The Internet age has changed the world, and it has only just begun

06/27/99

By Alan Goldstein and Doug Bedell / The Dallas Morning News

At the recent 35th anniversary of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, its leaders extolled the virtues of Project Oxygen - a vision of technology and the Internet in which computers become omnipresent and essential, enveloping us like the air we breathe.

In this concept of the not-too-distant future, "smart" devices are molded seamlessly into our lifestyles as wearable, ultraportable communications units connected to the Net. Talking, listening flat displays are stuck in every nook and cranny. And the airwaves are in a perpetual digital tizzy as devices and humans constantly converse.

While this may seem like science fiction, the rise of the Internet - the fastest-growing communications medium in history - has already turned a startling array of far-fetched dreams into modern-day realities.

Last year, the number of U.S. households equipped with computers edged just past 50 percent, according to Dataquest research. Another research firm, Infobeads, estimates that 60 percent of those machines - 67.5 million computers - had Net access.

Computer capabilities have stretched access farther and faster than even the most starry-eyed visionaries had imagined.

"There are microprocessors now in everything because it's cheap to make them," said Greg Papadopoulos, chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems. "Even hotel doorknobs have computer chips. Now, it will become cheap to hook them to the network."

Even dishwashers and refrigerators may be hooked to the Internet, he said. Why? Well, because we can. When a major appliance is about to malfunction, it could signal a repair center, which could offer an accurate diagnosis and potentially avert a failure, he said.

Technology has its limitations. But the Internet's instantaneous nature and its ever-expanding applications have changed life for millions.

Relatives on opposite sides of the planet enjoy family reunions with desktop video-conferencing equipment. Using a local Internet connection, the call is free.

On college campuses and in high schools, young people are discovering obscure bands by downloading music files from the Internet and playing them back on their tiny portable stereos.

The Internet is growing into a shopper's paradise, eliminating barriers of distance between buyers and sellers. Car shoppers now regularly compare features online. Someday, analysts said, manufacturers may bypass dealers altogether and sell custom-ordered cars directly to buyers.

And auction sites such as eBay are quickly becoming favorite online hangouts for fans of collectible items. The online bidding wars may create a new business model for distributing a variety of other products.

For all the attention consumer uses of the Internet have received, analysts are becoming more focused on business-to-business commerce over the Web as corporations realize efficiencies in their relationships with suppliers and customers.

The business-to-business e-commerce market is expected to reach $109 billion this year, compared with $18 billion for the consumer market, according to Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

By 2003, according to Forrester, business-to-business trade over the Internet - largely from aerospace, energy, chemical and automotive concerns - will reach $1.3 trillion, compared with $108 billion for the consumer market.

Major manufacturers have been linked with their suppliers for years over computer networks, but the Internet offers a standard appearance and language for much broader use. It also helps big companies, such as Dallas-based chip maker Texas Instruments, reach young start-ups that might need only a few samples but could someday grow into major customers, said Richard K. Templeton, executive vice president of TI.

And the implication for broader Internet use is causing even greater upheaval elsewhere in the business world.

Although the dot-com investing craze has slowed in recent weeks, leading Internet companies are still valued far higher than their traditional counterparts, reflecting the belief that Web businesses are the future.

Consider: At its recent peak, a new Internet travel site, Priceline.com, had a market capitalization of $23 billion, roughly equal to the values of Marriott International, Delta Airlines and US Airways combined.

Such values are forcing companies in all businesses to look with envy at their Net counterparts - and to fear that the companies might use their high-flying stock as currency to buy corporations.

They have also served as a wake-up call to managers to take the competitive threats from the Internet seriously.

Only two years ago, executives in the banking, travel, auto retailing and publishing industries began quaking over Microsoft Corp.'s online efforts. Now, the efficiencies offered by the Internet are spurring them into action.

"They say, 'Look, I'm losing customers to the Internet. I've got competition I've never seen before,' " said Gary B. Moore, a senior vice president at Electronic Data Systems Corp. who is charged with running the Plano-based company's electronic commerce division.

It's everywhere

As quickly as Internet use has proliferated, newer and faster technologies, such as cable modems and satellite dishes, promise to lure more people online and keep them surfing the Net longer. Speedy broadband Internet access "may be the killer app [application] of the first decade of the upcoming century," said Mr. Templeton of TI.

As more people use a network, the value of all the connections increases exponentially. This idea has been formalized in what is known as Metcalfe's Law, named for Robert Metcalfe, founder of California network equipment-maker 3Com Corp.

It states that the value of any network increases in proportion to the square of the number of people using it, so a network with 500 people attached to it is 100 times as useful as one with only 50 people connected.

And as the volume of computer sales increases, prices have been falling. Some reasonably equipped models sell for around $300. The result: Families with household incomes below $30,000 that previously couldn't afford a PC now represent one of the hot growth segments, sales figures show.

The United Kingdom firm Datamonitor estimates that the number of people using the Internet worldwide will double to 300 million by 2005, with the greatest growth in Asia and South America. The online population will rise 61 percent to 95 million in the United States, more than double to 88 million in Europe and quadruple to 118 million in the rest of the world, the market researcher predicts.

