| WASHINGTON TIMES December 5, 1994 |
| How To Make A Fortune On The Information Superhighway |
| NEW YORK, NY - Cyberspace,
On-Line. The Internet. The Information Superhighway. While
we have all heard these terms repeated endlessly over the past year or two,
few can really say exactly what the terms mean. Furthermore, most of
us have a still cloudier idea of the impact that the revolution in
communications technology, the one behind the buzzwords, will have, if any,
on our lives. In their new book, Laurence A. Canter & Martha S. Siegel cut through all the jargon surrounding Cyberspace and point out that, whatever else it may be, the Information Superhighway is a terrific venue for the ordinary entrepreneur to do something very simple and very dear to the hear of every American. The Internet, with its instantaneous access to a market place of over thirty million computer users, is a great place to make money. In HOW TO MAKE A FORTUNE ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY: Everyone's Guerilla Guide to Marketing on the Internet and Other On-Line Services (Harper Reference; November 30, 1994; $20.00), Canter and Siegel promise to show everyone, even those with no computer skills whatsoever, how they can make money off the Internet. The authors, principals in an Arizona law firm specializing in immigration law, gained instant notoriety earlier this year when they advertised their services on the worldwide computer network commonly known as the Internet. Instantly, they received thousands of enthusiastic responses and succeeded in drumming up an amazing amount of business for themselves. The bottom line was that Canter and Siegel turned a nominal investment into a $100,000 profit in ninety minutes, and their overnight success financed the creation of Cybersell, their own Internet marketing company. Not everyone applauded their efforts. However, overnight they found themselves victims of an unprecedented amount of flaming, or on-line abuse, for their transgression of "Netiquette", an unwritten code of ethics that prohibits the use of Internet for commercial gain. As lawyers, Canter and Siegel can find no reason why all users of the Internet should bow to the dreamed up code of a hard-core minority. "Those who buy into the myth that Cyberspace is a real place," they write, "also believe that this illusory locale also houses a community, with a set of laws, rules, and ethics all its own. Unfortunately, the perceived laws and behavior codes are often in conflict with the laws of more substantive lands like, for instance, the United States of America" Anyone can, the authors say, use the Internet to advertise their goods or services. |