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Next Web: The Multimedia Marketplace

Hangin' at the Digital Mall

What business doesn't want to be the next Amazon.com? Lots of companies are vying for the spot, though consumer retail space online has gotten a lot more crowded since Jeff Bezos turned his shoestring operation into "the world's biggest bookstore." Without a doubt, every new start-up and garage geek on the planet is hoping to rake in millions through e-commerce. Not everyone will strike it rich, but one thing is certain: The electronic marketplace is on the verge of a tremendous growth spurt.

Forrester Research predicts that online retail sales will explode to $184 billion per year by 2004, up from $20 billion in 1999. "[The market is] going to be big," says Lisa Allen, an analyst at Forrester. She pauses for effect. "It's going to be really big."

Virtual Shopping

Not only will the variety and volume of products you can buy over the Net continue to expand, but your entire experience of online shopping will evolve as well. Think virtual reality is only for games? In the future, you may stroll the aisles for a lug wrench at Home Depot or finger the threads at Saks, all without leaving the comfort of your home. Indeed, services such as these are already being tested by some stores.

As bandwidth into the home increases, e-commerce could develop into far more than a point-and-click experience. Covad, a Santa Clara, California-based provider of high-speed DSL services, sees a day when companies will buy bandwidth in bulk, and trade it to consumers in exchange for their loyalty. "The company could communicate over a live video feed to a customer's house," says Abhi Engle, Covad's broadband product manager. Real estate firms, for instance, could offer clients streaming video "walk-throughs" of new houses, a service impossible without broadband. And because DSL is an "always-on" technology, consumers won't have to dial up to shop.

Must-Buy TV

Interactive TV, already in the test stage, is another growing e-commerce avenue. Mark Schmidt, director of marketing for IBM's Home Networking unit, pictures remote-control consoles with built-in flat screens that will allow you to watch your favorite shows and order products featured in them. Imagine watching The X-Files and being able to buy the shirt off Mulder's back.

"We're very close to having a touch-screen monitor that you could carry around the house with you," says Mark Dwight, a product line manager at Cisco Systems. He envisions a "flat, smooth tablet" networked to other appliances in the home and jacked into the Web. "It takes [shopping by catalog in bed] to the next level," he says.

As for the look of future online stores, tomorrow's shopping experience is likely to be more visually exciting and interactive. Forget about bland, 2D Web displays of widgets and bolts. Instead, look to companies like the Sharper Image, whose site features a 3D image of a CD player, which you can grab with your mouse, flip around to view from all sides, and even open to take a peek under the lid.

It won't be long before the Gap or Lands' End lets you upload a scanned photo of yourself to its site, then produces a scaled 3D image of you from that photo. You could then "dress" your model in various outfits to assess the style, size, or color before you buy.

After that, it's only a short step before you find yourself virtually strolling the aisles of an online car dealership and kicking the tires of that SUV you've been eyeing.

Perpetual Persona

"Information about you will follow you around online. This will let you maintain your persona and reputation as you move about the virtual world. However, it raises concerns about privacy. Who will control this information? If individually controlled, the system is unreliable--I'm unlikely to share unflattering data about myself. Yet an externally controlled persona raises the disturbing vision of a society under ubiquitous surveillance."

The Wild, Wild Web

In 1997, Alan Ramadan introduced a new way to watch sports, one made possible by the World Wide Web. Throughout the seven-month Whitbread Around the World sailing race, Ramadan's newly formed Quokka Sports broadcast the images and expert commentary that usually accompany sports coverage, but with a twist. Quokka added technical data (some of it in real time) such as navigational notes, boat speed, radio conversations, and e-mail diaries written by the sailing crews. The company mixed it all up and put it on a Web site that drew 1.8 million visitors.

Today, Quokka Sports is no longer an edgy start-up with a fistful of venture-capital dollars. Its list of partners includes TCI/Liberty, Hearst, British Telecom, and Excite@Home. The site offers a clear glimpse of the future Web. Click on a link for the 2000 Olympics, and you'll see pages filled with a mélange of pictures, charts, bits of text, and at least one video or audio clip. Quokka also created the RaceViewer, a Shockwave application for motor sports that mixes graphs of the racers' position with textual commentary and a live video window.

Multimedia-rich Web sites like Quokka's and RealNetworks' Take5, which gathers an array of audiovisual programming from the Web for users to access in one central place, could be the hottest draws for broadband consumers in the future. More sites will routinely feature streaming media and 3D modeling. The software to deliver such content already exists. Site designers just need to refine it, and consumers need faster Net connections to view it.