And while computers are becoming more popular, their capabilities are increasing through the development of ever-faster chips that can run more intuitive software programs. Experts believe computers will become "more human" - interacting more and more by voice commands.

Embedded microchips and processors will transform - and sometimes take over - much of the mundane daily workload. And on the Internet, consumers of information and products will barter away notions of "absolute privacy" for convenience and a new kind of personalized entertainment.

The impact of such rapid, profound change can be seen firsthand in Farmers Branch, just south of Addison's restaurant row along Belt Line Road. There, inside the ever-expanding campus of Dallas Semiconductor Corp., scientists have labored for years to develop tiny transistorized wafers that store data.

One division was putting them in nickel-sized containers called iButtons, which clients used primarily for tracking business inventories and making cellular phone accounts more secure.

In 1992, two Houston businessmen approached Dennis Jarrett and other company representatives with an idea to use iButtons to store U.S. Postal Service data downloaded onto personal computers.

Today, three shifts at Dallas Semi run around the clock in advance of a summer announcement that iButtons will be used in a product called e-Stamp - a new universal method of sending what has come to be known as "snail mail."

Users with iButtons will be able to buy postage from a U.S. Postal Internet site, download the encrypted data to a button on their desktops, then print out stamped and precisely metered envelopes, debiting their buttons with a touch of an electronic wand.

"The iButtons were really a solution waiting for a product," said Mr. Jarrett. "These guys wanted to use the Internet. It was perfect."

Downsizing technology

Many people swear they are addicted to 3Com's Palm Pilot, a hand-held organizer. Still in the testing labs are full-function computers that are as portable as a Walkman radio.

IBM is among several companies working on go-everywhere machine designs. The IBM prototype unit is called Visionpad, a translucent device that clips on a belt and has a tiny rectangular display that sits an inch or two in front of the user's eye - similar to a mirror mounted on a bicycle helmet.

The screen appears to the eye to be about the size of a full notebook PC screen floating in front of the user's face, said Phil Hester, chief technology officer for IBM's personal systems group in Austin.

"How small can we make the computer? The idea of this kind of wearable computer is it's for someone who doesn't want to give up anything," he said.

Keyboards are essential now, but many experts believe interaction with the Internet will gradually become voice-driven.

Just this month, several new devices were introduced that retrieve e-mail from Internet servers, then read it back on a standard telephone line.

Beyond that, consumers are quickly warming to "personal video recorders" and other "intelligent buffers" that can customize entertainment options. TiVo and Replay, new set-top boxes, scour channel listings for selections fitting criteria set by the television's owner.

The devices - which are actually mini-computers storing video on hard drives - allow users to bypass commercials, setting up their own channels around selected content grabbed from the cable or traditional broadcasts. Users can then watch programs whenever they want to, and advertising can be skipped altogether.

Jim Griffin, former head of Geffen Records and now a Los Angeles-based new media consultant, sees the Internet and new technology gradually and dramatically transforming our expectations for service.

Rather than taking products "pushed" to them laden with unwanted features and advertising, Mr. Griffin said, consumers are increasingly able to dictate how and when they'll use products, especially those involving information and entertainment.

"Consumers are becoming the controllers," he said.

For example, consumers will soon be able to use an "intelligent buffer" that seeks out music, videos or films, then stores it - without advertising - to be used whenever desired, Mr. Griffin said.

At first, it may take a clunky computer to understand what the consumer wants. Later, Mr. Griffin said, car radios will have the ability, while idle, to sift through a wireless Internet connection and grab particular music or radio play for later listening.

"We are getting control of our digits in a way we never had before," Mr. Griffin said.

Selective advertising

At the same time, this convenient digital sifting can wreak havoc on an economy based on brand recognition and traditional advertising.

New methods will have to be developed to reach consumers who are content to rush right by the television and radio ads they once sat through in easy chairs. Advertisers will be challenged to use the personal data being gathered by Internet Web sites and other methods to address only those consumers who are truly potential buyers.

"We're moving from shooting a shotgun in the air to shooting a silver bullet right through the forehead of targets," Mr. Griffin said. "Advertisers will pay much higher rates to reach only the people they want to reach."

The old advertising models are still seen in e-mail "spam," which swamps the Internet with commercial messages largely discarded by uninterested and irritated Netizens. The new model is in a formative stage, featuring regular skirmishes over privacy, data collection and just how much information Internet users are willing to hand over in exchange for content.

In the latest twist, firms here and abroad have begun experimenting with free or low-cost access to the Internet in exchange for the right to stream specialized ads to users based on questionnaires.

"I think the next 36 months will tell us whether free Internet service in the U.S. remains," said Steven B. Daum, chairman and CEO of the Smart Network's FreeWWWeb service. FreeWWWeb charges a one-time software fee of up to $119 for full access via dial-up connections in 93 metropolitan areas.

