum.

A Web ring, instead, is circular, as the name implies, in its approach to searches.

The home base for Web rings is www.webring.org. The site was created by the people who developed the concept and the Web page coding for Web rings.

The company was recently purchased by Yahoo, an indication that one of the largest and most successful dot-coms believes in the Web ring concept.

Webring.org is a place to search, by keyword, for specific Web rings. Or, you can search for the most active Web rings in general categories, including arts and humanities, business and economics, computers, the Internet, health, recreation and sports, entertainment, society and culture and a miscellaneous category for Web rings that don't seem to fit anywhere else.

If you don't find a Web ring that suits your interest, you can start one of your own. There are no fees for starting your own ring and complete instructions for starting one are included on the Web ring home page.

Some rings are as small as two or three sites. Many rings offer hundreds of sites.

All rings have their own "starting points," pages that explain how you can add your own Web page to a ring. If you find nothing you like on the Yahoo Web ring site, go to RingSurf (www.ringsurf.com).

Another free service, RingSurf allows you to navigate thousands of related sites organized by areas of interest. A recent check of the site indicated RingSurf had more than 20,000 rings and more than 200,000 Web sites. As with Yahoo, you'll find instructions for creating your own Web ring if you can't find one you like.

Infant health

www.tinytums.com

TinyTums is a nutrition site from Heinz for parents of infants. You'll find information on everything from nutrition during pregnancy to baby food products and feeding your child through the all-important first years of life. If you register and answer a few question, you'll receive by e-mail the most relevant information for you and your baby, including the baby's own home page, a personalized weaning guide and a menu planner tailored to your baby's age.

Age-old question

www.bigmyth.com

Where did we come from? That's a question for the ages. The visually exciting Big Myth site explores stories from many cultures about how the world began. The site uses Flash, a Web browser plug-in, to create first-rate graphics. Stories are featured from such diverse groups as the Plains Indians of North America and the Zulus of Africa. Quizzes help you understand the stories.

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