GUEST COLUMNIST: Hold on, it's going to be one wild ride

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (U-WIRE) -- Fear not, fans of Yahoo!, E*Trade, Pets.com and Napster. Last week's plunge in the Nasdaq and the relatively mild slide in the Dow Jones Industrial Average was said to threaten the incredible momentum machine behind the high-tech industry and its image, both on Wall Street and on Main Street. But despite what some media commentators say about "overvaluation," the high-tech industry has not even scratched the surface of its potential. In the middle of 1993, when some of my friends from campus were leaving for the "real world," I encouraged them all to get e-mail so we could remain in touch. Many thought I was too taken with e-mail, which I first used in December 1992. They called it a "nerd thing." E-mail was just something college students and professors used on campus, they said. In the real world, people have faxes, phones and Fed Ex. They can jet off to meetings if distance is a problem. But they were wrong. E-mail was the first wave of the technology revolution. As far back as 1985, innovators like ultimate-nerds Bill Gates and America Online's Steve Case knew it, and had the relatively small amounts of startup cash to make it work. But they also knew e-mail would eventually become boring, so some worked on an offshoot known as "http." Around 1989, the Web was born. Also, user-friendly programs known as Windows and MacOS started making computing easy. Around 1995, the Web began to work its way into the American lexicon. By 1996, both presidential campaign had Web sites at which we would probably snicker now. But businesses were slow to come on board the Internet Clipper. In 1996, 1997 and 1998 many newspapers and magazines began to go online. That's when things hit the stratosphere. Now, businesses don't advertise their companies anymore -- they advertise their Web sites. You then go to their Web sites, and all of a sudden you have access to materials that would take you months to find on foot. Journalists can toss aside the magazines and encyclopedias and access files, facts, figures and dated articles. No more long trips to the library; the library comes to you. Even more amazing, the Indiana University School of Journalism has many courses in online reporting, editing and design. Always one of the most "wired" of American campuses, IU responded quickly to the Internet Revolution. The things they teach now were beyond most people's imaginations just a few years ago. Change has been stunning. Nowadays, using a typewriter is almost unheard of on campus. And we have pioneers -- an overused but appropriate description -- like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and countless others to thank for making life easier for us all. Napster, like the VCR, has shaken the recording industry to its roots. And even video rental businesses fear the digital tide. As people will soon start having interactive access via their cable service, they will be able to order any movie at any time. No wonder Blockbuster relaxed their return policy. Another major change was recently chronicled in the April 12 Indianapolis Star. The inventor of the cellular phone, Martin Cooper of ArrayComm, Inc., plans to push for a wireless America, one where most of our phones, notebook computers, etc., move wirelessly -- and at speeds equal or superior to cable or DSL connections. It's not unprecedented. Finland and Japan, who are ahead of America, can already do amazing things. In Maryanne Murray Buechner's Time magazine article from August 23, 1999, too much competition was blamed for America's lagging behind the Finns and Japanese. She explains why. "The whizziest stuff you can do with a cell phone requires a digital network, and the Europeans had a three-year head start implementing theirs. Moreover, they chose one network technology. The use of a single standard puts them in a much better position to embrace the next big thing in wireless." The trend will not just affect cell phones. "Japan is expected to steal Europe's lead come March 2001," Buechner writes. "[That's the] target date for deployment of a high-speed network capable of moving wireless data as fast as 2 mbps. Europe is expected to upgrade its system to high-speed data services a few months after Japan. As for the U.S.? We'll be lucky to get there by 2003." Still, in the long-run, American companies will probably outdo their competitors. Cooper, who struggled with Motorola to market its first hand-held cell phone in 1983 with a mere $90 million budget, plans to market access to cell phones and palm-sized and notebook computers that can receive as many as one million bytes per second. Cooper, who presented his ideas at the Internet World 2000 conference, used a photo of the Star Trek crew in his presentation. What's funny about that is the crew only had one set of communicators. Its hand-held computers -- "tricorders" -- weren't wired and couldn't communicate with the Enterprise. We've already beaten the 23rd century. Now let's beat the Finns.