"We've seen three or four other folks [offering free access] come and go out of business," Mr. Daum said. "I think one of the reasons is that, just by nature, the American consumers are a very leery bunch. They just don't believe it."

Privacy experts contend consumers are perhaps just being careful when bartering away their privacy. However, when other corporations have offered free computers in exchange for the same kind of ad-pushing rights, consumers have flooded Web sites with orders.

As consumers have become more comfortable with making the Internet part of their lives, they are increasingly willing to buy goods and services over the Web. The security concerns of only a few years ago have largely been eased by safety guarantees for credit-card transactions.

However, while some consumers are perfectly at ease buying a book or compact disc online, they may remain edgy about purchasing an airline ticket costing several hundred dollars, said Terrell B. Jones, president of Travelocity.com, a unit of Sabre Inc. in Fort Worth. Many customers shop for tickets online but still make the final purchase from a travel agent or the airline.

"We sell a $260 average ticket, and if you buy an e-ticket, that's essentially a nonrefundable bag of electrons," Mr. Jones said. "It comes with rules. It's much more complicated for the consumer in how they feel about it."

Still, Travelocity.com is growing at a rapid clip, booking $128 million in ticket sales in the first quarter of this year, a 156 percent increase over the same period last year.

New competition

For all the excitement about what it can offer consumers, the Internet also is striking terror in many businesses.

One of the biggest threats to the most venerable U.S. corporations, analysts say, is that on the Internet, customers tend to become loyal quickly to those that have arrived in a market segment first. That advantage may be more important than trusted brand names and corporate identities.

The reason the newcomers can displace the old brands is because habits are formed quickly on the Internet, as with any medium, said Todd Wagner, chief executive of Broadcast.com Inc. in Dallas, which sends audio and video programs over the Internet.

Research shows that while newcomers to the Internet mostly surf and explore, users quickly develop routines and revisit the same sites that they have left bookmarked in their Web browser software.

Broadcast.com arrived early on the scene, first broadcasting over the Internet in September 1995, and it consistently has been one of the most visited sites. Broadcast.com is in the process of being acquired by Yahoo Inc., one of the leading new media companies on the Internet.

"We're changing the rules," Mr. Wagner said. "We grew up with broadcasting as three channels. Cable was a certain number more. What we say is unlimited channels."

Passive viewing will become increasingly passe for people seeking information from TV, he said. "Do you really care about all the stock quotes running at the bottom of the TV screen? Maybe a specific shareholder meeting is what you care about. You become the broadcaster."

The Internet is considered the ultimate tool in what is called "one-to-one marketing," through which companies can target and deliver directed messages to an audience with specific interests and demographic characteristics.

Sellers can also collect, track, analyze and markettheir products based on databases of customer buying habits. Another advantage to sellers is that an advertisement can be converted into a transaction with the click of a mouse.

Home buyers are comparing mortgage rates on the Web to find their best deal rather than visiting the loan officer at the local bank.

Many book shoppers don't bother with stores. They go to amazon.com, looking for the convenience of online shopping and a virtually unlimited selection that can be custom-tailored to their tastes.

Customers who want to book an airline ticket are shopping from Travelocity.com or Microsoft's Expedia.com instead of visiting their neighborhood travel agent.

Investors are flocking online, attracted by a robust stock market and discount trading commissions from firms including E*TradeGroup Inc. and Charles Schwab Corp.

The huge success of online trading has forced the nation's largest brokerage, Merrill Lynch & Co., to change the way it competes. In May, Merrill, a firm steeped in full-service tradition, announced it will offer discount online trading.

The move - representing what is essentially a new business model for the company - is fraught with risk for Merrill and its nearly 15,000 stockbrokers, on whom the firm is based.

But many say Merrill and virtually every other firm have little choice but to make dramatic shifts when the Internet is so profoundly transforming the U.S. economy.

"If you can't react quickly, you'll become extinct," said Mr. Moore of EDS.

Because the Web often offers better product selection and lower prices than traditional stores, many say retailers who don't add substantial service will increasingly have trouble competing.

"Retailers who continue to operate under the old value cycle may fall victim to e-commerce, while we plan to grow along with the Internet," said Leonard Roberts, chairman, president and chief executive of Tandy Corp.

The Fort Worth-based parent of the Radio Shack chain has tried to carve a niche for itself with sales people who "demystify" technology, he said, and the stores have been experiencing brisk, double-digit sales growth.

Cutting the middleman

The Internet takes particular aim at the intermediaries who aid in completing transactions, such as stock brokers and insurance agents, who can be bypassed thanks to an abundance of online information.

Dell Computer Corp., the Round Rock, Texas-based company that builds personal computers to order and sells them directly to its customers, often over the Internet, is often held up as an example of where corporations are headed.

By selling machines directly to customers, bypassing distributors and other resellers, the company can undercut its rivals' prices, increase sales volume and earn a consistently tidy profit.

Customers appreciate that Dell can configure each machine to their specifications: the exact combination of processor speed, memory, hard-drive space, software and other features.

