Column Dot Com
by Mitch Stone, the Accidental Expert
LOS ANGELES. This is the most innovative, net-aware column you will read today. It promises to provide vertical affinity groups with interactive portals to a leading edge, mission-critical web presence.
But, you may well be thinking, does this column provide e-business with cutting-edge, end-to-end broadband infrastructure solutions? Is it user-centered? Does it optimize traffic connectivity with front end load-balancing?
I'm really glad you asked. Having just returned from the Spring Internet World 2000 Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center, my resource utilization response time is entirely secure. My dynamic content management filtering is 100% on-line.
I haven't felt more vertically integrated in years.
So permit me to introduce you to the new economy -- which, aside from the fresh supply of techno-gibberish -- looks remarkably like the old economy, with a dot and a com tacked onto the end.
The focus of the Expo was, of course, the Internet -- but that's as vague and nonspecific a motif as could possibly be imagined for any one event. Given the explosive growth of the Internet over the past few years, it might as well have been the Earth, Air and Water Expo, for all the continuity and cohesiveness the Internet World title provided.
In fact, aside from some fuzzy Internet connection, the over 800 exhibitors populating the immense show floor seemed to share only one, common mission: handing out more free t-shirts then a person could hope to wear in an entire lifetime.
And for a great many of these companies, this might just turn out be their most enduring legacy. Within a year, it's easy to imagine that the dot-com Class of 2000 will be mainly remembered for colorful t-shirts folded neatly into bureau drawers all over the world. I hope their investors grab some shirts before it's too late.
A substantial segment of the show floor was populated by companies selling products and services which left this observer glazed of eye and slack of jaw. This look of bewilderment provided the young, earnest product reps populating each and every booth with a golden opportunity to explain to a real dolt just why their product was essential to everyone's future. This gave me an opportunity to smile politely and back away.
As if to allay my confusion, America Online CEO Steve Case, that elder statesmen of the Internet, was on hand to proclaim technology a really important and wonderful thing. But Case's keynote appearance was for a greater purpose then to impress everyone with his penetrating insights into the future.
It was roll-out time.
Case took the stage to announce a new class of Internet appliances, based on the fabled Gecko technology, a mysterious set of Internet building blocks obtained by AOL a little over a year ago from Netscape Communications in their $4 billion acquisition of the company. We'd heard nothing about Gecko since, but as it turns out, Gecko will provide the foundation for the new Netscape Navigator 6.0 browser, also introduced at Internet World 2000.
But the real significance of Gecko is in its ability to bring the Internet to a variety of non-PC products. IBM, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and Intel were all announced as builders of Gecko devices, but the immediate spotlight fell on PC maker Gateway.
Case displayed mockups of compact Internet devices sporting flat panel displays and designed to carry AOL, as well as content from their recently acquired property, Time Warner. The Gateway products should hit the market at under $200 later this year. So whatever this Internet thing turns out to be, Steve Case hopes it will find its way into every room of your house.
But ironically, don't expect the Gecko-based Netscape 6.0 browser to replace Microsoft Internet Explorer in your AOL software. That won't happen unless and until Microsoft releases AOL from its obligations to distribute Explorer exclusively to all of its customers.
Internet World 2000 Expo might have been the most totally buzzword-compliant technology show ever. But the Expo was perhaps best summarized by a startup company called NetPulse. They've managed to combine three of America's most ubiquitous inventions, the Internet, fitness obsession, and cupholders into one product -- an exercise bicycle with an Internet terminal mounted between the handle bars.
Why, it's enough to make one pine for the good old days of demand chain logistics fulfillment and e-assest management connectivity.
10 April 2000 |
Color
America Online CEO Steve Case, belaboring the obvious at Internet World 2000.
It's a brave, sort-of-new Internet World, complete with cup holders and tight abs. (Photos, Mitch Stone) |
