As the new year gets its feet wet we polled some of our colleagues
in the Internet space for their angle on what was notable in 1997. Here’s
the first wave of responses, hot off the modem:
“Rise of Business-To-Business ecommerce–blowing away expectations
on all sides, going stratospheric into 1998.”
–Marc Andreessen, co-founder, Netscape Communications
- Worldcom buys MCI
- Microsoft blesses cable modems; buoys the cable industry
- Microsoft delivers a killer browser in IE 4.0
- Microsoft buys WebTV
- Microsoft offers J/Direct to Java community
- Microsoft goes face to face with DOJ on IE Bundling
- FCC tables ISP “modem tax” against the wishes of the RBOCs
- TelSave’s $100 million e-commerce deal with AOL crystallizes the
value of subscriber/user aggregation
- Amazon.com’s simultaneous multimillion dollar distribution deals
with AOL, Yahoo!, and Excite becomes blueprint for other newly public
e-commerce
companies
- Clinton Administration’s e-commerce framework takes a laissez-faire
approach to global Internet commercialization
Goldman Sach’s Internet analyst Michael Parekh
“1997 was a year in which several commercial models proved viable on
the web and for GeoCities, in particular, electronic commerce and advertising
and sponsorship. I believe The Internet Tax Freedom Act, which is intended
to create a national moratorium on state and local taxes on the Internet,
will be viewed in retrospect to have had a profoundly positive impact on
the commercial growth of this medium.”
–David Bohnett, founder, GeoCities (Web homesteading/community
building)
We have more to share as our colleagues blip them in. And we’d also
like to know what you think. If you had to name one big Internet event
in 1997 that stands out as being the biggest, send
us an email. Selected responses will show up here soon.
