India will be extraordinarily competitive in web development, due largely to favourable exchange rates. In Australia, our struggling dollar still favours us in securing work with U.S companies, but not to same degree. I can see that Internet will play a considerable role in valuation of our currencies in future.

Up until now, Internet has been very focused on U.S. By 2003, Asia Pacific region will catch up and overtake in regards to Internet usage. While we are all busy submitting our sites to U.S and U.K search engines, have we considered their Indian or Taiwanese counterparts? There are literally thousands of Asia-Pacific search engines and indices. Some of them will grow to be major players in next five years.

The Western world tends to forget that we are a minority. Only about eight percent of earth's population speaks English as primary language. As countries such as India, Korea, Taiwan and perhaps even China open up, we will need to adapt to this change. The big players can afford to have their pages translated into different languages. For those of us without budget, perhaps even a simple greeting in a variety of languages on our pages would encourage a visitor with limited English abilities to explore our sites. If you are going to translate your site, ensure that person undertaking translation really knows their stuff, as a single word misinterpreted can turn a welcome into a curse. The proper use of images and other visual cues can also assist in relaying information more effectively than English text.

One of other ways we, smaller companies, can welcome these newcomers without spending a cent is to drop our xenophobic reactions to "foreigners". There are no "foreigners" as Internet is now more than ever a global community. Instead of fearing these new arrivals stealing our bread and butter, we should be seeking to establish alliances with them. We should be striving to learn a little about culture of emerging electronic economies. This will assist us in using correct protocols during business dealings.

As a business owner, you too can "brand" your business. An example would be my website, Welcome Kit, forms, business cards etc. They all contain same colors, fonts, logo, and graphics. Actually, even my website name "coach maria" brands me. I've met individuals who think they "know" me, or have met me before, however, I don't know them! When we figure out where they know me from, it's from a discussion group or my website. Branding works!

Take time now, as you start your business, to decide what colors you'll be using in your branding campaign. A few things to remember about colors: a) Colors may appear different when used in print media (such as your brochure) vs. on Internet. b) Different browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator) show colors differently. c) The same color on different parts of a page (the background and border, for example) may look different, even in same browser. d) On Internet, white is a color. If you do not "name" it white, then it will appear as gray on Netscape.