And because PCs are built to order, Dell maintains a minimal inventory of components and finished products. That's critical because the driving force in the PC business is rapid obsolescence. A PC's shelf life is so short that its value depreciates about 1 percent each week.

"Every CEO in the world is focused on this. We're at the beginning of a huge wave of companies making their businesses Web-centric," said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive.

"Whether it's business to business or business to consumer, everyone is going to drive hard in this direction. And we're at the center of it - providing PCs, servers and services."

The Internet offers the opportunity to double the advantages realized by the direct-sales model, according to Dell, and the company seeks to put its entire business on the Web. In its last quarter, sales over the Internet surpassed $18 million a day, accounting for 30 percent of overall revenue.

Evidence of the pain that the Dell model is causing companies that are part of the so-called indirect channel can be found throughout the industry, including at Houston-based Compaq Computer Corp., the world's largest PC maker.

Compaq's board of directors ousted the company's chief executive, Eckhard Pfeiffer, in April over dissatisfaction with the firm's performance.

Like Merrill Lynch, Compaq has been struggling with how to confront major changes in its business model. Compaq increasingly is selling directly to customers, too. But as it expands the business, it is alienating the resellers who account for nearly all of its current revenue.

The same thing could happen in any business as customers become more comfortable buying over the Web.

Mr. Moore of EDS said he recently met with a Silicon Valley executive who got the Internet religion.

"He wanted EDS to help," Mr. Moore said. "I said, 'What changed your strategy?'

"He said, 'Eckhard Pfeiffer getting fired.' "

More information

Health care

Patients and their families can find a wealth of information ( search.yahoo.com/
bin/search?p=dallas+health+care) about virtually any medical condition with just a few keystrokes. The World Wide Web has made it possible to easily retrieve information from advocacy groups, government agencies and medical journals.

While welcoming the better education of their patients, doctors are also concerned that much of the information on the Internet comes from sources that are inaccurate or incomplete. They recommend that before taking any medical information to heart, patients consult with a doctor, nurse or other medical professional.

- Laura Beil

E-mail

The Internet's dominant application has always been e-mail. And this simple, cheap form of electronic interaction shows no signs of giving up its title. E-Marketers Inc. recently estimated that in 1998, 3.4 trillion e-mail messages were sent across the Internet, up from 107 billion the year before.

The research firm Infobeads says the reason is simple - "The network effect: the more people on the Internet, the larger the attraction and value the Internet has for each additional user," a recent study said. "Add to that the ever-declining cost of PCs, and you begin to see why the Internet has grown the way it has: Many people buy cheap PCs as glorified e-mail stations."

New technologies are poised to build on e-mail's ubiquity, making it easier to use and unbinding it from computer workstations.

- Doug Bedell

Political campaigns

Online voting may be a few years away, but presidential candidates are exploring new ways to use the Internet in their 2000 campaigns ( www.politics1.com) - beyond posting biographies and issuing positions. The Web is becoming a multipurpose tool to raise funds, recruit volunteers, announce schedules, distribute ads, show videos, have online chats and exchange password-protected information among workers.

Republican Steve Forbes announced his candidacy on his Web site with an audio address and is urging supporters to build electronic precincts. Gov. George W. Bush's site can be read in Spanish. Republican Elizabeth Dole allows viewers to create interactive postcards with her picture to send friends. Democrat Al Gore's site has a Town Hall section that allows citizens to ask the vice president questions. All major candidates have Web sites, though they vary in sophistication.

- Carolyn Barta

Senior citizens

Go ahead. Discuss the Internet with your grandparents. Chances are, they won't get lost in the lingo. They'll probably share their own favorite Web site.

According to a 1998 Baruch College-Louis Harris Survey, almost one in five Web surfers is 50 or older. Eleven years ago, SeniorNet membership numbered 22. Today, 30,000 folks 50 and older - from every state and several countries - belong to the nonprofit organization. Its mission includes enhancing seniors' lives through computer technology.

Senior computer users plan trips online. They e-mail family members. They read newspapers and magazines to which they otherwise wouldn't subscribe. They enhance their education. Being online helps them - as it helps us all - ease loneliness and feel more a part of the changing world around them.

- Leslie Garcia

Buying books

Amazon.com pioneered Internet book buying, made tons of money as the quintessential, rapid-rising digital stock and revolutionized the publishing industry - or it will, as soon as we all change our nonwired shopping habits.

Hardly.

Despite the waves that amazon, booksense and the other dot-coms have raised in the industry, the super chains such as Borders and the discounters such as Wal-Mart still rule the waves in book sales - although that is slowly changing. Web book-buying is growing, but it's also true that many book buyers will never give up the pleasant, social experience of browsing in stores while heavily caffeinated.

What amazon.com really popularized was e-commerce in general. Selling absolutely anything has been amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' real aim, as is evident in amazon's move into video, audio, gifts and shopping referral, as well as its competition with such "cyber malls" as buy.com. Books were Mr. Bezos' entry wedge into retail, and he could easily drop them - but only after he's made the surviving independent booksellers get smart, get service-oriented and get logged on.

