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To: yard_man who wrote (11544)	11/19/1998 6:45:00 PM
From: Joseph G.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86076

some more loony tunes <<LAS VEGAS, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Not even the biggest believers in the digital revolution expect the transition to an Internet society and economy to be seamless. Internet insiders at the huge Comdex computer trade show here predicted outages, logistical headaches, as well as a few bizarre societal changes before the Net becomes a truly universal medium. In the near-term this will mean more brownouts on the Internet as networks are strained to capacity. Over time, they say, expect more individuals from poets to professors cashing in on the online craze by branding themselves and their skills. ''The brand will be everything and individuals are going to start branding themselves,'' said Dwight Gibbs of the online investment guide Motley Fool. At universities, he said, this will lead to ''a la carte'' education, where top professors will seek to distinguish themselves from their schools and peddle their classes online. ''The really good professors are going to start saying 'It's my class and I'm teaching it, and I want some bucks in it,''' Gibbs explained. ''It will be the professors, rather than the schools, that will differentiate themselves.'' Nor will it just be individuals and companies trying to cash in. One expert predicted some country will position itself as ''the Switzerland of the Internet,'' offering online gaming, porn and other shady businesses a neutral place to locate their servers to avoid lawsuits. ''I can't believe some small country hasn't thought of it already,'' said Dave Holtzman, chief of engineers at the Internet address company Network Solutions Inc. Holtzman also predicted there will be ''several large Internet outages'' in 1999, and that the movement to connect all gadgets and household appliances to the Internet will at some point ''stop dead,'' until the current shortage of Internet addresses is resolved. There will also need to be faster connections to the Internet, better wireless connections, tighter security in online transactions and more back-office integration of e-commerce sites. As seamless as Internet commerce may appear to the buyer, most Internet businesses still do not have all of their systems integrated and frequently have to re-enter data behind the scenes, which can significantly add to the cost of doing business. ''I have a feeling that nobody knows how hard this (integration) is until they try it,'' Holtzman said. ''We're going to see more outages, no doubt about it. It's going to be a huge wake-up call,'' Gibbs added. ''It's going to take some time to fix.'' >>