HERE'S A PEEK AT WHO REALLY PROFITS FROM INTERNET : WEBPOINTERS.Byline: Kitty Williams ``How can you profit from the Internet?'' It's a question everyone asks and a ``seminar'' I attended recently promised the answer. With about 50 others who gave up their lunch hour, I found myself listening to an earnest young entrepreneur offering the opportunity to be rich beyond our wildest dreams. After reeling reel·ing n. Maine Sustained noise, as from hammering: "Hark that reeling, now, you'll wake the baby!" Anonymous. off incredible (but true) statistics of the Internet's phenomenal expansion, our seminar leader explained that making money on the World Wide Web was like shooting fish in a barrel. ``Here's the barrel,'' he said. ``Here are the fish. And when you come to our workshop, we'll give you the gun!'' Pushing aside visions of being splashed splash v. splashed, splash·ing, splash·es v.tr. 1. To propel or scatter (a fluid) about in flying masses. 2. by raw fish guts and cold water, I listened with growing interest. Our speaker was attractive and expensively dressed. He told us stories about his parents, his children, his own business success. He had already made lots of money. Now he wanted to help others get rich. He wanted to tell us about ``iMALL'' on the Internet: a virtual mall in 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. with 40 million to 50 million potential customers every day of the year, 24 hours a day. All we had to do to make our fortune was sell classified ads and Web sites. The professional staff of iMall would take care of all the technical details. We didn't even have to have a computer. Just open the envelopes and deposit the checks. We could make all the money we'd ever need. If we went to his workshop, the instructors would show us how to sell to folks everywhere who are all eager to get on the Net. Kapow! Splash! Kapow! All this would be revealed for only $3,000 but the workshop for this entire region would only have room for 40 people. A $500 deposit would reserve my place. I wouldn't have to worry about being shut out. I had to act now! Was I persuaded? Well, another member of the audience told me ``I don't think I'll throw my deposit into the plate . . . but my bad knee? Suddenly the pain is gone. I can walk again. I want to come forward and witness, to touch the hem of his garment, to shout Hallelujah Hallelujah (hăl'əl  `yə) or Alleluia (ăl–) [Heb.,=praise the Lord], joyful expression used in Hebrew worship; cf. Pss. !, to let people know I've been saved. . . . Perhaps I'll take out a classified, under Personals: Announcements: Healed!'' Though I didn't sign up, I did log onto the Internet when I got home and had a look at iMall. It boasted 6.7 million ``hits'' in September and (if true) that's pretty darn impressive. The design is appealing. I used ``Power Shopping'' to search their database for food and it returned dozens of sites, selling everything from Amish noodles noo·dle 1 n. A narrow, ribbonlike strip of dried dough, usually made of flour, eggs, and water. [German Nudel. to nuts and berries from the Pacific Northwest. The sites I encountered were attractive and easy to navigate (1) "Surfing the Web." To move from page to page on the Web. (2) To move through the menu structure in a software application. . Many of them even had on-line order forms. I marked several, especially Jakehouse, which sells Christmas greenery and Wild About Oregon, which had a special on fiddlehead ferns Fiddlehead ferns refers to the unfurled fronds of a young fern harvested for food consumption. The fiddlehead, or circinate vernation, unrolls as the fern matures and grows due to more growth in the inside of the curl. (a Northwestern delicacy). I was actually looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a specific site that had been mentioned at the seminar as an example of a typical Internet marketing See Internet advertising. success story. I thought we were told HOT HOT HOT - ``The Net's coolest hot sauce shop.'' - was an iMall success story. I was surprised not to find it with the Power Shopping search. I cranked crank 1 n. 1. A device for transmitting rotary motion, consisting of a handle or arm attached at right angles to a shaft. 2. A clever turn of speech; a verbal conceit: quips and cranks. up AltaVista, and there it was: Not on iMall's server at all. In fact, it turns out to have been designed by a group of former NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. consultants who now design Web pages as part of Presence Information Design. Since HHH's just about to celebrate its second birthday this fall, it may in fact be the oldest revenue producing site on the Web. No mention of iMALL at all. Besides, iMALL just got started this year . . . I must have misheard. But if they get 40 people to sign up for that workshop at $3,000 each . . . well, I reckon reck·on v. reck·oned, reck·on·ing, reck·ons v.tr. 1. To count or compute: reckon the cost. See Synonyms at calculate. 2. someone will profit from the Internet. ADDRESS BOOK iMALL (http://www.imall.com) iMALL Power Shopping (http://www.imall.com/search/search.shtml) JakeHouse (https://www.imall.com/imall/Specialty(u nderlinespace)Shops/jakehouse/jakehouse.html) Wild About Oregon (https://www.imall.com/stores/wldabtor/wldabtor.html) Hot Hot Hot (http://hot.presence.com/) Presence: History (http://www.presence.com/presence/history/) WebPointers, distributed by Hope Springs Press, appears Mondays. WebPointers Online (http://www.webpointers.com) archives current and previous columns. Feedback is welcome. E-mail ``catbirdwebpointers.com'' CAPTION(S): Box: ADDRESS BOOK (See text) |
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