amazing ability to search the entire World Wide Web became outdated in a Net instant, so Yahoo, at the tender age of two years, began reinventing itself as a place to trade stocks, make travel reservations, and conduct commerce (Hof, 1998). Rest assured the future of e-commerce is intact and ever changing. "Like electricity, antibiotics, or the car, the Internet is a revolutionary technology" (France, 1999). It is quite evident that e-commerce is only gaining speed. As one article stated, the growth of e-commerce would not diminish, it will become such a pervasive influence on how acompany works that all functions within an organization will have a stake in their e-commerce strategy (Wareham, 2000). With Internet traffic doubling every 100 days the digital economy is alive and growing. The huge growths of virtual communities are causing shifts in economic power from large corporations to smaller businesses. "Virtualcommunities erode the marketing and sales advantages of large companies. A small company with a better product and better customer service can use these communities to challenge larger competitors—something it probably could not do in the real world" (CommerceNet, 1999). With many of the technological advances in the banking, on-line trading and retail industries, e-commerce will soon become the foundation of our life just as radio, telephone and television have in the past. Technology has a place in everyone's day-to-day activities and soon e-commerce will be a major factor in the decisions we have to make. Remember, e-commerce is more complex than just buying that special someone’s birthday present. E-commerce, along with the Internet, is an outlet for business. It is a way for the new man to compete with the proven giants in the industry. An example of this would be the launch of Wal-Marts new web site intended to compete with industry monster Amazon.com. Their new business venture allows Wal-Mart t...
