From kragen@dnaco.net Mon Aug 10 11:25:08 1998
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 11:25:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kragen <kragen@dnaco.net>
To: Chet Farmer <chet@well.com>
cc: rebecalist@bossanova.com
Subject: Re: [rebecalist] the truth behind the amazon buying spree
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On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Chet Farmer wrote:
> Peapod is a bit more complicated, and I'd call it ecommerce.
> Ditto WSJ Interactive -- it costs money, right? It's money for data.
> But the way cool implications of ecommerce -- at least in terms
> of money saved an efficiencies gained -- will be in business to 
> business applications. EDI on VAN's was the first step; now it's
> possible to do this stuff between companies easily, quickly,
> and cheaply -- where before it was a massive pain in the ass.
> And that's got nothing to do with Sears & Roebuck.

OK, probably you're right.  And I don't know much about EDI (or even
the manual alternatives), so I'm not really qualified to comment on how
much effect it's going to have.

I *was* thinking ecommerce == www.sciplus.com.

> Settling with your vendors and
> customers electronically without waiting for invoices and purchase
> orders after the first engagement will save millions over time. 
> That's the catalyst that will help shape how the internet is used
> in the future far more than email.

Hmmm.  Well, email certainly directly affects more people at the
moment, but you might be right about this for the near future.

What sort of influences do you think EDI will exert on the form and
policies of the Internet?

> >Political revolution and a transparent society will be the result.
> 
> Um, yeah.

It already happened in Indonesia.

(I'm not suggesting that we'll have a political revolution in the US.
But Singapore, PRC, Myanmar, etc. -- definitely.)

> >Classified secrets will be things of the past.
> 
> Probably not in any huge way, and probably again only in the
> sense that ONE of the theories about JFK is probably true. But
> figuring out which one is no easier than gathering all the data
> in the first place. The conclusions drawn from thousands of
> ancillary data points are necessarily suspect; figuring out which
> ones to trust and why will be the "new intelligence" -- and it won't
> be any easier than gathering hard data.

I don't think that's the case.  It's really much easier to check
references than to find them in the first place, and only a fraction of
the readers need to do the checking.  It should be pretty apparent
who's checking their refs and who's not if you do a little checking
yourself.

Of course, you can't use the traditional criterion -- whose
website/news show is most professionally prepared.  That'll disorient a
few people.

Kragen