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The new year should bring a faster and busier Internet

Wednesday, December 30, 1998
By Michelle V. Rafter\
Reuters News Service
http://www.stlnet.com/postnet/news/pdtoday.nsf/Business/114ffdf769626e
31862566ea000c00cf?OpenDocument

Close your eyes for a moment and picture where the Internet will go
in 1999. Will there be faster access or traffic jams? More online
stores or security scares? Will a TV network buy your favorite Web
site or vice versa?

To find out what's coming, we asked some online industry movers and
shakers to identify trends that will affect people who use the
Internet at home or work. Here's what they are saying:

* High-speed access will be easier to find. By the end of 1999, the
number of households logging on through cable modems will reach one
million, double what it is today, according to Michael Harris,
president of Kinetic Strategies (http://www.cabledatacomnews.com), a
Phoenix, broadband analyst. Digital subscriber line (DSL) technology
will make inroads with businesses but not among residential users.
Wireless modems and satellite connections will remain exotic
alternatives for rural Net users. Small cable TV operators will
follow in the footsteps of their larger counterparts to offer some
type of Internet access, often bundled with phone service.

* Your Internet access provider will be your telephone company (and
maybe your cable TV operator as well). AT&T (http://www.att.com) set
the pace, this year acquiring cable TV operator Tele-Communications
Inc. ( http://www.tci.com) and IBM's Global Networks business. Look
for other long-distance or local phone companies to snap up Internet
access companies or providers of Internet business services, said
Bruce Kirschenbaum, CEO of Digital Communities, owner of Acmepet.com
( http://www.acmepet.com).

Internet-based telephone calling will gain ground next year, but
will cause network overloads, said Ilan Raab, founder of NetReality (
http://www.net-reality.com), a network management company.

* America Online will get bigger and other Web "portals" will
scramble for partners. Of AOL, now in the middle of swallowing
Netscape, Forrester Research analyst Kate Delhagen said, "There's no
stopping them." She and other pundits predict that to keep up, major
Web sites such as Yahoo! will buy or merge with major media
companies.

* Online shopping becomes more diverse, competitive, and connected
to the real world. Once the hype over Christmas sales dies down,
online retailers will find themselves struggling against
brick-and-mortar merchants pouring big money into their Web
endeavors. One to watch: Wal-Mart (http://www.wal-mart.com). Don't be
surprised to see established merchants gobble up Web-based retailers,
or vice versa. "CDNow (http://www.cdnow.com) could buy Tower
Records," said Bill Jeffries, president of Digital Boardwalk, a Los
Angeles Web design firm.

Shoppers accustomed to receiving good in-person customer service
will revolt over online retailers' shoddy efforts. As a result,
online stores will implement all kinds of improvements, including
chat rooms staffed by customer reps and Internet telephony-based
solutions that let customers talk to a salesperson over a phone line
while they are still logged on.

As the population of online retailers grows, shoppers will flock to
shopping search engines and price comparison services such as
CompareNet (http://www.compare.net), MySimon
(http://www.mysimon.com) and BottomDollar
(http://www.bottomdollar.com) for help deciding what to buy and where
to find it.

Auctions will come under fire for the scam artists who are beginning
to congregate there. Expect to see some auctions remedy the
situation by creating safe trading zones or teaming up with trusted
third parties such as the U.S. Post Office or credit card companies,
Forrester's Delhagan said.

* Internet users will get hacked. With so many sites collecting
private information from shopper and visitors, it is only a matter
of time before there is a significant security breach, said Barbara
Archer, of Metzger Associates, which handles publicity for numerous
Net companies. Cautionary case in point: the Microsoft Word virus
detected this week in several MCI WorldCom networks.

* Owners and users will tussle over intellectual property rights.
The music industry is already at odds with listeners over M3P
technology that allows for downloading digital versions of songs, but
all "bit" businesses news, research, video are vulnerable,
Forrester's Delhagen said.

* Microsoft will win, sort of. The Justice Department's anti-trust
case against Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com) will end before
summer with a "hand slap consent degree" that company officials will
argue will not affect how they do business, said Barry D. Weiss, a
Chicago attorney who follows Internet law.

* Web pages will get easier to use, at least some of them. Designers
will do more combining of words and images to better accommodate how
humans learn, according to Gustavo Candelas, creative director for
TWINN (http://www.twinn.com), a Web design firm. Leading-edge
designers will continue to incorporate newspaper and magazine design
rules for readability, positioning and color. One example:
InterActive Bureau creative vice president John Sanford's designs for
Drugstore.com ( http://www.drugstore.com), an online drugstore set
to launch in January, which include color-coded pages.

* Net stocks will stay hot. Initial public offerings to look for:
iVillage (http://www.ivillage.com), etoys (http://www.etoys.com) and
Buy.com (http://www.buy.com).

---------------

Also in this issue:

- New Year May Effect Medical Devices
    WASHINGTON (AP) _ The government is warning hospitals, emergency
    personnel and health care practitioners that the kind of computer
    date bugs expected to produce problems on Jan. 1, 2000, could affect
    two products a year early.
- Not Much Free On The Internet
    When you're discussing the Internet, it's not popular to maintain
    that little or nothing is free. Nonetheless, it's true--especially in
    the case of Web-based services. Although many companies don't charge
    customers for such services, they must spend money to give these
    services away. Thus, if such companies are to succeed, they have to
    figure out how to recover the money spent.
- The new year should bring a faster and busier Internet
    Close your eyes for a moment and picture where the Internet will go
    in 1999. Will there be faster access or traffic jams? More online
    stores or security scares? Will a TV network buy your favorite Web
    site or vice versa?
- What's Coming in 1999?
    On tap: Portal hysteria, Internet bottlenecks and really, really
    cheap PCs.
- Quotes We'd Like to See in 1999
    You'll get them here first. On second thought, you won't get them at
    all.
- Crackers Set Sights on Iraq
    A global group of 24 hackers and crackers spent Monday night
    probing, mapping, and preparing to attack computer networks owned by
    the government of Iraq.
- Euro Net Users: Aux Barricades!
    PARIS -- European Internet users, fed up with exorbitant local phone
    rates, have launched a widespread civil unrest movement against
    their telephone companies. Their complaints are legitimate, at least
    when they compare themselves to Americans. Some Europeans pay as much
    as three times what an American pays for a minute of local calling.
- Survey puts Internet holiday shopping at $5 bln
    WESTPORT, Conn., Dec. 28 (Reuters) - Holiday shopping on the
    Internet nearly quadrupled this year to over $5 billion, a new survey
    showed on Monday in an illustration of the explosive demand from
    American consumers to buy products online.
- Consumers to go 'tech' in 1999
    PC-like products are set to take over the home in 1999.
- New Lists and Journals
    1) Coastal Engineering Journal
    2) Crop Production (USDA)
    3) Crop Production Manager
    4) Cultural Entomology Digest
    5) e-Business Advisor Magazine
    6) Earth Negotiations Bulletin
    7) Egg Products (USDA)
    8) Grain Stocks (USDA)
    9) Poultry Slaughter (USDA)
   10) Rice Stocks (USDA)
   11) Vegetables (USDA)





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