June-July-1993 Letter-from-the-Publisher This is the premiere issue of the Internet Business Journal. We are the first information source exclu- sively devoted to providing the reader with current information about the Internet business community. I often wondered what it was like when the light bulb or telephone was invented and now find myself in a comparable situation. In the past, paradigm shifts in technology were greeted with superstition (what demon makes it glow?) or derision (who needs a machine that you have to yell into to make your voice project an insignificant distance?). Three years ago I was stunned by the sceptiscm that greeted any mention of the Internet. Today, the Internet is seen as the leading edge of not simply technological development, but also national economic policy -- for any country. The Internet is not merely a new technology -- it is a new way of doing business -- a new way of participating in democracy, a new way of creating and maintaining international communities and economic ties. We intend to be your primary source of information about the Internet business community. Follow us in 1993 as we provide your company, business school or government department with detailed analysis of the commercial Internet phenomenon; national information policy developments, access details on regional connectivity providers; and examples of a wide variety of successful Internet-facilitated, commercial enterprises. By the end of this decade, there could well be over 50 million commercial users on the Internet. We will be there to tell you their goals, their products and markets, their successes, as well as their mistakes. More than this, we will be there to tell you how to use the damn thing. Make no mistake about it: the Internet, like much of the computer industry, is not (yet) pretty. It is still a wild, untamed thing. But if you wait till it is entirely tamed to use it, you will find only images of the harvest gathered by others -- not a frontier that will enrich those who dare to move forward. To do this, we decided that the six regular issues of The Internet Business Journal will be augmented with six regular supplements. These supplements will go into detail on how to actually use the Internet and its various systems. The Internet Business Journal Supplement will guide the reader through FTP, LISTSERV, USENET, Gopher, Archie, WAIS, WorldWideWeb, Telnet and other Internet-related tools, commands, user tips and search and retrieval techniques. Together, The Internet Business Journal and Supplement will help your company unlock the treasure that is the Internet. Nothing in the considerable experience of The Internet Business Journal's team prepared us for the overwhelming response to this first edition. It is nice to feel needed, but we never imagined how needed we were! In less than four weeks after the first mention of The Internet Business Journal, we had an international list of subscribers, from Osaka, Japan, to Monteal, Quebec, to London, England, to Wellington, New Zealand. But the international character of our readership was only in keeping with the nature of the Internet itself. The real surprise was the variety of industry sectors interested in The Internet Businees Journal. Yes, of course we would attract computer manufacturers, the software industry, and telephone companies. But who would have thought that car manufacturers are interested in keeping up on the Internet? And who could have foreseen strong interest from the pharmaceutical and medical industries, public utility companies, the housing industry, steel manufacturers, law firms, and even a fireman in Palm Springs, California. Clearly, sooner than later, the Internet will become as ubiquitous to the business world as the asphalt highway, the telephone and the fax. It is going to happen, it is happening now, and you can watch it unfold in the pages of The Internet Business Journal. Follow us in 1993 as we cover the most dynamic and important phenomenon to appear before the international business community. Michael Strangelove Publisher