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AS MORE and, more North Americans fall
victim to the myriad charms of a personal computer and avail of on-line
consumer information services, electronic companies in the us are rushing
to find a place in cyberspace.
There are already 60 million users of
home computers in North America and
the number is steadily- increasing. This
trend translated into a 25 per cent
growth last year, bringing total consumer sub"-ptions to on-line services
to more than 5 million. Little wonder
then that some industry watchers are
Dptimistic about the future.
Some market analysts, however,
predict that this rush into cyberspace
can only lead to a glut of services that
will overwhelin the relatively small market for consumer data. "The numbers
are growing rapidly, but they won't be
high enough to -accommodate all
the companies that are coming into
the market,' believes Rusty Williams,
vice-president and general manager
of Delphi Internet Services of
Cambridge, Massachusetts, an on-line
services company.
Unlike the information servic&s
evDived earlier, which catered exclusively to business customers, the new interactive services are being developed for
consumers who use home computers to
supplement information systems like
the postal service, newspapers, television, telephones and books. A service
company can, therefore, hope to outdo
its rivals only if it can conjure up a
unique presentation style. "The different services are now striving to come up
with creative ways to present information and find new sources of information,' says Lisa Johnson, an analyst with
the New York city-based market
research firm Link Resources.
With the suppliers of services spicing up their products to grab larger
shares of the market, us citizens can
took forward to having a great time with
their computers at home.
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