Consuming On The Internet

Consuming On The Internet

Judy Olian

(Judy Olian is Dean of Penn State's Smeal College of Business and a leading expert in strategic human resources management.)

It's not just the under-18s who are living on the Internet. It's all of us. Americans are turning increasingly to the Internet as their Ann Landers, Walmart, Uncle Sam, Dr. Kildare all rolled into one channel of service. The Pew Internet and American Life Project estimates that 60 percent of Americans are regular Internet users, and 40 percent have been connected for 3 years or longer. The US Internet penetration rate is the highest in the world, followed by Canada, South Korea, and the United Kingdom according to figures tallied by Ipsos-Reid, a market research firm. For many, the Internet is becoming the preferred destination for government and healthcare information, retail purchases, banking, travel services, and ... dates.

According to a new survey by the Pew Project, 39 percent of the population goes online for information about government services or requirements. That's more than those who make a call to the agency (37 percent) or go in person (9 percent). Online users are often rewarded for their efforts. Citizens of Mississippi can renew their voter, hunting or drivers' licenses online, in Maine a person's eligibility to any one of 45 state benefits can be determined from a single online application instead of filing with multiple agencies, and 30 percent of all US citizens file their federal tax returns online and can expect a refund in half the time it takes to receive a refund from a paper filing. And its good for the taxpayer when government goes digital. McKinsey consultants (The McKinsey Quarterly, 2001) estimate that the savings from e-government initiatives could exceed $100 billion annually, depending on the scale of procurement and services transformation.

In the third quarter of 2002, online retail sales amounted to $10 billion, a 37 percent increase compared to a year earlier (bizrate.com). According to the Pew Project, by October 2002, 62 percent of Internet users or 72 million Americans had made a purchase online, up from 40 million 2 years earlier. Almost two-thirds of Pew survey respondents—both Internet users and non-regular users—expect to find information or buy products through a retailer's online website. Half of Internet users have made a travel purchase online and a third have banked online, explaining the 14 percent decline in the number of checks processed by the Federal Reserve between 1995 - 2000. Of all of the Internet activities tracked by the Pew Project, the most rapid growth rates are in e-travel and e-banking.

Looking for a date? Match.com has a match-making data base of more than 650,000 singles, part of an industry that grossed over $300 million in 2002 according to Jupiter Research.

Healthcare information is another growing service provided through the Internet—two thirds of all Pew respondents expect to find medical information online. Blue Shield of California is the first major insurer to authorize insurance payouts for virtual doctor visits—web consultations with physicians regarding standard needs like prescription refills or cures for a stomach bug. Patients love it—they're no longer waiting endlessly for a 2 minute consultation with an unfamiliar physician. Despite qualms about malpractice liability and privacy protections, some doctors like web calls since they can cut to the chase, delivering concise advice when they're less harried. And now they're getting paid for it—$20 to $25 per web visit.

And the most fundamental of democratic processes—election campaigns—is being transformed by the Internet. The winner in last week's South Korean presidential elections, Roh Moo-hyun, was launched from obscurity through an e-campaign. Supporters bypassed traditional corporate campaign funding and spread the message through a grass roots digital campaign. Chat rooms created buzz around Mr. Roh's candidacy and each day he received more than 7,000 emails from voters. Half a million citizens logged on daily to the candidate's website to watch clips of his appearances or contribute to the campaign. On election day, 800,000 messages were transmitted to mobile computers and cell phones urging recipients to vote.

South Korean homes are especially receptive to digital information—more than half of all households have high speed broadband Internet connections. But the rest of us are also getting hooked. The longer we use the Internet, the more we want of it, and the more apt we are to log on whenever we need information, services, products, comfort.

The message? Please make it easy and useful for us to consume on the Internet. We like it, and want more of the services. And by the way, we're paying for it when it's useful.

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