An elite specialty shopping center in Texas is taking gift orders on http://www.onramp.net/shopping_in. The high-resolution images take about 20 seconds for transmission. [Dallas Morning News, 10/20/94. EDUPAGE.]

James Clark's company, Mosaic Communications Corp., will soon start distributing free Mosaic NetScape software, said to be ten times faster than Mosaic. They hope to make money from secure WWW server programs for businesses, at $5K to $25K per copy. [BW, 10/24/94, p. 90. EDUPAGE.] (Get Netscape from ftp.mcom.com.)

The "Internet Adapter" lets you use Mosaic or other SLIP-based web browsers with just a Unix shell account and TCP/IP net connection. "Equals or exceeds the speed of standard SLIP." BBS operators can offer pseudo-SLIP accounts to their subscribers. $25/user or $495/host; can be tried before purchase. tia-single@marketplace.com or softaware@marketplace.com. Cyberspace Development (tia-info@marketplace.com), 310-314-1466. [Steve Outing (outings@netcom.com), CARR-L, 9/18/94. net-hap. Chilukuri K. Mohan.]

Need an Internet consultant? Are you an Internet consultant? Then check out CommerceNet's Internet consultants directory at http://www.commerce.net/directories/consultants/consultants.html. [Chini Krishnan (sk@eit.com), www-announce, 9/22/94. Roy Turner.]

Direct Marketing World is a WWW directory of direct-marketing professionals, commercial address lists, jobs postings, a discussion forum, and tutorial literature. http://mainsail.com. Comments to Mark White (mmi@mainsail.com). [Mainsail Marketing (ibv@zen.holonet.net), c.i.announce, 7/29/94. net-hap. Chilukuri K. Mohan.]

The cost of setting up an electronic marketing channel (i.e., a shopping service or CD-ROM catalog) runs from $75K to $500K. Subsequent channels cost only 10%-20% of that. Outsourcing to Sprint's Global Commerce Link is less than $4K/month, but you still need to restructure your databases and integrate the new marketing/ordering channel. [Gartner Group. Joseph Maglitta and Ellis Booker, CW, 10/24/94, p. 79.]

Open Market, Inc. (Cambridge, MA) offers forms-based Web pages (virtual stores) for $300 plus $50/month, which includes help with security and payment options. Users get searching tools and "shopping cart" links for comparing products from multiple vendors, and software or documents can be downloaded immediately. info@openmarket.com. [Ellis Booker, CW, 10/24/94, p. 4.]

WWW developers and information providers can find how-to help in the WWW Virtual Library's section at http://www.charm.net/~web/Vlib.html. [Alan Richmond (richmond@guinan.gsfc.nasa.gov), www-announce, 9/22/94. Roy Turner.]

P.Developments Ltd. and the Internet Ad Emporium are offering a manual on direct marketing for an income from home. Check out http://mmink.cts.com/mmink/dossiers/prissick.html. [Rick Degelsmith (rdegel@cts.com), net-info, 10/17/94.]

Prodigy for Business is a new online service for small businesses, telecommuters, and small office/home office (SOHO) workers. It includes a daily electronic periodical (from Lexis/Nexis), the [extra-charge] HeadsUp clipping service, a discussion forum, advice column, marketing database, sample contracts and letters, and access to Prodigy's email, travel reservations, news, and other services. 35% of US households have some type of small business operation. 800-PRODIGY or 914-448-8000. [Patrick McKenna, clari.nb.online, 10/5/94.]

Commercial Use of the Net home page lists 70 sites and articles. http://pass.wayne.edu/business.html. Comments to Andrew Dinsdale (adinsda@cms.cc.wayne.edu). [inet-marketing, 8/5/94. Chilukuri K. Mohan.]

The number of commercial vendors on the net is expected to grow from 1,000 to 5,000 by the end of next year. [Ellis Booker, CW, 10/24/94, p. 4.]

The Internet Mall listing is now available in HTML format on http://www.kei.com/imall/. [Christopher Davis (ckd@kei.com), imall-chat, 10/30/94.]

Rany Adam's Internet Shopping Network, recently bought by Home Shopping Network (HSN), lists 20K products (from 1,000 vendors) and plans for 100K by the end of next year. Adams says proudly: "We're businesspeople and Unix geeks." HSN sells 250K orders per day, about half of them via voice-recognition technology -- part of a $60B industry heading for $300B by the end of the decade. Internet sales are not in that league, but some analysts predict $5B in a few years. Total online sales in 1993 were under $200M, mostly in computer and electronics products. One informal poll found that the Internet Mall listing draws 150 browsers per day, for perhaps one sale per day per vendor. (The IMall freebie that I offer gets less than one taker per week.) CompuServe's 4M subscribers spend an average of $15/year via online ordering. Pizza Hut in California sells only 2-10 "cyberpizzas" per week. [Joseph Maglitta and Ellis Booker, CW, 10/24/94, p. 79.]

IMall has implemented classified advertising on the Web, with free posting, browsing, and "regular expression" search. HTML links can take browsers to pictures or long descriptions. Ads remain active for two weeks. 3,000 ads in Usenet's misc.forsale.* hierarchy have been included. http://www.imall.com /ads/ads.shtml. [Phil Windley (windley@leopard.cs.byu.edu), net-hap, 10/14/94.]

A successful commercial service: IndustryNet for manufacturing suppliers grew to 150K users in its first year. National advertisers such as IBM and Honeywell finance the network. [WSJ, 10/11/94, B2. EDUPAGE.]

The UN is launching a Global Trade Point Network to help companies find trade leads, navigate trade regulations, and conduct business. Directories are planned for freight forwarders, insurance companies, financial services, and network services companies. Problems of electronic contract enforceability still need to be settled. A few sites are already using the UN's Edifact standard for electronic data interchange (EDI). Subscriptions are currently free, but may go to $1K/year. Access http://opus.natp.liftea.com/natp.html from the US. NATP, (614) 645-1700, (614) 645-1740 Fax. [Lynda Radosevich, CW, 10/24/94, p. 64.]