- Jerome Weeks

Gossip

In more quaint times, neighbors would lean across a picket fence and swap rumors about the widow down the street and the latest on so-and-so's delinquent son.

In our Internet age, strangers lean across a virtual fence and swap rumors about the president of the United States and the latest on an international plane crash. And somewhere between occasionally and frequently, those stories find their way onto network broadcasts and into the pages of newspapers and magazines.

While each successive generation of electronic media has steadily transformed gossip into a national pastime and bankable commodity, cyberspace has proven to be a global microwave.

From the Pierre Salinger uproar in the wake of the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 (when the once-esteemed reporter "broke" the story on a government cover-up based on widely discredited reports he found on the Internet) to the making of Matt Drudge into an overnight celebrity based on his Web site devoted to President Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Internet can bring the wildest fringes of gossip ( www.cyberpages.com/
news&views/subjects?30) to the front and center of pop culture with the click of a button.

- Tom Maurstad

Disabled access

Until recently, Internet access was an abstract concept to most of the disabled community ( www.eskimo.com/
~jlubin/disabled/pchat.htm). Thanks to the actions of such groups as Boston's Web Access Project, that void is gradually being filled.

The blind can now browse the Internet using screen-reading software that uses speech synthesis to convert text to words; people with mobility limitations have programs that convert spoken words to text; the deaf can experience almost instantaneous two-way communication, replacing the more-limiting fax; and programs that reset screen colors to accommodate color-blindness are also available.

All of this broadens the base of students, consumers and potential employees who can compete in an increasingly technology-driven world.

- Ellen Sweets

Buying music

Some music lovers hate buying CDs on the Internet because it has none of the romance of searching through the bins at the local record shop. But others swear by CD-buying sites such as amazon.com (www.amazon.com) and cdnow.com cdnow.com; instead of needing a detective to track down an obscure disc by that highly touted new Bulgarian jazz-metal band, now you can find it with a few clicks of the mouse. And instead of having to guess whether you'll like it or not, you can listen to part of a song or two online before you plunk down $15 for the CD.

- Thor Christensen

Cyber terrorism

The Internet makes computer networks in sensitive security spots - from the White House to the fire department - vulnerable to terrorists ( oicj.acsp.uic.edu/
spearmint/public/pubs/cjfarrago/terroroz.cfm). Cyber weapons can disrupt or destroy databases, turn radars blank, shut down power grids or route planes and trains into collision courses. Some work by manipulating data to provide faulty intelligence or steal funds.

Hackers and thieves account for most of the computer viruses and stolen electronic funds. But politics is becoming a motive equal to vandalism and greed.

Yugoslavs and Chinese upset with the air war over Kosovo attacked NATO and Defense Department Web sites. There are hundreds of unauthorized attempts to penetrate restricted military networks every day.

An industry of security firms defends against these attacks with anti-virus programs, encrypted entry systems and special networks run separately from the Internet. Cyber sleuths with private firms, the FBI and a new federal Cybercorps try to track attacks back to their source.

- Jim Landers

Net regulation

From its earliest days, the Clinton administration has tried to follow a "hands-off" policy toward Internet regulation ( www.isoc.org/). The reasoning is that the Internet is a young industry that will flourish best with no federal restraint over content or technology.

It's been difficult to resist regulatory restraint, however, when faced with Internet overlays to crimes involving children. Two federal laws - one overturned by a federal appeals court, the other still under challenge - have tried to restrict the exposure of children to pornographic material. Another forbids passing on medical histories.

Privacy concerns motivate advocates of additional regulation. And both buyers and sellers in Internet commerce need ways to validate the integrity of transactions.

Self-regulation by the industry has led to an agreed set of technical standards under the Internet Engineering Task Force of the Reston, Va.-based Internet Society. It's been much tougher to gain industry consensus on privacy and junk e-mail, though most Web sites now carry policy statements on privacy.

Governments in China, Singapore and elsewhere restrain Internet service providers and try to restrict content, but experts say it's a porous exercise that does more to restrain technology development than limit the circulation of information.

- Jim Landers

Taxation

The Internet is a useful way to file taxes ( ec.fed.gov/), but it can also be a useful way to avoid them. Electronic commerce crosses state and national borders without blinking, making sales taxes problematic.

A federal Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce began meeting last week to consider whether Internet sales, hook-ups and sign-ons should be taxed like catalog sales or telephone calls. A three-year moratorium on Internet taxes was signed into law last year to allow the committee a chance to make its recommendations.

The Internet can convey work and money in similar fashion: A software engineer in Texas can deliver a product in Ohio, avoid Ohio's income tax and collect his pay anywhere. The possibilities for tax avoidance are enhanced enormously.

"It's not likely anyone would ever allow an entirely tax-free environment on the Internet, because all commerce would go there," said Don Heath, president and CEO of the Internet Society.

- Jim Landers

Families

The Internet is a lot like nuclear power in its effect on the family ( dir.yahoo.com/
society_and_culture/families/). It has a tremendous power to do good or to destroy.

