The African American presence on the Internet is usually understated, if not completely ignored, by the mainstream media. But contrary to popular belief, there are numerous stops in cyberspace that are run by, and for, people of african descent. There is no need to limit our Internet experience to areas of the major online services specifically designed for blacks.

The powerful Altavista search engine (www.altavista.digital.com) retrieved 100,000 Web sites on topics relating to the African Diaspora. Among the many ways to tap into Afrocentric content on the Internet are chat sessions, Web sites, drums, newsgroups and directories. Try the following for starters.

Directories are excellent sources of information for Afrocentric content, and generally provide links to the recommended Web sites. The Universal Black Pages (UBP) is a great place to start (http://www.gatech.edu/bgsa/ blackpages.html).

Developed by the Black Graduate Students Association at Georgia Tech, the UBP is an extensive listing of Pan-African Web pages. These sites are indexed by subject headings such as professional organizations, history and business. UBP also provides links to these Web sites and includes a searchable database.

There are quite a few publications (or e-zines) targeted at blacks that have made their way onto the Net. The Network Journal (www.tnj. com) provides professional and small business news, in addition to columns on technology, taxes and other useful information. It also includes links to other sites of interest to African Americans.

An electronic version of the quarterly newsletter that advocates African American involvement in technology, The Coltduit (www. imhotech.com) also provides links to other interesting sites. Black on Black Communications (www. i-media.com/BOBC) is another ezine that offers information from an Afrocentric perspective. However, it is available only by subscription - issues will be e-mailed to you once you subscribe. Be sure to stop by Be's site (www.blackenterprise.com).

There are places on the Internet that cover a wide range of topics related to the African experience. the World African Network (www. World African Net.com), the Black Information Network (www.bin. com), CPTime (home.earthlink. net/-afrolink/), MelaNet (www. melanet.com), AfriNet (www. afrinet.net) and NetNoir (www.netnoir.com) are just a few.

Rather than jumping from one Web site to another, you will find at these sites self-contained Afrocentric areas of interest such as business, people, sports, community and education. You can enter these areas and find stories, pictures, sound, video, etc., relating to these specific topics. Chat rooms which allow real-time interaction on specific topics are usually available as well.

In addition to chat rooms, there are other ways to communicate with black people online, including drums and newsgroups. Drums are African American mailing lists that allow you to post e-mail messages to a large number of subscribers. In turn, any of those subscribers may post a response to your e-mail. To listen in on a drum, send an e-mail saying "subscribe" to the drum closest to you. There is a national drum at FAQ@drum.ncat.edu (see "March to the Beat of a Different Drum," Techwatch, June 96).

Similar to a drum, a newsgroup consists of messages posted by many people to a central location. However, instead of the messages coming to you automatically as a subscriber, you need to retrieve the messages yourself. Using a news reader, you type in a newsgroup location, and a series of e-mails on a single subject will be sent to your computer. Some interesting African American newsgroups can be found at soc. culture.african.american (a general topic newsgroup), alt. music.africana (African music), and bit.tech.africana (technology).

This is only a small sampling of African-related materials on the Net. The Internet is a tremendous mine of information, so start digging.