TIME EUROPE
APRIL 10, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 14
Techwatch
WEB ADVERTISING
Ads in Cyberspace
The web has quickly ensnared the advertising industry. Forrester Research predicts that global spending for online ads will hit $33 billion by 2004 (Europe's share: $5.5 billion). That's good news for dotcoms, since many an e-business model is predicated on ad revenues. But ad executives still aren't entirely sure how well Internet advertising works. Fletcher Research asked advertisers to rank eight media for effectiveness and the Internet came in at the middle, with TV topping the list. Moreover, 34% of the advertisers said Internet audience data aren't reliable and 24% said effectiveness measurements aren't accurate. Danny Meadows-Klue, chairman of the U.K.'s Internet Advertising Bureau, maintains that e-ad audiences can be accurately measured, and the iab has set standards to accomplish this. That's true, says Fletcher analyst Caroline Sceats, but not enough websites subscribe to these standards, and the varying definitions they use can skew results. As for consumers, a Fletcher survey finds that they fall into two main blocs: 24% call online ads "annoying," while the same percentage find them "useful."
INTERNET
Peak Experience
Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, may not have any traffic lights but it does have the country's first Internet café. Owner Umesh Pradhan intends to provide e-mail and Web access to the city's business people and students. In the past 12 months this remote Himalayan kingdom of 600,000 people, most of whom are Buddhist subsistence farmers, has plugged in to the knowledge economy with the launch of its first television station as well as its own Internet service provider.
E-EXCHANGES
The B2B Boom
the number of Europe-based electronic business-to-business (B2B) exchanges will explode over the next two years, according to a report by Internet research and investment firm Durlacher Research. The exchanges dramatically decrease procurement costs. Durlacher estimates that by 2004 some $408 billion will be traded through European B2B exchanges, accounting for 32% of the overall market and 4.1% of the E.U.'s gdp. Royal Dutch/Shell Group and BP Amoco PLC are among a dozen oil and chemical companies which have just announced the formation of a new Web procurement exchange, and on April 12 Belgian phone company Belgacom and Oracle announced the first Belgian Web-based B2B online marketplace aimed at streamlining supply chain activities.
SITE SEEING
NASDAQ welcomed its first Chinese website last week: SINA.com (www.sina.com), a Chinese language portal that hosts sites based in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S. SINA.com set up an overseas holding company to avoid the ban on Chinese portals listing abroad.
Political protest in Zimbabwe has an outlet at www.gal.co.za, where you can sign a petition expressing "revulsion ... at the developing crisis" or play a game in which the object is to splatter as much diesel fuel as possible on to a picture of President Robert Mugabe.
WHAT'S NEXT
The pen could prove mightier than the keyboard with the advent of the Anoto Technology digital pen and paper. The device — produced by Swedish company Anoto, Ericsson and management consultants Time Manager — contains a digital camera that photographs what is written and transmits it to a mobile phone or PC using Bluetooth wireless technology. Anything written by hand can be electronically stored or sent by e-mail. The first products are expected to be available to consumers by the middle of next year.
Norway has become the first country in the world to introduce computer-free Internet access using high-speed isdn lines. The SmartPhone, developed by the state-owned telecommunications concern Telenor, allows the company's isdn customers to surf the Web, send e-mails and make normal phone calls through a single device. The SmartPhone indicates when an e-mail or voice message arrives and users can even surf and talk at the same time. It also has a built-in smart card reader for added online payment security. The SmartPhone, developed with Samsung and Alcatel, is currently available only in Norway.
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April 24, 2000
April 24, 2000
COVER STORY
The Incredible Bulk
Testosterone, which can increase libido and help build muscles, will be available soon in easy-to-use gel form. But it can cause liver damage and prostate cancer. Why are people willing to risk their health for it?
Never Too Buff
A new book reveals a troubling obsession: how male self-worth is increasingly tied to body image
Viewpoint
Joel Stein worries about his testosterone
EUROPE
Blowing the Whistle on the Past
A former Czech political dissident hunts down communist-era secret police collaborators
Neither Here Nor There
Serbs who deserted the war in Kosovo are finding no welcome in the West
History Wins, Irving Loses
Controversial historian David Irving loses his libel suit and is branded a pro-Nazi falsifier of history
Viewpoint
Rich Westerners make poor advocates for their friends in the Third World
Viewpoint
Law enforcers must learn to move faster to snare global lawbreakers
MIDDLE EAST
Withdrawal Symptoms
Syria vacillates as Israel seeks world support for a plan to pull its troops out of southern Lebanon
Jews on Trial
An Iranian spy case undermines an ancient minority and a modern President
THE ARTS
The Rem Movement
Architecture is changing. The proof? Its biggest prize, the Pritzker, goes to a thinker rather than a pure designer
Performed with True Passion
The English National Opera brings Bach to vivid dramatic life
The End of Innocence
Ishiguro's new novel, When We Were Orphans, probes the wounds of vanished childhood
DEPARTMENTS
Techwatch
World Watch
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