Family Web pages can help you keep in touch with the sights and voices of loved ones. E-mail makes distances dissolve as parents send quick messages to a child away at college or remind one at home that they're thinking of him.

Families can surf the Internet together - for school projects or just for fun. But be careful when family members start spending a lot of time going it alone, said W. Robert Beavers, M.D., director of the Robert Beavers Family Studies Center at Southern Methodist University.

"The anonymity is problematic for both children and adults," he said. Adults and children can be seduced in chat rooms, he warned. In addition, he said, kids can fall into a Lord of the Flies syndrome if they find a group on the Web that encourages them to commit violent and destructive acts.

- Nancy Churnin

Scientific research

Professional scientists in the past relied only on printed journals to publicize research findings. Now they use the Internet to publish data too cumbersome for print or to share video clips of experiments.

Amateur scientists can also help the pros, thanks to the Internet. Anyone can participate in data-gathering experiments, such as the Audubon Society's ( www.spea.indiana.edu/v501w-laku/FolderC/audobon.htm) annual Christmas bird count or backyard observations of distant stars. Weather-watchers also share up-to-the minute data.

- Alexandra Witze and Sue Goetinck

Law enforcement

The Police Officer's Internet Directory ( www.officer.com/) works as an enormous bookmark list for anyone working in law enforcement. A search engine makes it easy to use, and search results tend to be more productive than directory services because of the focus on criminal justice.

Besides troves of job listings and other data of personal interest to police officers, the site includes links to legal resources such as court opinions and state and federal laws. Also, links to specialized information on classes of crimes - such as hate crimes and computer crimes - are easy to find, providing a good resource to departments with less experience with obscure criminal activity.

- Rick Klein

Travel

Travel ( dir.yahoo.com/recreation/travel/) has been a natural for the Internet - destination and airline-booking sites are among the most popular online. But it hasn't all been smooth sailing. Savvy travel agents can often beat online prices, and computer glitches and slow connections mean some people can finish trips in less time than it takes to book them. Still, Internet travel-planning shows no sign of slowing: Within two years, 8 to 10 percent of all tickets will be bought online, experts said.

- Larry Bleiberg

Religion

After sex, politics and Star Wars, religion ( dir.yahoo.com/society_and_culture/religion_and_spirituality/) may be the most popular topic on the Internet. The Alta Vista search engine turned up 6.3 million hits for the word "god." Every major religion is represented by dozens of official and thousands of unofficial sites.

The Net may be most valuable to those who practice or are interested in faith traditions that aren't well-known where they live. Someone interested in the basics about Islam, the Baha'i faith or even renewed worship of Norse and other pagan deities can find it easily online.

On the other hand, the Net is as filled with misinformation about religion as it is about any other topic. And hate-filled screeds against Catholics, Muslims, Jews and others are only a mouse-click away.

At the end of the 1990s, some issues raised by religion online are still unresolved: Can people worship on the Internet, or does real religion require that people get together? How can a faith tradition exercise quality control about what is said about it online? What is the best way for an individual or a congregation to take advantage of the Internet's opportunities?

- Jeffrey Weiss

Sports ticket sales

Rick Baker, executive director of the Southwestern Bell Cotton Bowl, said a ticket application was included on its Web site last year almost as an afterthought. Now, he is glad it was.

Because of a major upset in the Big 12 Conference football championship game Dec. 5, the Cotton Bowl could not announce which two teams were playing in its annual New Year's Eve game until 6 p.m. the next day, a Sunday.

When Mr. Baker announced in a conference call that Texas would be playing Mississippi State, the ticket office was closed - and would remain closed until 8 a.m. on Monday. But in the 14 hours between his announcement and the reopening of the office, 900 football fans placed orders for 5,000 tickets through the Web site.

"For all intents and purposes, the Web site sold out the stadium before we turned on the phone lines," Mr. Baker said. "You don't need a ticket outlet in Austin or Starkville, Miss., anymore," Mr. Baker said. "Now your ticket outlet ( st4.yahoo.net/tixx/) is the Internet."

- Dave Caldwell

Target marketing

The Internet is helping companies build stronger relationships withtheir customers.

In November, Hyatt Hotels upgraded its Web site for customers whobelong to its Gold Passport club. One of the benefits: Gold Passportmembers can now use the Web site 24 hours a day to receive missingcredits for stays at Hyatt Hotels. Before the upgrade, they had to calla customer service representative during business hours.

The Web site also offers special promotions and the ability to claimrewards and change account information.

"The Internet provides the ability to get a lot more information more quickly," said John Jastrem, chief executive of the Dallas office of Rapp Collins Worldwide , one of the nation's largest direct-response and database marketing agencies and the company that upgraded Hyatt's Web site.

- Katherine Yung

Car shopping

As a selling tool, the Internet has been widely embraced by new- andused-car dealers, industry observers say. About 60 percent of allnew-car dealers in the United States have Web sites, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. That number isup from 53 percent a year ago.

