Twelve chapters, three appendices, a glossary, bibliography, and index make up this analysis of the Internet. Unfortunately, there's no description of the author's own evaluative process to decide what makes the grade, and what fails. Plenty of URLs and illustrations fill this book, but as always, some of the hyperlinks are inoperative. If you're looking for helpful information on Gopher, telnet, WAIS, FTP, and finger, look elsewhere. Overall, a disappointing book that should have been considerably less breathless in its review of Internet resources.
Electronic commerce seems to be a future quickly turning into a reality.
If we establish an environment in which electronic commerce can flourish, then every computer can be a window open to every business, large and small, everywhere in the world. In four sections, the eleven chapters of the book take you from the fantastic to the merely logical, in describing the digital futures of consumerism. In the second section of services and goods, intelligent agents are described as information filters, content screeners, and ultimately humanizers of technology. The last section addresses the thorny issues of privacy, forms of digital currencies, interoperability, and other difficult topics. An impressive and thought-provoking collection of essays, this book is required reading for anyone interested in economics and finance in the next century.