Promises, promises.

The Internet harbors illegal activity. Dot-coms make millionaires and break them. Interconnected e-mail spreads viruses. We buy gifts with ease online, but we're worried about someone swiping our credit card numbers or whether the items will ever really leave the warehouse.

We expected the Internet to transform the communication profession and business, not to mention our personal lives, for the better. That's a lot to ask of technology that appeared on most desktops less than a decade ago. It's understandable, though, because it came on with such force that many people were sure it would change everything in no time.

Efficient

It would bring efficiency, for one thing. Communicators could deliver the news and information online -- just in time -- without killing trees. It's true that many publishing operations have redefined themselves in the wake of the Web, but for the most part paper publishing has not disappeared, certainly not in corporate communication.

Take Hewlett-Packard, for example. Itself a world leader in technology, the company recently reinvented its employee magazine, and the result -- called Invent -- is so popular that employees seek out extra copies to show off to others.

Some technology companies born after the World Wide Web skipped paper and went directly to digital communication. Annual reports abound online now. The paperless office prediction didn't happen, though: Paper use per pound per person has more than doubled in 25 years.

Productive

The concept of increased productivity certainly appealed to me. If I could accomplish mote with technology, I'd use those leftover minutes for leisure. But I know of only a few communicators who have been able to scrounge up discretionary time -- and that's because of the tight labor market, not technological time savings. These are the people whose employers have accepted their demands to cut back to a part-time schedule.

My other communicator acquaintances who have time for leisure are those who retired early, just in time to attend their offspring's high school graduation. Most of the other communicators I know appear on Dr. Laura's Top 100 Guilty Parents List for failure to spend quality time with their kids.

Instant

Productivity gains that we did make in the last decade translated into a robust economy, according to conventional wisdom. But we just channeled any discretionary time right back into work. Whether that will keep the economy propped up in this decade is still to be seen, but one thing is for sure: We're so focused on work, we usually can squeeze in our own personal Internet access time only during lunch or after work. The information may be available instantly, but it may take us a week to carve out time to look. How about search engines to search out some free time?

For every promise, there's an equal and opposite predicament, as the business soothsayers told us when all this commotion started. We knew that it would take years -- lots of them -- to figure out the best uses of the Internet.

The Web has become a reflection of the main players. Technologists have coded it for Moore's Law-sized exponential growth. Communicators have saturated it with information to the point of overload. Marketers have turned it into an electronic catalog and digital direct mail. Utilities have streamlined access at commodity prices.

Still there's something missing -- or cowering in the corner.

Community

If the future of the Web is in the hands of today's teenagers, instant messaging and online games are a glimpse of what's to come. The same goes for Napster, in whatever form it takes once the legal issues are ironed out. The Web is about connections. People sharing with people, not computers sharing with computers.

I hold out hope for collaboration. This promise offers a real justification for business technology and ample opportunities for communication professionals.

Or at least for online elections.

Sheri Rosen, ABC, a director, employee communications, at USAA in San Antonio, Texas.