EC Trends: History, Revenues, Users
Business-centered electronic commerce began more than two decades ago with the introduction of electronic data interchange (EDI) between firms (sending and receiving order, delivery and payment information, etc.) Even consumer-oriented electronic commerce has a rather long history: each time you use automatic teller machines or present your credit cards, you transact business electronically. These EDI and ATM, however, operate in a closed system; they are of a more convenient communications medium, strictly between the parties allowed in.
The World Wide Web (WWW), the Internet's client-server, opened up a new age by combining the open Internet and the easy user interface. WWW was created at the CERN Lab for Particle Physics in Geneva in 1991 (with its Mosaic, the predecessor of Netscape). It took two years for Mosaic to penetrate the Internet, and another two years before businesses and the general public took notice of its potential.
Related Web resources
- History of Computing at Los Alamos National Lab
- Hobbes's Internet Timeline
- Little History of the World Wide Web
- World Wide Web and CERN
EC, and the Internet, is not a fad, because of its widespread effects. Some may find it useless to open a web store; but web stores do not make electronic commerce nor the digital economy. There will be new types of interfaces (browsers and protocols) and new (privatized) networks, but what the WWW represents is our march toward the digital economy and knowledge-based society. Technologies, the Web and other processes are but a means of achieving that goal.
Today's EC processes are based on personal computers because of their origin within the Internet, a network of computers. First stage of EC expansion is that within the installed base of computer users (more "connected" users). The second wave will come when more people get access to computers (via lowered computer prices or cheaper devices). The third, and more important, expansion is predicted to be from those with non-computer access to the global network: through broadcast TVs, cable TVs, telephone networks and new appliances. A widespread use of these cheaper access media represents the phase of "bringing workplace computers into the living room".
However, the affordability of these devices, the easiness of use or the mode we access the network is less of an issue than how we will use these devices. Turning the computer into a convenient device like a TV is a goal in itself. For example, the speech-to-text technology will eventually make manual inputting unnecessary. In terms of productivity, it is hard to convince that computer hardware and software have met our expectation for making our work and life easier or more productive during the last decade. But what will we do with new gadgets when we get them? Delivering the same information but more conveniently? Selling the same entertainment and TV programs but with more pizzazz? The limiting factor will be our limited vision about the electronic future.
Keeping up with net happenings is a full-time job. Here are some sites that provide information about Internet events.
