Regardless of how organizations measure Internet growth and usage, it is certain that the forces of change that affect the Internet will continue to evolve. In evaluating the economics of competing technologies and determining how organizations can get a return on their technology investments, this article reviews ten technology and consumption trends on the Internet. They are (1) multiple bandwidth delivery, (2) linguistic and cultural diversity, (3) privacy, (4) laws, (5) restricting access, (6) taxation of Internet commerce, (7) information age law enforcement requirements, (8) surviving on a crowded Web, (9) new sources of competition, and (10) information warfare and economic terrorism.

INTERNET TECHNOLOGY AND HOW businesses and consumers use the Internet continue to evolve at a rapid pace. No longer is the Internet a completely technology centric world. Social conditions, consumer demand, law, culture, and language are creating new demands for technology applications. These demands go beyond being served up technology and applications from the technologist's point of view.

Developers of technology and Web applications, just like consumer appliance manufacturers have long been, are now faced with demands from customers. Developers and Web-based service providers face challenges to meet these demands, but they also have opportunities to enter new markets. If a dominant developer or technology producer does not meet the changing demands of consumers, another one will leap frog them and take away market share.

About every 18 months, the analysts at Computer Economics review technology trends and emerging technologies and study consumption trends on the Internet. This is done in the course of evaluating the economics of competing technologies, including acquisition costs along with deployment and maintenance expenses and return on investment that can be achieved from implementing technology strategies. Consumer patterns and trends are studied through the use of surveys, focus groups, and case studies. During the fall of 2000, the following ten trends were identified as high priority for developers to address as they develop and deploy new technologies and Web-based applications.

Internet users or the consumer, both B2B and B2C, will use applications in narrow, midrange, and broadband environments. They will adopt and use applications that best fit their business needs or personal lifestyles. Consumers will utilize selected applications on the platform that is the most convenient for their business environment or personal needs and work patterns.

Web developers face the challenge of developing applications that can be deployed on all bandwidths delivering maximum functionality while taking advantage of the best aspects of each bandwidth. The dominant platform for delivery of an application in 2001 could easily be displaced by a different platform in 2005. This presents a high level of uncertainty for the developer, and there will be increased competition in all application areas as Internet companies or companies desiring to use the Internet compete for new customers and struggle to keep existing customers. Unlike the middle 1990s, consumers will have greater choices about what platform they will use. This means that developers will either settle into a niche application on a narrow, midrange, or broadband platform; or they will attempt to compete by being dominant in their application area across all three bandwidths.

Internet use will increase around the world, across cultures, and span a wider range of educational and economic strata. Overall this is a positive trend, and it will eventually help open new markets for E-commerce companies and content providers. However, Web developers face the challenge of creating sites that appeal to and appropriately function for a more diverse population of users, language groups, skill sets, physical capabilities, and literacy levels.

Usability and the definition of usability will dramatically change as the number of Internet users increases and the range of computer skills that users have broadens. Early adopters of the Internet were more highly skilled in computer use, came from a higher social-economic demographic, and thus were more ready to try E-commerce and use the Internet for research purposes. During the last two years, however, newcomers to the Internet were less computer literate and spanned the socio-economic strata from top to bottom. Thus more Internet users did not automatically translate into more buyers and more content consumers.

In addition to a broader range of computer skills and economic backgrounds, many new Internet users have come from countries that do not speak English as a first language. While it is good that the number and type of Internet users continues to grow, it presents developers with the necessity to deploy Web sites in multiple languages and to take culture sets into consideration when designing Web sites. Although this may sound straightforward, many developers are still from predominately English-speaking nations and have limited knowledge of other languages and cultures. In turn, this has opened the Internet to a wider range of developers who are rapidly emerging in countries around the world.

Another challenge is to develop technology and applications that meet the needs of people with a variety of physical handicaps. This includes people with limited motor skills and those who are sight-impaired or completely blind, as well as those who have hearing problems or auditory limitations. This means that all of the new content-rich Web sites that are emerging may not appeal to people with physical limitations and thus these people may not be an audience for such Web sites.

On the Internet, privacy can easily be compromised or bought and sold. Social and legal pressures are mounting with cross-border issues as well as with thousands of pending laws. The right to privacy and the protection of privacy have become the subjects of a major debate in legislative bodies around the world. Web developers, service providers, and Internet companies face the challenge of protecting privacy through technology and policy.

Because privacy laws can differ dramatically from country to country and the very nature of the Internet is that it does not have borders, and users from all over the world can log onto almost any Web site in the world, developers are under ever-increasing pressure to create methods of identifying where users originate and how their privacy must be protected. This trend will continue and the challenges of privacy protection will increase over the next several years. This discussion of privacy is limited in this article because the author has also written a book on developing and implementing privacy plans. (The book, Net Privacy, was released in the first quarter of 2001.)