But while widely used, the Internet doesn't produce many sales, NADAhas found. Dealerships make an average of 5.3 sales per month over theInternet, less than 5 percent of a typical dealership inthe Dallas area. That number does not include referrals dealershipsget from Internet consumer car services.

Part of the problem for Internet car sales is that in many states -including Texas - cars can't actually be sold over the Internet.Information can be distributed and questions answered, but the sale mustoccur at a dealership.

- Terry Box

Phone service

The Internet is a big part of the reason AT&T is buying or becoming partners with cable companies, including TCI Communications, which serves Dallas. The giant long-distance company not only plans to sell local phone service ( www.internettelephony.com/) over the cable networks, but also premium-priced, high-speed Internet access. AT&T hopes customers who get hooked on its super-fast Web access will become more loyal to its long-distance service.

Data services are the fastest-growing revenue source for local phonecompanies and a major factor behind the growth of second phone lines.

The Internet is driving new technology, too, such as cell phones that surf the Web and wireless computer modems. Manufacturers expect demand for those products to take off after companies deploy next-generation mobile phone systems, which will dramatically speed up Internet connections.

- Jennifer Files

Media

Hoping to cash in on the high stock-market values enjoyed by onlinecompanies, media companies are also rushing to form their own Internetsubsidiaries that could one day be spun off. In May, The New York Times Co., the Tribune Co. and Belo Corp., owner of The Dallas Morning News, each announced plans to pool the online versions of their newspapers and television stations into separate Internet companies.

"They are looking to maximize shareholder value," said David Cole, a San Francisco-based newspaper consultant and editor of The ColePapers, a monthly newsletter on technology, journalism andpublishing. "Ink-on-paper assets depress the worth of a company."

- Katherine Yung

Electronic communities

Name your village ( www.sonoma.edu/virtcomm/elvill.html).

Or more precisely, name your subject - from breastfeeding toBuddhism, hockey to home schooling - and chances are good that an Internet community has grown up around it.

More and more, Web sites are allowing people to post messages and even engage in real-time chat.

- Pete Slover

Copyright and the First Amendment

Many people wrongly assume that everything posted on the Internet ispublic domain, says a Web primer on the subject published by the University of Texas System.

Copyright protection is automatic for nearly any creativework, the page notes. There is, however, an implied limited right to read, download, print and forward materials for personal - not commercial - use. The law is still undecided on how far this "fair use," time-honored in other media, extends in the Internet context.

Also up in the air is the liability for libelous statements transmitted over the Internet. Clearly, the person who publishes defamatory information is subject to being sued for damages. But the liability of third parties for retransmitting or linking to that material is unclear, especially when the author is anonymous.

- Pete Slover

Computer gaming

The Internet is slowly becoming an integral part of the gamingworld ( dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Games/Computer_Games/). The information the Web brings is invaluable, but the slow connection experienced by the majority of gamers is still the bottleneck of the online-gaming explosion.

Things that make a game great, such as real-time chat and smoothplay, will be hampered until ultrafast connections become more widely available and affordable. But one thing is for sure: Having Internet support will be crucial to a multiplayer game's success in the future.

- Jim Buu

Food

The Internet provides foodies and novice cooks alike with millions of recipes, from the Bon Appetit magazine archives to all manner of broccoli-and-chicken permutations. Esoteric information, such as metric recipe conversions, is as close as Epicurious.com, the encyclopedic Conde Nast food Web site.

Other sites, such as Peapod.com, allow consumers to shop their local grocery stores without leaving home, while gourmet outlets such as the famous Dean & Deluca in New York give them entree to shopping opportunities heretofore confined to catalogs.

In the works: more customized services, such as systems to order takeout online and pick it up on the way home. But you still can't order direct from California wineries online: Texas law prevents them from shipping to consumers here.

- Kim Pierce

Distance learning

Hundreds of programs at accredited universities offer associate degrees to doctorates in aviation or business or nursing or theology or you-name-it. And you never have to show up for class on the last day, distraught and unprepared for finals. You never have to "show up" at all.

Online learning, virtually unheard of a decade ago, is the hottest thing in academe, appealing especially to working adults eager for the mental stimulation but lacking time or proximity to a university. Students download assignments and lectures from profs, receive books through the (snail) mail, carry on class discussions via e-mail, visit a library electronically and post completed papers for comment from fellow students.

The virtual classroom is highly democratic - no one can judge you by your appearance, only by what you contribute to class online. Conversations tend to be more considered and deliberate when one has to write one's thoughts beforehand. Harder to ramble that way, or monopolize the conversation. And if you don't like what a classmate has written, just go on to the next contribution.

To get started, try Petersons.com for indexed listings of myriad degree programs, distance learning tips and even financial aid.

- Lois Reed

Pornography

You can explore just about any type of sexuality through the Internet: a virtually infinite supply of dirty pictures, uncensored chat rooms, activities and obsessions up to and even beyond what the law allows.

