THE INTERNET -- A NEW DIMENSION

by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com, www.samizdat.com

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of this article for non-commercial purposes provided this permission notice is preserved on all copies. All other rights reserved.


In June 1994, Berthold Langer and I received the first Internet Marketing Award at Internet World in San Jose, for a three-minute video about the Internet which I wrote as part of my "day job," as a marketing consultant at Digital Equipment. I used the occasion to make a statement of my deeply held, personal beliefs regarding the nature and potential of the Internet. Attached are those remarks, followed by the script for the video.

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I'm honored to be here with people who helped make the Internet what it is today and who will shape its future.

My videotape is a quick look at what is happening today with Mosaic and the Worldwide Web. It avoids talk about highways and distance, and tries to show the immediacy of a user's experience.

Mosaic brings the world to your desktop. It makes the resources of the Internet feel like an extension of your own mind.

And if you have something to say or show, the Worldwide Web lets you open up and invite a global audience to share your creations and follow the threads of your thought.

This environment feels like the grand concourse of a global mall, where millions congregate to learn and share experiences and to do business.

The Internet has long been a great way to meet people -- to hear all views and to have your say. It has been a pioneer environment of sharing and caring, where strangers often help one another, with no expectation of payment or reward.

Today, some people on the Internet are frightened by the rapid growth and change and the coming of commerce. They talk about a land rush, and barbed wire, and the end of the open range.

But the Internet is not a limited, fixed space to be carved up by competing commercial interests.

Rather, it is a different dimension, where you can be everywhere at once, without moving. Every individual and every company that connects to the Internet expands and enriches it, and at the same time becomes part of the Internet and is changed by it.

Let's welcome the growth and grow with it. Let's help shape a future that continues to amaze and inspire us all.


A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE

by Richard Seltzer

From Georgia to Palo Alto,

from Oslo to Singapore,

from the Vatican Library to dinosaurs in Hawaii,

from Talk Radio to missing children,

from Bio-Informatics to the World Bank,

from Wired Magazine to Mother Jones,

from current weather maps to the latest supreme court decisions,

a vast array of information is being made available in attractive,

easy to use form, and for free over the Internet.

A global electronic mall is under construction.

People congregate here, interact here, find the information they want here.

And here, too, they are beginning to conduct business.

Here the smallest of companies can search and shop on a global scale

for the best resources and products at the best prices.

Here those same small companies can market their own abilities and

products in a global marketplace.

This means a new array of risks and opportunities.

In the future, you will be forced to compete with distant companies you never encountered before,

and you will be able to expand to new markets at low cost.

Here new business models will evolve quickly, with new kinds of partnership and collaboration,

new ways of working together and serving customers

and making money.

Digital is here already as a leader in the field.

Today, customers and partners who are on the Internet can access press releases, info sheets, software product descriptions, Systems and Options Catalog, white papers, performance reports and customer-oriented publications. They can read them on-line, or download them and print them.

We also make it easy for customers and partners to connect directly to Alpha machines on the Internet, and to test dirve them, at no cost.

And, with our Electronic Store, we are beginning to sell over the Internet as well.

With this capability, we serve those customers and partners who are on the Internet already,

and we gain the experience to better serve them in the future.

What's ours is yours. What we learn, you learn.

Come take a look at the future we can build together.

If you are on the Internet now, to find out how to connect to Digital, send mail to info@digital.com

-- Richard Seltzer, script for videotape "Glimpse of the Future," Jan. 1994



Glimpse of the Future Video.  broadband (256K), dialup (56K). Open this file to see and hear the original three-minute video with RealPlayer. This video was created by Richard Seltzer and Berthold Langer in February 1994, when they worked at DEC, half a year before formation of DEC's Internet Business Group. NCSA (creators of Mosaic, the first Web browsers) and dozens of other organizations, including Digital's competitors. distributed thousands of copies of this video, using it to help spread the word about the business potential of the Web, which, at that time, many business people found difficult to imagine. Thanks to David Wecker and Gene Kusekoski for converting this video to a variety of formats.

A Brief History of DEC's Internet Business Group

"My Internet: a personal view of Internet business opportunities," (2002)an etext CD ROM, includes the Glimpse video, plus the full text of four books by Richard Seltzer (Take Charge of Your Web Site, Shop Online the Lazy Way, The Social Web, and The Way of the Web), related articles, speeches (with audio narration), and all issues of the newsletter Internet-on-a-Disk. Buy it at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat

Can we help you build an Internet business? Richard Seltzer is an independent Internet writer/speaker/consultant. Click here for details. or send email to seltzer@samizdat.com

This site is Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. (617) 469-2269. seltzer@samizdat.com
 
 


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