Thompson's auction page, where a floating group of 40 to 60 toys are up for bid most of the time, gets the most traffic. Thompson charges those who consign items to the auction a 10 percent fee, and also makes money off the site by selling advertising. Learning to surf More and more, friends are helping each other get on the Internet. And when friends aren't available, entire businesses have cropped up to take their place. The Internet Learning Center has trained hundreds of people to get on the Net and make Web pages.
Some people are real curious.
Some are scared, some people have been on the Internet for awhile and still don't know how to find things. It's amazing how many people are shocked when they learn they can send electronic mail across the U.S., or overseas, and it's free. Rice, of Overland Park, had spent about three years building a family tree and decided to give the Net a try to see if there'd be any genealogical information he could use. Boy, was I wrong. Within a few months, Rice said, he doubled the database he kept on his ancestors.