WEBONOMICS STORIES Newsletter

I Find Karma (adam@cs.caltech.edu)
Fri, 18 Jul 1997 09:15:58 -0700 (PDT)


In case any of you were interested in the newsletter, the
website, or the current information... Webonomics is a book
with nine principles on transacting business on the Web.
It came out earlier this year, and is probably the best book
I've read so far about using the web to enhance a business.
The book is filled with lots of little gems like the ones
below... (using push technology to get dates?! finally, the
web has a *useful* purpose... :)

> From: "Evan I. Schwartz" <evan@webonomics.com>
> To: eis@webonomics.com
> Subject: WEBONOMICS STORIES Newsletter
> Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 10:41:42 -0400
>
> The WEBONOMICS STORIES Newsletter
>
> Summer 1997 Edition
>
> by Evan I. Schwartz
>
> IN THIS ISSUE:
> *****New Websites Still Cropping Up at One Per Minute
> *****Amazon.com on Path to $100 Million in Revenue this Year
> *****CUC Reports $400 Million in Online Sales in 1996
> *****AT&T Takes Advantage of Value-Based Currency
> *****Virtual Vineyards Reports Only "One or Two"
> Cybercash Buys per Week.
> *****IBM Shuts Down Cybermall
> *****Forrester E-Commerce Forecast Too Conservative
> *****Looking for Love? 'Push' Technology Can Help. Yeah, Right!
> *****WEBONOMICS FIVE-STAR Website of the Month
>
>
>
> *****New Websites Still Cropping Up at One Per Minute
>
> The first sentence in WEBONOMICS is: "New sites on the World Wide Web
> have been cropping up at the rate of one per minute." I'm pleased to
> report that this furious pace has continued -- almost exactly. Network
> Solutions Inc., the Virginia-based company that registers domain name
> addresses for U.S. Web sites, says that it had registered a total of
> 818,000 addresses by March 1997, up from 246,000 a year earlier. That's
> 572,000 new Web sites in a year, or 1,567 per day, or 65 per hour, or
> 1.08 per minute!
>
>
> *****Amazon.com on Path to $100 Million in Revenue this Year
>
> Amazon.com, the premier bookseller in the Web economy, reported revenue
> of $28 million for the second quarter of 1997. Add that to the $16
> million it reported in the first quarter, and we see that the
> Seattle-based company is en route to break the $100 million revenue
> barrier this year. The company also reports a smaller-than-expected but
> still sizable quarterly loss of $6.7 million. Jeff Bezos, CEO, has said
> he expects to turn a profit sometime in 1998. At this pace of sales
> growth, profitability may happen a little sooner. As an aside, I ran
> into Bezos at a conference recently and asked him about the false
> advertising lawsuit filed by Barnes & Noble against Amazon.
> Not only was Bezos confident that the suit would go nowhere,
> but he added that he's delighted by all the publicity surrounding
> it. Any time our name is mentioned along with theirs, we win,
> he said. http://www.amazon.com
>
>
> *****CUC Reports $400 million in Online Sales in 1996
>
> A spokesman for CUC International Inc., the Stamford, CT company that
> runs the NetMarket Web site, told me that the company drove $400
> million in online transactions in 1996. The company doesn't actually
> get any of that money. NetMarket is one of CUC's buyers' clubs.
> Consumers who pay $50 per year to join get wholesale prices on
> 400,000 items -- everything from cameras to camcorders to telephones
> to stereos to washers and dryers to exercise equipment to lawn
> furniture. Everything is shipped directly from the manufacturer to
> the consumer. CUC makes no money on the transactions,
> just on membership fees. This is an extremely successful business
> model, and it makes CUC the company to watch in e-commerce,
> especially as it completes its risky, $11 billion merger with HFS.
> http://www.netmarket.com
>
>
> *****AT&T Takes Advantage of Value-Based Currency
>
> As reported in WEBONOMICS, AT&T's TrueRewards program is really an
> example of "value-based currency" -- if only AT&T would move the
> program to the Web. Now, it has. Under the program, AT&T offers
> consumers one point for every dollar spent on long-distance calls.
> Customers use the points to buy stuff ranging from CDs to magazines
> to baseball cards to flowers to snow tires to mattresses to luggage to
> savings bonds. Such offers usually come in the mail every so often with
