Senior to get life-lesson in Web commerce

College senior Tomiko Jones is about to undergo a major change from the lifestyle of a typical college student. Beginning today, there will be no trips to the market or music store for this student -- she will buy everything she needs for the semester on-line. But here's the catch -- a camera will be watching her. Jones, 21, is one of three winners in Levi Strauss & Co.'s "Levi.com Semester Online Student Search," a contest for which over 500 students from across the country applied. As a winner, Jones will receive an allowance of $500 per week from Levi Strauss to buy her necessities and amenities over the Internet. "The whole thing has been like a dream," she said. A camera will be mounted on Jones' computer in her room at Sansom Place West -- formerly Graduate Tower B -- and turned on for about an hour each week, at which point her image can be seen live during interactive chats and updates on the World Wide Web. On the Levi.com Web site, a picture of Jones -- with long, dark hair, luminous eyes and a broad grin -- greets visitors who click on the "Semester Online" icon. As an applicant, Jones was asked to answer the question: "What one item of clothing could you simply not live without?" Her snappy retort -- "My used Levi's bell-bottom jeans. They look old, but I love 'em" -- probably did not hurt her chances of winning the contest. Jones called the shopping experiment "an amazing opportunity," although she said she would likely not have any remaining profits to keep at the end of the semester. "I don't think I'll have anything left over? spend, spend, spend," she said with a chuckle. Jones said she will be buying "everything from food to music." After a brief pause, she added, "Oh, and I need a new camera." When asked if she was concerned about an invasion of privacy, Jones replied that the camera will not be turned on 24 hours a day. "It's not voyeuristic or anything like that," she said reassuringly. Jones' friends and family may share the wealth from her participation in the program. "I've been getting a list from so many of my friends and my boyfriend," Jones said. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges from Levi Strauss and Ketchum Public Relations firm, a global PR company based in New York. Tia Earnst, a senior executive at Ketchum, raved about Jones' qualifications, saying she was chosen because of her "great energy, great sense of humor, Net savvy and adventurous [behavior]." By being able to track Jones' purchases on line at any time, viewers will be able to view another side of Jones, a Communications major who is already active around campus. She works as layout editor for The Vision, Penn's independent African-American student newspaper, and was president last semester of Check One, a group for students of mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds. The contest is an effort by Levi Strauss to boost sales in coordination with its November 23 launch of the company's on-line store, located at http://www.levi.com, according to Levis' marketing manager Cassie Ederer. Ederer explained that marketers at Levi's see college students as a prime target group for the new store and want to find out more about their online buying habits. With that in mind, Levi Strauss posed the challenge on the Levi.com Web site to college students across the country: "Can you live on-line, buying everything you need, from socks to soap, luggage to lava lamps, chips to candy, silverTab flares to khaki carpenters on the Net?" And Ederer noted enthusiastically, "What better way to watch e-commerce unfold than to see if three college students can survive for a semester online?" Levi Strauss spokesperson Dimitri Czupyll compared the experiment to MTV's hit show, by dubbing it a "Real World online." While doing research for a class last semester, Jones came across the contest entry form and filled it out. In early December, she was notified that she had won. Jones and the other two winners, Alanna Blanco, 23, a senior at Chico State University in California, and Scott Raymond, 19, of the University of Kansas, spent January 7 to January 10 at an orientation program in San Francisco.