THE INTERNET- NEW YEAR REFLECTIONS
Here's a new year question for you to ponder:
When comparing how we use the Internet today to how we were using it a
mere year ago, what difference is the most significant? I'll give you
the answer but consider these items first. For one thing, we're using
the Internet to buy more goods and services than ever before. Online
shopping has literally taken off, with some surveys claiming it's
doubled since last year. Most of our fears regarding security, privacy
and credit card theft have been brought to the same levels of
precaution we use when shopping conventionally. Savvy online buyers
realize that any risks taken online are pretty much on par with the
risks one takes making retail store or telephone credit card
purchases. We're also buying online because it's convenient to do so.
No single venue can offer as much to a shopper who buys online.
Online shoppers can search for just about
anything or any service, find it, compare prices, order it, have it
gift wrapped, pay for it and have it delivered, all from the comfort
of the living room or wherever it is that you have your computer. You
have none of the transportation hassles such as trying to find a
parking space, no fighting crowded stores, no out of stock worries (if
they're out of something, just surf over to another web site that has
it), the list of conveniences goes on and on. In fact, most everyone I
know says they use the Internet to do some portion of their shopping.
Take buying tickets as an example. My radio show
co-host is an an avid Lord of The Rings fan. In anticipation of a sold
out opening day disaster, he went online and ordered his opening day
tickets a week in advance. And although he still had to physically
pick up his tickets, many theaters will now let you print out the
actual tickets on your printer. Most any movie, theater, concert or
sporting event ticket can be purchased and printed online today. I
could give you many more examples but there isn't enough room in this
entire newspaper to list how so many of us are using the Internet in
ways we never considered a mere year ago.
But I did promise you an answer to my opening
question. The most significant way we are differently using the
Internet this year than last year really isn't contained within a
product or service. The difference lies rather with our perception of
what the Internet truly is, and what it is becoming. The Internet is a
resource, but not just any resource. For many of us, this was the year
that the Internet became our PRIMARY resource.
It used to be that when we needed to find
something, we let our fingers do the walking by checking the Yellow
Pages. If what we wanted to find wasn't listed there, how else did we
locate something? Perhaps we read the newspaper classified ads,
checked the local supermarket bulletin board, bought a trade magazine
or used a myriad of other conventional methods. But all of that has
begun to take a back seat to the Internet. Now more than ever before,
when we need to find something, we're turning FIRST to the Internet.
Why? Because we know that if its out there, we will be able to find it
and find it faster, find more of it, find it at the best possible
price and even find related things we may not have originally
considered. The Internet lets us do all of that more effectively than
any other method available to us today, and quite possibly even in the
future. Eventually, we will be able to access the sum total knowledge
and resources of all humankind through the Internet or its next
generation. And while it's not here yet, it's definitely the direction
in which we are heading.
So as we begin the new year of the Internet,
take a closer look at your computer that's sitting over there on your
table. I want you to begin thinking of it as your first resource to
everything in the world. It's not just for playing solitaire anymore. |
