COLOMBIA.NEARLY 2 MILLION COLOMBIANS currently use the Internet, ranging from high school students to central bank number-crunchers. That's only 5% of the population, but it makes up the third largest Internet community in Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. , behind Brazil and Mexico. Industry figures show that most internet accounts are shared by three to five people, who typically use it for chat rooms and e-mail. "The Internet is a family product, not a personal product as in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. ," says Alberto Saldarriaga, general manager of StarMedia Network Colombia. "It's like having a television set." Arriving in 1995, the Internet attracted the nation's economic elite. Typical users speak English, travel frequently and have enough spare cash to buy the technology. But most people don't make enough money to buy computers. Poor telephone service continues to stunt Internet growth, as does a business culture that rejects new technology. Local credit card companies have yet to install a sophisticated system to validate card user purchases, making e-commerce difficult. Still, StarMedia's Saldarriaga says companies have started to slowly realize the importance of websites and online advertising. WWW WWW or W3: see World Wide Web. (World Wide Web) The common host name for a Web server. The "www-dot" prefix on Web addresses is widely used to provide a recognizable way of identifying a Web site. .ENGRAFITO.COM (1) (Computer Output Microfilm) Creating microfilm or microfiche from the computer. A COM machine receives print-image output from the computer either online or via tape or disk and creates a film image of each page. Web Designer. When Colombia's advertising job market hit the skids Skids can refer to:
After discovering that the web-design software resembled advertising software, Camacho, 40, started his own web venture. Last year, he designed nearly 20 websites, compared with three in 1996. "The Internet is booming more than any other sector here," says Camacho. That's despite Colombia's deepest recession in decades. Unlike conventional advertising, which can be expensive and short-lived an Internet campaign involves only periodic updates and a monthly hosting fee, or rent charged for having a page posted on a server. Local technology is causing Camacho most of his headaches. Colombian servers initially proved so unreliable that he registered space for his customers, or hosted their websites with a Toronto-based company. Even now, inadequate bandwidth on the nation's telephone lines can cause delays of several minutes just to click onto the next page during peak hours peak hours npl, peak period n → horas fpl punta peak hours peak npl → heures fpl d'affluence or de pointe . Camacho says when he first formed the start-up, he started uploading files at 6 a.m. to avoid cyberspace Coined by William Gibson in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer," it is a futuristic computer network that people use by plugging their minds into it! The term now refers to the Internet or to the online or digital world in general. See Internet and virtual reality. Contrast with meatspace. bottlenecking. Now, the former ad man's sold on the web's future. WWW.SALUDNETWORLD.COM Doctor Digital. Dr. Eugenio Cabrera took his first trip into cyberspace in 1995, after his wife bought him an Internet browser See Web browser. for his birthday. By 1997, he had become a self-declared "Internet addict Any individual who habitually uses any narcotic drug so as to endanger the public morals, health, safety, or welfare, or who is so drawn to the use of such narcotic drugs as to have lost the power of self-control with reference to his or her drug use. ," launching SaludNet World with a high school friend who owned a web service company. The site--www.saludnetworld.com--is geared for Spanish-speaking doctors and patients. It posts peer-reviewed research papers, medical registries and question-and-answers on subjects ranging from diabetes control to how to practice safe sex. Users can also join chat rooms hosted by medical experts. Cabrera now gets 2,500-3,000 hits a day from all over Latin America. In fact, advertisers are so keen on it that he already earns more money from his Internet project than from his medical practice. He's even thinking of taking his website company public and making his practice a hobby. For now, he puts most earnings back into the portal. He is convinced that once e-commerce takes hold in Colombia, his company will become an important medical marketplace. "I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. if I will be the one who gets rich or the creative one who doesn't get the money," the 39-year-old says, "but I am willing to take the risk." |
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