This is Internet On The Air...I'm Joan Silvi. Are we there yet? Organizing the World Wide Web...in a moment.

Funding Credit: Internet On The Air is a production of the University of Michigan School of Information and Michigan radio, made possible by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

This is Internet On The Air. The Internet is a wonderful source for information - but sometimes, there seems to be too much of it, and it's hard to sort out the useful from the frivolous. "Push" technology may be one way out of the maze.

Push technology is managed by outside companies that constantly update questionnaires sent to Internet users. Users indicate what sort of information they want to receive - anything from updated stock quotes of certain companies to the latest news on specific medical conditions. Push technology is used to search the Internet for relevant items that then are delivered to the user.

But the convenience of push technology is not without its tradeoffs. The pathways to a user's computer utilized by the push technology companies may be infiltrated by viruses or hackers. There also are concerns that advertisers - which often pay the costs for push technology - may have access to too much personal information or browsing habits.

And then, there's a larger philosophical concern about the nature of the Internet. Right now, the world wide web is universally accessible - any one person can create a home page that potentially can be viewed by a wide audience. Push technology may work as a screen or filter so fewer people will access unconventional sites. Over time, only the most popular destinations may remain.

To learn more about indexing Web sites, contact our Web page at www.si.umich.edu/iota. For Internet On The Air, I'm Joan Silvi.