But so can your kids. A lot of adult-only sites try to make you prove you're 18, but a lot of them don't. There are family-friendly filters ( public-library.calgary.ab.ca/fam/lkfilters.htm) and software to screen out objectionable material, but the results vary. For families online, those are good reasons to set limits for children and to keep an eye on who's browsing where.

- Michael Precker

Video conferencing

Recent dramatic jumps in Internet speeds and data-packaging technologies are gradually bringing the Jetsonian video phone into reality.

Although home users have been slow to warm to the camera, businesses already equipped with high-speed connections are finding video-conferencing ( www.gvcnet.com/) a cheap, efficient way to collaborate with clients and companies worldwide.

Even with sub-$100 cameras and free software programs, it is now possible for people to see and speak to each other across vast distances with few delays.

The technology has the capability to ultimately turn every computer into a tiny Internet television station, broadcasting unique streams of video and data worldwide.

But will there be enough "anchor people" to go around?

- Doug Bedell

Banking and paying bills

The Internet has sparked an evolution in the way banks ( Yahoo area on banking) view how theyserve customers and in the way customers view their banks, experts said. The primary vehicles for this have been online banking and electronic bill-paying.

In the future, more small banks will join their larger brethren inoffering Web-based banking, and more banks will offer consumers theability to view their bills and pay them online, experts said. Somebanks already are offering those features.

- Pamela Yip

Libraries

The tremendous transformation that the Internet has brought to libraries ( www.lib.ci.dallas.tx.us/) is access. Entire archives of up-to-date periodicals and rare manuscripts, whole libraries from anywhere in the world: These are available to people in flyspeck towns and students in no-football-team colleges. Anyone with a phone jack, keyboard and monitor can do Ivy League-level research. Online access is the fulfillment of the library's great, democratic mission: unfettered information for the people.

At the same time, the Internet may well prove a disaster for libraries. Disseminating data is only one library mission; preserving it is the other. So much of digital culture is pure commerce; it's generated by people racing to sell the latest gizmo. Who cares about last year? Libraries house our past, our memory, our literature - while the Internet is a medium constantly jettisoning its own history, consuming everything, storing nothing.

Demanding more desk space, more machinery, more training, more budget allocations from libraries and librarians, the Internet (and computerization in general) boots up the big question: After diverting all of these resources to digital information, what happens to a library's precious archives in a few years, when its equipment has been rendered obsolete, when its computer memory is inadequate?

- Jerome Weeks

Television

Television ( www.emmys.org/archive/) viewing increasingly is spilling over onto home computer screens. Major productions, such as ABC's recent The Century series, invariably have companion Web sites brimming with further details. The venerable "cutting-room floor" increasingly is an anachronism. Information that previously fell victim to time constraints is now readily available online.

Sometimes the Internet has a mind of its own. The WB's season-ending episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was pre-empted in the United States after the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. But the episode aired in Canada and subsequently was downloaded for viewing by U.S. computer-philes. It's a new form of bootlegging that could spread rapidly. What's to stop "pilot" episodes of new shows from making their Internet debuts weeks or months before showing up on TV sets?

As if you didn't already have enough to watch.

- Ed Bark

Public records

Access to public records ( records.txdps.state.tx.us/dps/default.cfm) has become cheaper and easier on the Internet. Netizens in Portland can find property tax records in Dallas or call up a list of registered sex offenders by ZIP code. These records have always been available, but their display on the Internet has made many citizens more aware of the information they can find.

The pay service publicdata.com also is a great source of quick information about almost anyone in Texas. A vast amount of public information is indexed there, most of it obtained under federal and state open-records laws.

Voter registration and driver's license information can be found through simple queries, as can state criminal records and civil-court information. Some police agencies use the stop as a quick and easy way to find information to which all citizens have access.

A serious caution: Check your sources. Some information, posted with the best of intentions, is outdated or inaccurate. There's still no substitute for a trip to the courthouse to get the real thing.

- Tim Wyatt and Rick Klein

Job searching

Looking for a job in 1999? Boot up your computer.

Monster.com, the largest job-posting site on the World Wide Web, reported 222,000 jobs up for grabs in mid-June and 1.5 million resumesin its confidential database.

Those numbers make it the Godzilla of Internet job boards, but Monster is far from alone. Mark Poppen, who's in charge of customer relations for recruiting consultant Interbiznet.com, has seen the number of job-recruiting sites climb from about 500 in 1996 to more than 20,000 by the end of 1998. "We're probably at 40,000 sites right now that have some recruiting component to them," he said.

- Diana Kunde

Social services

Although clients at social service agencies ( www.unitedwaydallas.com/) often lack computer - or even basic reading - skills, many nonprofits are finding that the Internet helps in the perpetual quest for money and volunteers.

Nonprofit workers rely on the Internet to search for government grants to fund their projects. They also are creating an increasing number of Web sites to describe their operations to potential donors.

Because social welfare agencies face an onslaught of ever-changing federal laws on everything from food-stamp and welfare eligibility to immigration rules, the Internet also has become an efficient way of getting up-to-date information to cash-strapped charities.

- Lori Stahl