The Im~ct olthe Internet on Business
Current Uses of the Internet
The Internet has a wide variety of uses. It provides an excellent means for disseminating information and communicating with other people in all regions of the world. While the greatest use of the Internet has been sharing information, other sources of use are rapidly developing. For instance, chat rooms, a space where people can go to discuss an assortment of issues, and Internet Commerce, which connects buyers and sellers online. The following are other examples of current Internet uses:

1.	Technical Papers

Originally, the Internet was only used by the government and universities. Research sdentists used the Internet to communicate with other scientists at different labs and to access powerful computer systems at distant computing facilities. Sdentists also shared the results of their work in technical papers stored locally on their computer system in ftp sites. Researchers from other facilities used the Internet to access the ftp directory and obtain these technical papers. Examples of research sites are I~L~ and NASA AMES.

2.	Share Company Information
Commercial companies are now using the Web for many purposes. One of the first ways that commercial companies used the Web was to share information with their employees. Sterling Software’s Web paoe informs employees about such things as training schedules and C++ Guidelines. There is also some information which is company private and access is restricted to company employees only. Another company example is Sun Microsystems which similarily contains general information about the Sun Microsystems company.

3.	Product Information
One of the ways businesses share information is to present their product information on a Web page. Some examples are: Cray Research. Sun Microsystems Hewlet Packard and GM’s Pontiac S!t~. The Web provides an easy and effident way for companies to distribute product information to their current and potential customers.

4. Advertising
Along these lines, companies are beginning to actually advertise online. Some examples of different ways to advertise online are Netscaoe’s Ad Paoe. Netscape has a list of advertising companies. They also use a banner for advertisements on their Yahoo Web Page. St~rw~Le similarly uses banner advertisement. These advertisements are created in the established advertising model where the advertising is positioned between rather than within editorial Items. Another type of advertising focuses on entertaining the customers and keeping them at the companies’ site for a longer time period. Some of the more interesting of these are:

•	I~1~I with a soap opera! detective story.

•	~gu Soap Opera, Italian alt, prizes, etc.

•	~tQh Puzzles, submit drink receipes, prizes, etc.

•	Miller Genuine Draft Discussions on various topics such as music scene in Austin.

The advantages of each method of advertising will be discussed in more detail in the section on strateaic risks and tarciet markets.

5. Business & Commerce on the Net

Commerdal use restrictions of the Internet were lifted in 1991. This has caused an explosion of commerdal use. More information about business on the Internet can be found at the cQmm~r.c~ l~i~t. This site has information such as the projected growth of advertising on the Internet and online services. Commerdal Services on the Net has a list of various businesses on the Internet. They are many unusual businesses listed here such that you begin to wonder if they are legitimate businesses. This topic is discussed in more detail in the section on risks and consumer ~nfl~nc~. Business and Commerce provides consumer product Information. The Federal Trade cQmm1.~iQU is also quite concerned about legal business on the Internet.

WWW users are dearly upscale, professional, and well educated compared with the population as a whole. For example, from CommerceNees Survey (CommerceNet is a not for-profit 501c(6) mutual benefit corporation which is conducting the first large-scale market trial of technologies and business processes to support electronic commerce via the Internet) as of 10130!95:

•	25% of WWW users earn household income of more than $80,000 whereas only 10% of the total US and Canadian population has that level of income.

•	500/a of WWW users consider themselves to be in professional or managerial occupations. In contrast, 27% of the total US and Canadian population categorize themselves to have such positions.

•	64% of WWW users have at least college degrees while the US and Canadian national level is 29%.

CommerceNet’s study also found that there is a sizable base of Internet Users in the US and Canada. With 24 million Internet users (16 years of age or older) and 18 million WWW users (16 years of age or older), WWW users are a key target for business applications. Approximately 2.5 million people have made purchases using the WWW. The Internet is, however, heavily skewed to males in terms of both usage and users. Access through work is also an important factor for both the Internet and online services such as America Online and
CompuServe. For an example of the size of the market, the total Internet usage exceeds online services and is approximately equivalent to playback of rented videotapes.

