SYNERGY-NET on http://www.wiredbrain.net/ RE: Technology Stages; Invention, Hobby, WOW, Consume, commodity: This journal now has a circulation of about 30,000 with almost no distribution costs. We can influence the speed that a product reaches the market. There are a series of products that come to market at lighting speed. Hot Dog ( www.sausage.com ) is a multi-million dollar http editor software company headed by a Australia, Steve who is about 24. He markets on the Internet for the Internet. Now there are hundred of such start ups. They can advertise on the net and not depend on word of mouth. The internet is moving from the hobby stage to a consumer commodity. Maybe they want to become a sponsor of the synergy journal. There is Tid-bits newsletter that provides technical mostly hardware information - new hard drives and the price of memory. The magazines from my experience are very heavily influenced by their advertisers and can't be trusted. Anyway they are expensive and slow, so there should be room for Internet journalism. The idea of the synergy journal is E-mail with the hyper-link. The letter is short and if you want information zap the link. If you use Netscape Mail you can do it right in the letter. We have reviewed Editors, POINTCAST, real audio, educational applications, the INTRANET wars, see http://www.wiredbrain.net/ for examples. The other part is that the subscribers are ACTIVE. They send in what they think is hot, interesting, important, etc. The feedback form now works on the web site, but E-mail is easy. The site then files and stores past information. AltaVista and the other search engines finds it and anyone looking will find it. Product Invention Hobby WOW Consume Commodity Railroads 1780 1820 1850 1890 1920 Auto's 1890 1910 1920 1930 1950 T.V. 1930 1950 1960 1970 1980 Cable 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 HVS/VCR 1960 1975 1980 1985 1990 Internet 1960 1970 1990 1996 2000 The time between invention and mass production is the period where the "infrastructure" ( stuff underneath ) and standards are established. Railroads requited finance, rights of way, standard gages, stations, coal and all kinds of industrial capacity. Auto's that Henry Ford changed from a rich mans hobby into mass market require a complex infrastructure of roads, gas stations, regulation, etc.. T.V. had the same problem as the Internet, first the quality had to be good enough, the price low enough, and their had to be something on it. General Sarnoff ( RCA ) promoted radio stations so he could sell radios. Zenith supported FM and TV to sell sets. Gillete supports razors to sell the blades. Cable required " critical mass" of content only possible with space technology and Turner's type distribution. VCR/HVS needed standard tapes, content ( video stores and movies on tape ) and a lower price. The Internet is going through the stage where it moves from a hobby and tool of specialist to a consumer commodity faster than any other new technology because the infrastructure is in place, they are creating standards as it goes along, content is expanding as rapidly as the users. Netscape gave away the razors and will sell the blades, in the form of servers, and office products. Microsoft gave away ( for a few thousand dollars ) to IBM, DOS so it could sell the contents and control the operating systems. Copies of the SYNERGY JOURNAL sent by request: globalvillages@geocities.com SYNERGY-NET on http://emporium.turnpike.net/~pflaump Peter E. Pflaum Ph.D. , Headmaster GLOBAL_VILLAGE_SCHOOLHOUSE 225 Robinson Road, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169-2176 (904) 428-9609 globalvillages@geocities.com http://www.wiredbrain.net/