I was lucky enough to meet him last year, and he still works in computing. Gordon Brown announced just such a plan today. Mind you, he announced one last year as well. The government is very keen on this but does seem to find it hard to actually spend the money or organise it properly. Given the potential power and access that the internet provides do you believe that governments worldwide should provide more free and local access for the common person.
Search engines are databases of web pages, and they are very useful.
In 1994, Altavista was definitely the best. But most of the search engines tried to become portals, and failed. It's not trying to be 300 different things to everybody. I think we're still at the very early stages, and we will be surprised at how quickly things change in the next five years. I don't see any reason to believe that online commerce will not be a basis most economic activity in the world.