LiveWired Column: Imagine the Net year to come
By Michelle V. Rafter
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - 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. (Nasdaq:LBTYA - news) (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.walmart.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).
(Michelle V. Rafter writes about cyberspace and technology from Los Angeles. Reach her at mvrafter(at)deltanet.com. Opinions expressed in this column are her own.)
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