The truth is: · You’re not that far behind · You’ve already got what it takes · You can’t do any worse than you’re doing right now.

Here are three ways you can avoid getting paralyzed into inactivity by hype:

1. The Web is not all Interactive and E-Commerce Web Sites

There are lots of sites — some people call it brochure-ware – that give a company a Web presence for very little money. These sites are easy and inexpensive to put up and can attract lots of business for your company.

The truth is: only 20% of all Web sites currently offer real-time transactions. And that number’s only slated to reach 33% by end of 2000. You keep hearing about e-commerce only because media keeps focusing on and hyping e-commerce sites.

So don’t let “e-commerce” throw you. If you find out you need e-commerce technology — because you plan to sell in real-time on your site —there are a number of Web hosts out there that, for a fee, will allow you to perform real-time transactions (providing you qualify with a bank for a merchant account). Bigstep (http://www.bigstep.com/), Yahoo store (http://store.yahoo.com/), GoBizGo (formerly Sitematic) (http://www.gobizgo.com/) are just three of them.

You’ve probably also heard a lot about interactivity of Web. There are two things you should know. First, it’s all true. The Web holds promise of being first truly interactive mass medium. Secondly, nobody but very well funded Amazon-sized Web sites are even beginning to scratch surface of interactive technologies. Most of technology behind interactive Web sites to-date has been around for years — databases, chat, forums, e-mail.

There are millions of Web sites out there. Very few offer cutting edge e-commerce and interactive tools that press loves to write about. Don’t let these stories scare you — there’s still plenty of room for you on Web at whatever price point you want to pay.

2. What You Already Know About Business Applies to Web

I did a search on Google for "job sites." My search returned top ten of "about 2,690,000." That tells me that thousands of people have realized potential to capitalize on helping individuals find employment via Internet. You're thinking, "Cool. Finding a job on Internet should be a snap." Well, maybe. There a few things you should know before clicking on one of those 2,690,000 possibilities to find a job.

Sharing of Information

Many of job boards share a common database of information. Working collectively, each individual web site contributes to database by attracting resume and job posters. In a combined effort, they all benefit from having generated a mass amount of searchable information they can display on their individual sites. The average person does not realize that resume banks and job postings are recycled to possibly several hundred job sites that share in a database. Keep in mind, these sites can range from local and niche job boards to medium and large size companies. "OK," you say. "So, what's big deal?"

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