The world of the Internet offers a seemingly inexhaustible hive of information on all kinds of people’s lives, their hobbies, their clubs; it allows discussions, has chat rooms and, almost certainly, creates electronic love affairs. A young American woman however, has offered her whole private life up for scrutiny – 24 hours a day. Jennifer Ringley has fixed a small video camera to the ceiling of her bedroom which transmits photographs of the scene constantly day and night to her Internet site (http://www.jennicam.org).
This is not intended to be pornographic as there is no sensationalism of the mundane events of her everyday life. Nor does she engage in any typically ‘entertaining’ activities. Yet despite this a hundred million people access the site each week.
The JenniCam site seems to be a further extension of recent public interest in, and desire for, ‘reality’ entertainment. Other examples are TV’s Video Diaries, MTV ‘s Real World and Take Over TV.
…Magazine publisher Conde Nast has launched its interior decorating magazine on the Web. The Design Studio can be found at http://www.thedesignstudio.com.
…Scottish Amicable finance company is initiating an online advertising campaign aimed at capturing email addresses of users who may be interested in its products. The ads will be featured on the Electronic Telegraph and the Financial Times Websites.
…Following the rapid expansion of online book retail, Dillons and Hammicks book chains are launching a joint Internet book shop which will contain more than 1.4 million titles. Waterstones has accordingly sped up its plans to introduce its own bookstore. Two other specialist booksellers, Peters and the PC Bookshop, have launched The Book Place on the Internet.
…But how, you may ask, can you shop around when there are so many different virtual stores out there and you don’t know the addresses? Worry not, for RoboShopper comes to the rescue. A new piece of software which is downloadable free from http://www.roboshopper.com, will hunt around the Internet searching for any type of product you specify and then present you with its findings showing where the best deals can be found. It creates its own database of stores and apparently discovers new ones so it has extensive knowledge of where to find deals; but that’s not what shopping’s all about is it?
…And not to worry because a recent survey by Verdict Research has shown that online shopping only accounted for 0.07 per cent of UK sales and is predicted to rise only as far as 1 per cent by 2000. Your friendly High Street BHS is safe for now.