The global nature of the Internet has come into conflict with local laws that govern content and commerce. Many Internet companies were unaware that such laws even existed. The classic case of the year 2000 was the sale of Nazi memorabilia on the Yahoo Auction sites to the citizens of France. In France it is illegal to sell Nazi-related items. Courts in France, in late 2000, ruled that Yahoo had to prevent the sale and even the viewing of Nazi-related items to Internet users in France.

The ramifications of this case are that Internet companies face the challenge of determining what laws impact their business and developing technology to prevent violations. More cases are expected as the law enforcers and the lawmakers of various countries attempt to come to grips with the new global technology of the Internet. Court cases are likely to be expensive and cross-border defense of Internet activity is a challenge in itself.

There have been numerous other legal battles over the nature of content, and many countries are now working on plans to limit what types of content Internet users in those countries will be able to access. China is a prime example because the government intends to block sites that are not politically acceptable.

As an outcome of political and legal battles, Web developers should prepare for a continued effort to restrict access to the Internet. These restrictions will arise in the U.S. as well as in most countries around the world. Personal use of the Internet in the workplace and the use of wireless Internet devices in classroom settings, for example, are considered to be at epidemic proportions by many managers and school administrators.

New technologies that can restrict how and when the Web is used will find a market in private companies, schools, and universities. In addition, entire countries may adopt technologies that partition their Internet off from the rest of the world. Technology for restricting access will fall into one of several categories:

Taxation will come to Internet commerce in full force because national, regional, and local governments want revenue. Internet companies and commerce infrastructure providers face the challenge of dealing with taxation and in doing so will create a demand for a new level of transaction management services. The moratorium on the taxation of Internet commerce in the United States was a temporary and very political step. Now that lawmakers have taken office, there will be more attention focused on how to go about taxing Internet sales.

Systems to manage the collection and payment of taxes to the various taxing entities in the United States pose a challenge, but large companies will likely overcome this challenge with relative ease. Smaller companies, on the other hand, will need to rely on new electronic software applications or on service providers to handle the massive task of tracking sales and making tax payments.

Taxation is further complicated by the possibility of cross-border E-commerce transactions. This will require the collection of sales taxes and import taxes from users in many countries around the world. This is a very complicated situation and it will take even more time to address than the sales tax issue within the United States. Again, larger companies with more resources will find this easier to overcome. Smaller companies, on the other hand, will probably need to rely on service providers for support.

Computer crime and the use of the Internet to support criminal activity is a natural evolution in criminal behavior. Law enforcement agencies around the world face the challenge of investigating, prosecuting, and combating crime, and they will need the help of service providers and specialized consultants. National law enforcement agencies such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and its counterparts in other nations are struggling to train law enforcers to investigate computer crimes. Other government agencies such as the United States Securities Exchange Com-mission have increased their headcounts in order to investigate and prosecute securities and stock fraud activities on the Internet.

There is also a need for more comprehensive laws in the United States and countries around the world. Undoubtedly there is a need for international cooperation in the development of laws, but uniform laws are only the first step in advancing the fight against computer crimes. The ability of Philippine law enforcement officials to investigate the Love Bug, by numerous accounts, was at best inadequate. Considerable media attention was focused on the actions of the investigators in the Philippines. This attention helped to bring into focus the complexities and the obstacles of investigating computer crimes. During the next five years there will be considerable effort put forth in developing new laws to help fight crime on the Internet.

In 1999, Computer Economics researchers interviewed several law enforcement officers across the United States who had local responsibility for investigating computer crimes. Several conditions were identified that negatively impacted the ability of local law enforcement agencies to deal with computer crimes. First and foremost was a lack of funding to adequately staff computer crime units and to train computer crime investigators. Generally speaking, the police officers interviewed were found to have a passion for their work, spending countless hours reading and self-training in order to improve their skills. Second, in jurisdictions without formal computer crime units, there was often a lack of leadership and certainly a lack of resources dedicated to provide generalized training on computer crimes to police officers. Third, there was reluctance on the part of many companies to report computer-related crimes.

The reluctance to participate in prosecution efforts and in most cases to even report virus attacks, hacks, or intrusions is born from self-protection. The primary reason for not participating is to avoid any press coverage that could possibly be considered to reflect negatively on the company reporting the crime. As one corporate official so succinctly explained, negative press can erode investor confidence as well as raise concern .among customers. Neither is good for a company --especially a publicly traded company that puts forth so much effort to protect its reputation and attract or keep investors. My discussion with prosecutors revealed that many had encountered the same type of resistance.

