The year ahead will, once again, bring great change to the Internet. The advent of Digital TV onto the advertising marketplace, the evolution of real media ads and the increasing number of people prepared to shop and buy online are just some of the likely marker for advertisers. The psyche of the business executive and their attitude to the Internet becomes more focused and more telling with each report that is published. In February, Jupiter Communications found that while 76 percent of executives are involved in deciding their company's Internet strategy, just 24 percent measure the success of their online ventures as part of the company's core business. The marginalisation of the Internet by senior management serves only to retard the potential of the companies they lead as well as thwarting the inevitable growth of the Net.
Senior executives are busy people, to whom time and efficiency are of the essence.
It is therefore somewhat understandable that while a PricewaterhouseCoopers report found that 54 percent of European CEOs expect ecommerce to reshape competition in the industry, only 20 percent describe themselves as regular Internet users. These statistics highlight a crucial problem, namely that the development and direction of the Internet is being decided by people who at best are largely inexperienced Internet users, and at worst have a very poor understanding of the new medium. In order for the Internet to develop, change will need to start at the top. Early in the year, in a bid to become the most wired country in the world by 2000, Canada's Minister for Finance, Paul Martin, announced a budgetary allotment of USD1.2 billion to fund IT projects. The money will go to the development of Information Age communities across Canada, to the education sector initiative to bring schools and libraries across the country online, as well as to the development of a comprehensive database on Canada.