6.	Magazines

Magazines are starting to realize that they can attract customers online. Examples of magazines now published online are QuI~id~, ~cQnQm1Z, and ~u~1n~ Y~k. These magazines are still published in hard copy, but they are now also available online. Many of these publications are available free sometimes because of the time delay (i.e. publications online are past issues) or usually to draw in subscribers for a free initial trial period. Some of these publications may remain free online if advertisers pay for the publications with their advertisement banners.

7. Newspapers

Some newspapers are beginning to publish online. The San Jose Mercury News is a full newspaper online, while the tI~2Dm~ offers just dassified ads and educational information. The Dow Jones Wall Street Journal publishes its front page online with highlighted links from the front page to complete stories. The Journal also provides links to briefing books, which provide finandal Information on the company, stock performance, and recent articles and press releases. For an example Qf a briefing book ~

~QQIc This is all free by the Wall Street Journal during the trial period which should last until mid 1996.

8. Employment Ads

Companies are also beginning to list their employment ads online to attract talented people who they might not have been able to reach by the more tradition method of advertising in local papers. Sun Microsystems provides a list of job openings on the Internet. Interested parties can submit a resume or call to schedule an interview, which saves time for everyone involved. Universities can also help their students find jobs more easily by using job listings on the Internet. The University of Washington has a job listing ~ Local papers can also make it easier for job searchers by creating a database search feature. The job searchers can select the type of jobs that they are interested in and the search will return a list of all the matching job openings. San Jose Mercury News is a good example of this approach.

9. Stock Quotes

There are several time delayed (15 minutes) ways to track stock performance, and they are all are free. The first to provide this service was PAWWS Ftnanaal Network and now ~NN also lets you track stocks. These are commerdal companies which provide stock quotes for free but charge for other services. A non-commerdal site, MWs Stock & Mutual Fund Charts updates information daily and provides a history file for a select number of stocks and mutual funds. Information in these history files can be graphically displayed so that it is easier to see a stock’s performance over time.

10. Country Investment Information

Thinking about investing in a particular country? Information on countries can be found online. For example, check out the graphical information (GDP, inflation, direct foreign investment, etc.) on In~n~i~.
11. Order Pizza
You can order a	~jllji~. This Web site is actually a joke, but you can easily imagine

people working late at their offices and ordering out for food online.

12.	Software Distribution

A very effective and efficient use of the Web is to order software online. This reduces the packaging and shipping costs. Also documentation can now be provided online. A good example Is Netscaoe Naviaator. Another example is Macromedia’s Shockwave. What is Shockwave for Director? The description online is as following:
“Shockwave for Director is the product name for the Maa-omedia Director-on-the-Internet project. Shockwave for Director indudes two distinct pieces of functionality:
(1) Shockwave Plug-In for Web browsers like Netscape Navigator 2.0 which allows movies to be played seamlessly within the same window as the browser page.
(2) Afterburner is a post-processor for Director movie source files. Multimedia developers use it to prepare content for Internet distribution. Afterburner compresses movies and makes them ready for uploading to an H1TP server, from which the~ll be accessed by Internet users.”

So by reading about the product online, you can decide if it sounds interesting. You can then immediately get the software by downloading it from Macromedia’s computer to yours. Next, you install it on your system and you’re all set. You didn’t even have to leave your terminal, and there was no shipping cost to you or the company.

13. Traffic Information

Ever wonder what the rush hour traffic was like before you head home and get stuck in it? Many different cities are putting traffic information online. In Seattle, a gr~bIc~L~r~fflç r~rt is available.

14. Tourism

Plan a trip to ~ or N~ ~~~J~jçJ with information gathered off the Internet. These and other countries are on the Internet. So you can plan your vacation from your computer.

15. Movie Previews

Who needs Siskel and Ebert, when you can be your own movie critic? Buena Vista Movie ~ provides movie dips from many of their new releases. For a sample movie dip preview “Unstruro Heroes”.

16. Chat Rooms on AOL

Chat rooms are a more interactive technology. America Online provides areas where people can “log on” and converse with others with similar interests in real time. This is the first popular use of interactivity by the general public. The other uses up until recently have been more static, one-way distribution of information. Interactivity is the future of the Internet (See the next section).