> a periodic statement. But AT&T recently turned its Web site into a
> nonstop electronic bazaar where TrueRewards points could be used to
> fund an online shopping spree. This is a prime example of the digital
> money of the future. https://www.truerewards.att.com. Two other
> Web ventures that have recently introduced online currencies
> that reward purchasing are CUCs NetMarket and a new,
> national grocery delivery service, called NetGrocer
> (http://www.netgrocer.com).
>
>
>
> *****Virtual Vineyards Reports Only "One or Two" Cybercash Buys Per Week
>
> Virtual Vineyard enables customers concerned about credit card fraud to
> pay with the secure Cybercash system, which requires special software
> and a special account. Robert Olson, CEO and co-founder of the
> successful seller of specialty wines and foods on the Web, was asked at
> a recent conference how many consumers are taking advantage of that
> service. He said: "One or two per week." And those orders are "usually
> from Bill Melton demonstrating the technology for friends." Bill Melton
> happens to be the CEO of Cybercash. Needless to say, such digital
> payment systems are not catching on. As reported in the book, more than
> 99% of Web commerce transactions are via ordinary credit cards.
> Meanwhile, Barron's reports in its July 7th issue that "not a single
> case of credit-card theft on the 'Net has been documented." Could it be
> that using credit cards on-line is actually safer than using them in
> other ways? http://www.virtualvin.com, http://www.cybercash.com
>
>
>
> *****IBM Shuts Down Cybermall
>
> As predicted on page 95 of WEBONOMICS, the IBM WorldAvenue
> cybermall has failed. Due to lack of consumer and retailer interest,
> Big Blue in June said it would shut down the venture--within a year of
> starting it up in the first place. You would think that IBM would have
> learned from the failed marketplaceMCI cybermall experiment.
> The idea of renting retail space on the Web is silly at best.
> The concept of a mall is based on geography.
> On the Web, geography is rendered moot.
> http://www.worldavenue.com
>
>
>
> *****Forrester E-Commerce Forecast Too Conservative
>
> More than a year ago, Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. had
> forecast that online sales to U.S. consumers would reach about $1.1
> billion for 1997, growing to $6.6 billion in the year 2000. Now, Bill
> Bluestein, the Forrester analyst who authored the report, tells me that
> the 1997 number is probably too low and that the forecasts for the
> future will probably have to be revised upwards.
> http://www.forrester.com
>
>
> *****Looking for Love? 'Push' Technology Can Help. Yeah, Right!
>
> Get this! Here's a great example of why so-called "push" technology is
> so over-hyped. Rich Gosse, chairman of the American Singles dating
> service (it sounds more like a processed cheese food company), seems
> convinced that single people want to be alerted instantly whenever a
> new guy or gal enters a profile in his database.
> Gosse says the Web "allows our system to work around clock selecting
> matches that are 'hand delivered' to the desktop of the single person
> looking for love. No more scouring the Web for love--it comes to you."
> Yet another reason to sit by your PC on Saturday night.
> http://www.as.org
>
>
> *****WEBONOMICS FIVE-STAR Website of the Month
>
> Here's a small business that created a Web site taking advantage of
> eight of the Nine Essential Principles of WEBONOMICS, earning the
> coveted "five-star" rating. "BuySell" is a very smart online classified
> ad service that doesn't just put the ads online but creates a dynamic
> digital marketplace for both buyers and sellers of all kinds of goods.
> The service is mainly for people in the Vancouver, B.C. area. Check out
> http://buysell.com.
>
>
> THANK YOU for your interest in WEBONOMICS. Your support has kept
> WEBONOMICS on the Amazon.com Bestseller List for 12 weeks in a row,
> and has made it Amazon's #1 bestselling business book!
>
> Feel free to send a copy of this newsletter to interested colleagues,
> just as long as the copyright notice at the bottom is included.
> ________________________
> Copyright 1997 by Evan I. Schwartz
>
> http://www.webonomics.com

----
adam@cs.caltech.edu

OpenDoc was eaten by html and Java; Jobs licked the plate and burped. :-)
-- David McCusker