That's not happening with web. Yes, Aunt Martha is a bit slow to get interested. Schools are bit slow to get connected.

How else do you explain growth in interest from public, even with record losses suffered by web and technology companies on stock market? Why do companies continue to invest in technology and internet when it looks like a financial black hole?

Because there is something magical going on here.

There can be no explaining why individuals put their lives up on web for world to see, even when their visitor counts are abysmally low. Unless we are all under some sort of magical spell cast by internet faery, there can be no explaining it.

I'll bet you are expecting me to answer my own questions here. Wrong. I think it's a massive mistake to seek understanding of miracles and magic. I'm just going to accept it and I want to be there when next miracle happens. I'm simply entranced.

Because there is something magical going on here.

Membership models proliferate online where sites seek our opinions and want us to "join in." Most successful web sites encourage visitor participation and feedback in discussion forums.

Ebay asks for ratings of active sellers from buyers of their products. The highest ratings earn more business. Amazon publishes reader reviews of purchased books and encourages you to "Be first to review this book!" People read those reviews and appreciate them.

Personalization and community building are incorporated into all of major portals. Discussion forums are available at every one of major online publishers. The web encourages communication and sharing of knowledge - not hoarding, hiding and greedily seeking to outsmart consumer.

America Online pioneered in community building and was rewarded with rapid growth and customer loyalty. I believe they have lost their way now as greed leads them to keep a fence around their technology, refusing to allow their AIM instant messaging system to be accessed by non-members.

Greed, exclusion, proprietary systems and monopolistic megacorporations are giving way to community, inclusion, open source code and peer-to-peer sharing and swapping of information. As long as old ideas are applied to web it will go nowhere. Napster was killed by monster.

Online content providers are talking "Digital Rights Management" and seeking ways to "monetize content", which simply means monopolizing information. Scarcity doesn't work online. Community building, cooperation and being helpful, open, giving and sharing does work.

Businesses that work those traditionally feminine ideas into their online vision will be winners on web.