Who will access your server will depend, of course, on the content you serve. Anyone wishing to teach or publish always has a target audience in mind, and serving documents on the Web is no different from publishing on paper in that respect.
At first my target audience was local users within my workplace, for whom I created the Always Learning page as an entry point for internal training and teaching outreach. However, I had a wider audience in mind when I created a hypertext version of my paper "Windows and TCP/IP for Internet Access." As an ASCII document first issued in November 1993, the paper had already reached a world-wide audience via news groups and anonymous FTP. I had received e-mail from individuals on all seven continents attesting to that fact. Now I would have the chance to see how the Web would facilitate distribution of the paper. The log file created by the server software could be read by a statistics program to produce statistical summaries of activity on the server.
I wrote the hypertext version of this article about Web serving in October 1994, at which time I posted it on my desktop Web server. I then announced its availability through a few Internet news groups and a couple of BITNET listservs. Almost within minutes of posting my announcements, the paper was being accessed. During the next 6 weeks, the article was accessed 2,300 times. Word about the article appears to have spread through the Web, as it continues to attract several hundred readers each month.
In January 1996, my Web server distributed more than 61,000 files to readers in more than 80 countries. The vast majority of the traffic (more than 90%) was generated by readers of one or both of my two articles. The article on Windows and TCP/IP is the most popular title. This is expected since it covers introductory material useful to anyone using Windows to access the Internet. The abstract page of that article was accessed 8,459 times in January.
(Note that the total number of files distributed is much greater than the sum of readers of the articles. This is because each article consists of several files. It is also obvious, and expected, that many readers look at only a few of the files that constitute a complete article, and some never read past the Abstract.)
As word of my papers has spread, activity on my server has taken on a life of its own. As mentioned, more than 61,000 files were transferred from the server in January 1996, an increase of more than 266% from the 16,651 files transferred in February 1995. Between 1,200 and 2,300 files were being served each day.
Simply put, I have been stunned by the enormous power of the Web to reach a world-wide audience. I continue to be amazed that my papers are reaching thousands of readers in dozens of countries. Yet I am using hardware similar to that found in the bedrooms of many school children. The software is available free or for a nominal fee. I have bypassed all traditional publishing channels to reach my international audience.