News.com writes about a panel discussion held recently to celebrate 10 years of Internet commerce:
The panelists offered an array of ideas about how e-commerce might evolve in positive ways during the next few years. Some of the ideas were new, and others have been discussed for years but have yet to take off. Most speakers agreed that the sales of music, movies, games and other digital products represent one of the most exciting and dynamic areas of e-commerce. Internet visionaries are also working on ratcheting up so-called personalization and localization technology to make Web sites anticipate a shopper’s every need wherever they happen to be.
Another holy grail is the prospect of luring consumers to shop over their cell phones–a big trend in Asian countries that hasn’t caught on as much in the United States.
Rosensweig and Bonnie predicted that Web logs and online communities such as Friendster would come to incorporate e-commerce features through “favorites” lists for music and games. The panelists agreed that online auctions and the migration of electronic transactions from proprietary Electronic Data Interchange networks to the Internet, will continue to grow and thrive.
Panelist Mary Meeker, an Internet stock analyst at Morgan Stanley, predicted that site outages would become more frequent during the next few years as the Web grows more complex. She also said the long-awaited rise of online “micropayments,” which are payments of only a few cents for goods and services bought online, is just around the corner.