The population of Web companies will continue to grow, and competition in all niches will increase. Internet companies and those who invest in them will put more pressure on developers to create unique and more marketable applications and services. As competition increases on the Internet, so will competition for venture capital funds to support the growth of new companies. Internet business planners and marketers will need to be far more creative in the future than they have been over the last few years to make an Internet company successful.

The use of a search to promote Internet companies and drive traffic to sites will remain effective, but clearly, positions in search engines are being sold at premium prices. If an Internet company wants to appear in the top five listings in a search on almost any term, they need to now pay fees to the search engine companies. This is a drastic departure from the original intent of search engines than when launched. However, paid placements in search engines are now a fact of life.

The effectiveness of banner ads and click-through ratios for Web-based advertising has diminished drastically over the last two years. Although the ads can be effective, it takes huge volumes of banners to translate into actual sales results. Internet users have become virtually immune to Web-based advertising in general, and this has prompted the sellers of Web ads to use cookie technology to track users and build profiles of their Internet use in order to target advertising toward individual users. This has, supposedly, improved the response to Web ads, but it also runs counter to the privacy movement. If privacy advocates win out, the use of cookies to track user behavior will likely be severely limited in the future.

Overall, everything that has been tried during the last two years to make advertising effective on the Internet has faded into oblivion or soon will be outdated and ineffective. Web-based ad techniques are like insecticides that can only be effective for a short period of time until the target insect becomes immune to the formulas and then a new insecticide must be developed. The ultimate testament to the ineffectiveness of many advertising techniques is the ever-increasing death rate of dot.coms.

The days of MBA or Computer Science dominance in start-ups is rapidly coming to an end. The funded model of Web start-ups is on the decline, and the potential of Web-based ads is now viewed in the same categories as false gods and hallow promises. This does not mean that the Internet is dead or even close to dying as a business environment. There will be new sources of competition on the Web and new business models will emerge. These business models will have less overhead built into their financial structure, and they will be pursued by a different type of organization than those that have been the center of attention during the last few years. There will be three new major sources of Web competitors: (1) the family business, (2) entrepreneurs in countries that have gender-based glass ceilings, and (3) countries that are starting to enter the electronic age.

In 1999, Computer Economics projected that in the next five years over one million high school students would have a Web-based business when they graduate. Many of these young people have already become leaders in family businesses and are succeeding at a rapid rate, doing so without the infusion of formal venture capital. In Japan, for example, where women face numerous cultural blocks to moving ahead in traditional business, female entrepreneurs are moving to the Web as a place to start their own businesses. In countries such as Malaysia and India, which have growing high-tech sectors, businesses are turning their resources to developing Web software and Web enterprises.

These new sources of competition have several things in common. They are run by people who have an entrepreneurial spirit. They are independent start-ups that are largely self-funding and do not need to compete for venture capital infusions for their immediate survival. They also have less overhead expense because they are not giving money to investment bankers, attorneys, consultants, and marketing firms to help move their businesses forward. Founder employees are not seeking huge salaries, and these start-ups do not have to compete in open markets for talent. It is going to be very interesting to see how all of the competition unfolds.

Information warfare and commercial espionage on the Internet are certainly going to become a reality. The military has been preparing for this for over a decade. Industrial and commercial Internet infrastructures and activities have been the target of ad hoc attacks. Organized electronic attacks are inevitable. So far this activity has been limited to harassing efforts, such as Palestinian activist hacking of Israeli Web sites or hacking of the Republican National Committee during the 2000 national election in the United States. Other popular targets have been United States Government Web sites. However, there have also been serious denial of service attacks on commercial enterprises in North America. There is far more to come. Military and civilian law enforcement is not prepared to counter such attacks.

Observers approach the Internet from many perspectives. Some count the number of Internet users. Others count the number of Web sites. Yet others are counting the number of dot.coms that have gone out of business, as the reality of economics hits the fledging and immature world of Web entrepreneurs. Many comment on how fast change occurs and create their own little colloquialisms, such as "Internet time."

Regardless of what we choose to count or measure, one thing is for sure: the forces of change that impact the Internet will continue to evolve. Many of these forces are changing as this article is read. The way people use the Internet and the techno toys that inventors bring to market will continue to change in response to these forces.

In many ways, the Internet is equivalent to the invention of electricity. It is a force that can drive many things; all you need to do is plug into it. However, just as electric appliances and electric tools have changed over time, so will the devices that are plugged into the Internet and so will the benefit that people derive from those devices. The ones that do not work well or that go out of fashion will end up in a landfill. Others will be sold at garage sales or become the fodder of flea-market capitalism. What societies use and discard is another way to measure change. Eventually it will be the technological archaeologist who really judges what worked on the Internet and what did not.