What do we mean by e-business?   Why is the Internet different from other computer and network technologies?    Why should one care about electronic business?    What is the electronic marketplace?    How much will it cost my company to set up an e-business web site?   How does e-Business over the Internet differ from traditional Business?   What are the e-business options for business?   How important is my own domain name   electronic payment systems

Why is the Internet different from other computer and network technologies?

Computers and networks are nothing new. Business applications such as LAN and EDI were well-established long before the World Wide Web took over. Then why the sudden talk of the Digital Age and the advance of electronic business?

Two things make the Internet quite different from any other existing communications media. Unlike broadcasting media, the Internet (1) allows two-way communications and (2) is built around open standards. A two-way communication means targeting an audience and allowing feedback. Broadcasting sends out messages to "no one in particular" and the sender never quite knows who has gotten the message. (What do Nielson and a horde of market research firms do for their living?) An open standard (e.g. TCP/IP) means interoperability and the advantage of a large market and the possibility of integrating one product or process with another.

Both of these characteristics are being challenged.(1) To the WebTV generation, the digital future looks like another version of the passive one-way broadcasting. The "new media" sums up how publishers and media companies view the digital medium. We are so accustomed to "receiving random messages" that we often forget the fact that broadcasting was a 20th-Century phenomenon. Even "interactive television" envisioned by today's media is a way of providing more lively entertainment, offering more information "related to existing contents" (e.g. detailed information about characters, plots, and commercials shown on TV). Multi-channel, digital TV broadcasting may be a model for future entertainment, but it needs to be remembered that it is only one application of the digital communications network. (2) The commercialization of the Internet is forcing businesses to differentiate their products from others by making products incompatible. Unlike the public Internet where standards were open, firms attempt to capture and dominate the market with their proprietary products. In such an environment, TCP/IP would have had a very slim chance of becoming a standard and opening up the digital, networked economy. Whether markets driven by private interests can bring about a better result (e.g., more efficient, technologically superior, etc. system) is still a concern left for argument.

Perhaps telephone networks are quite similar to the Internet (and indeed most Internet traffic goes through telephone networks). But unlike telephones, the Internet's user interface (computers) is much more sophisticated and flexible. Because of its beginning as a public research network, the Internet lacks the pricing regime of telephone companies. The worldwide connection, then, may be considered to have been an accident. When usage-based, long-distance charges are implemented, the Internet may look quite similar to the telephone network