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A University of Texas study says business
on the Internet will break the half-trillion-dollar mark this year. The study (www.
InternetIndicators.com) projects revenues for the Internet economy in 1999 of $507
billion, up from $301.4 billion in 1998. In their summary, researchers said: "What
is clear from this data is that the Internet Economy is an economic phenomenon never
seen before. Everyone from the Federal Reserve chairman to world leaders to corporate
CEOs is grappling to grasp its direction and impact."
The study was funded by Cisco Systems. Cisco
economist Doug Karmin told Industry Standard magazine: "The Internet has changed
competition from the big beating the small to the fast beating the slow. Small companies
all of a sudden are able to sell in Asia and Latin America because the Web enables
them to do that."
Researchers Anitesh Barua and Andrew Whinston
of the university's Center for Research on Electronic Commerce said: "It should
be evident that a large part of the growth in the emerging Internet economy will
come at the expense of the physical economy through a substitution effect. For example,
as busy professionals or individuals, who do not enjoy visits to the grocery store,
start buying groceries and prescription medication on-line, there may be a negative
impact on the growth of physical grocery and drug stores as well as significant changes
in inventory and distribution systems in these industries."
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With almost everyone rushing pell-mell to
get on the Internet comes a sobering voice from Harvard Business School Professor
Michael Porter. Porter spoke at length with Inter(a)ctive Week editorial director
Tom Steinert-Threlkeld for their fifth anniversary issue. Porter agreed that the
Internet will "literally affect every company in some way" because it will
make some processes quicker and more efficient. But for companies that produce a
physical product, like auto companies, he sees little fundamental change.
"There's been a kind of enthusiasm
about this particular wave of technology that I think is a bit unhealthy because
it's caused companies to kind of jump without thinking about more fundamental questions
about the true business value of their strategies and approaches and products, "
Porter said.
In the end, he says, companies that survive
on the Internet are going to have to produce a product of value and get paid for
it. They cannot, he said, survive by giving away service and relying on banner ads
to keep them afloat.
The interview is available through www.zdnet.com/intweek.
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A federal court in California has ruled
that Networks Solution cannot be held liable for trademark infringement in registering
domain names. Lockheed Martin Corp. filed suit in 1996 trying to halt registration
of domain names based on "Skunk Works," Lockheed's renowned aircraft design
laboratory. According to Computerworld, the court ruled that NSI cannot be held responsible
for domain name combinations it is asked to register.
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President Clinton may soon be getting a
bill that would ban cybersquatting _ the practice of registering domain names of
the famous, of companies or their trademarks with the idea of selling them to the
rightful owners. Some members of Congress and presidential hopefuls have found their
names already claimed, and the White House name is linked to a pornographic Web site
with the .com extension. The bill has passed both houses and needs some final work
before going to the president. It also requires the Department of Commerce, which
oversees the domain registering process, to come up with a new extension for exclusive
use by congressmen, the president and political candidates.
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The Department of Education says more than
a third of the nation's elementary and secondary school districts and post-secondary
schools are not ready for Y2K _ and, says the department, 4 percent of school districts
and 3 percent of post-secondary schools say they won't be able to get ready. A survey
during the summer found that only 28 percent of the school districts and 30 percent
of the post-secondary school were ready. Education Secretary Richard Riley says that
while progress has been made, with just two months to go, there's no room for error
and little time left for testing. The department fears system breakdowns could occur,
not only in heating and food service facilities, but also in record keeping. It has
offered a number of guides to help schools get ready at http://www.ed.gov/y2k/.
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The American Medical Association and six
other major medical groups Thursday announced they are launching a Web site, www.medem.com,
to provide reliable, professional health information on the Internet. The site is
expected to be up early next year and will host Web sites of individual physicians
to enable them to communicate directly with their patients. Dr. Edward Fotsch, who
will run the site from San Francisco, said 12 other medical societies are interested
in joining, and 3,000 physician practices, representing 15,000 doctors, have signed
up for Web sites. In addition to the AMA, the other charter members are the American
Academy of Ophthalmology, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists, American Psychiatric Association, American Society of Plastic
Surgeons and American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Each paid $250,000
to fund the launch of the medem.com site.
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Washington remains the most wired city in
the United States, with 59. 9 percent of its adult population on-line. The consumer
ratings firm Scarborough Research says San Francisco, with 56.1 percent, is second,
followed by Austin, Texas (55.5 percent), Seattle (53.3 percent) and Salt Lake City
(50 percent). In the second tier, but above 40 percent on-line, are Boston, Chicago,
Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia. Scarborough compiled the data from February
1998 to February 1999 and found the national average to be about 43.7 percent.
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Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf is the only
U.S. representative on the permanent board of the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names
and Numbers. The newest members of the board were elected by the Address Supporting
Organization and the Protocol Supporting Organization to join the three elected earlier
by the Domain Name Supporting Organization. The first three choices were Alejandro
Pisanty of Mexico, Amadeu Abril i Abril of Spain and Jonathan Cohen of Canada. The
remaining six are: Philip Davidson, Europe; Cerf; Jean-Francois Abramatic, France;
Ken Fockler, Canada; Pindar Wong, Hong Kong, and Rob Blokzijl of the Netherlands.
Nine more members will be elected by ICANN's at-large membership when that is determined,
probably next year.
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Earlier this month, the University of California
Berkeley's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Project achieved a supercomputing
milestone. It squeezed 100,000 years of desktop computing into five months. Using
the Internet, it enlisted 1.3 million volunteers in 223 countries for the project
to analyze data received from deep space. Volunteers downloaded software from SETI@home
that acts as a screensaver while running as a sophisticated signal-processing program
when the computer is idle. The data is collected by Berkeley's computer from the
Arecibo, Puerto Rico, radiotelescope and sent over the Internet to home computers,
where the software looks for strong spikes or repetitive patterns in radio signals
from outer space, then sends it back to Berkeley and collects more data for analysis.
(Compiled by Harold H. Martin)
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