-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Digital Commerce Society of Boston (Formerly The Boston Society for Digital Commerce) Presents Fred Hapgood Digital Commerce: Living Room ExIm, Retail Replacement, or Mail-Order Redux? Tuesday, February 6, 1995 12 - 2 PM The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston One Federal Street, Boston, MA Fred says:

So far Web commerce has largely been a speciality export story. (www.activmedia.com says that web commerce is half exports.) This reflects the obvious strengths of the medium: webstores are globally accessible and can support information resources to any depth customers require.

However, the meat and potatoes of the $2 trillion American retail market lie not in specialty exports but in geographically structured markets built on access to local traffic and characterized by low-information transactions. If web commerce has no role to play in commerce on this level, it will end up little more than an extension and enhancement of direct mail. (Which is of course not to be dismissed entirely: direct mail did $55 billion last year.)

My talk will address the compatibility of these segments with the web, now and later.

Fred Hapgood has written on internet commerce for _CIO_ and _Webmaster_ magazines. He has written on associated subjects for _Wired_ and _Inc-Technology_. The February talk will be based on research for an article on the web and franchising. This meeting of the Boston Society for Digital Commerce will be held on Tuesday, January 2, 1995 from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, One Federal Street. The price for lunch is $27.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, and the speaker's lunch. ;-). The Harvard Club *does* have a jacket and tie dress code. We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or if we *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday, February 2 , or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will have to be sent back. Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston". If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (We've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out. Planned speakers for the following few months are: February Fred Hapgood Freelance Author March Glenda Barnes X.9 Electronic Commerce Security Group April Donald Eastlake CyberCash May Perry Metzger Security Consultant and Cypherpunk June Dan Shutzer FSTC July Pete Loshin Author, "Electronic Commerce" We are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, and you would like to make a presentation to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Commmittee, care of Robert Hettinga, rah@shipwright.com . For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, send "info dcsb" in the body of a message to majordomo@ai.mit.edu . If you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the body of a message to majordomo@ai.mit.edu . Looking forward to seeing you there! Cheers, Robert Hettinga Moderator, The Digital Commerce Society of Boston -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMO1H9vgyLN8bw6ZVAQGPyAQAkJeE0VtJXMQ58uUss1hvW0Xtf5FBvAM8 3uNGxQIjLT48rkSPRtmqxsx8KLoirdbCdARwbwStewVVvehvUIByYTCGmUWXBxPH OKhCM/iuEqZ0oZR7RNcTHu2/rduIBdpC53CwyiUmaomj8tAgM5fry9H5h/mjJVu8 aRu36l8isH8= =+lq2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell The NEW(!) e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

...

...

...

Phree Phil: Email: zldf@clark.net http://www.netresponse.com/zldf <<<<<