Now our mapping strategy seems simple.

Method #1. If I have a server, A, all I have to do is ask everyone in cyberspace to send me a message, and record the message times of each in a big file. But practically how can I ask even a small number of people to cooperate in this measurement? Here is another way, which I can do all by myself.

Method #2. I make a list of URLs in different cities, for which I know the latitude and longitude, world-wide. For example, I might ask Alta Vista to search for a common key word. For each URL on the list, I click the link, and time the response. All this could be done with a PERL script. Still, this is a bit of work. Here is another way, which is relatively effortless.

Method #3. On one of my webpages I write an appeal for participation in an experiment. All that is necessary for the participant is to press a button, and fill in a simple form. This will give me data with which to map some approximate isochrons around my server, and eventually make a chronotopographic map of the Web. Upon clicking the button by a the participant at the remote browser, B, a CGI script on my server, A, is called. It records the starting time, sends a form to B asking for the latitude and longitude (or city and province) of B, which (hopefully) B fills out and returns. Upon receipt of the data from browser B, A records the data and the finish time in a logfile. From this data, a mapping from geographical space to cyberspace may be made. For example, color coding different times T and placing T-colored dots on a map of the world, we may see the isochrons for a fixed cyberpoint, A.

One advantage of Method #3 is that it is automatic, and can be repeated at different points, A1, A2, A3, and so on, on different continents. Integrating the maps for different points will require some more advanced mathematics, and we hope to return to this point in a later publication.