YSU Speaker describes Internet's rapid rise

The speaker was ranked among the top 25 digital-age business leaders.
THE VINDICATOR, YOUNGSTOWN
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The digital age represents as profound a change in our world as the advent of electric power more than 100 years ago, an information-age entrepreneur told an audience Tuesday night at Youngstown State University.
"The emerging digital world, of which the Internet and cell phones are the two most visible pieces, represents a fundamental shift in how our economy will serve customers and create value," just as electricity changed the way services were delivered, Jay Walker said.
"The Internet will be the primary way that our nation will export its prosperity and our democratic values to the rest of the world."
Hailed by Forbes magazine as the "New Age Edison," Walker is the founder of Priceline.com, the Internet business that allows users to name their own prices for hotel rooms, airline tickets, cars and home mortgages.
Walker Digital, his intellectual property lab, has more than a dozen patents issued and more than 200 pending. Ranked among the 25 most influential business leaders of the digital age by Time magazine, Walker was here to address about 100 people gathered for the Paul J. and Marguerite K. Thomas Colloquium on Free Enterprise.
Caught on fast
Walker said the Internet has penetrated American households in a mere 2,000 days, compared to 25 years for television. In 1995, very few homes had Internet access, he said. By 1999, 17 percent of all American adults were using the Internet.
By 2001, it was 41 percent, meaning 107 million American adults were using the Internet regularly.
Internet time already exceeds TV viewing time for people under age 25, he said. The post office now carries less than 1 percent of all person-to-person messages in the United States; 99 percent travel via Internet.
"The Internet combines the properties and benefits of almost all the other forms of communication," he said, listing a variety of advantages the Internet offers:
UMessages can be sent worldwide without paper, printing and postage costs.
UThere's no extra cost for adding multiple recipients to an e-mail.
UThe Net offers access to remote information storage and the processing power of someone else's computer.
UIt's personal, private, portable, and can be used at a very low fixed cost.
UIt offers users the ability to shield their identities.
UAn almost endless variety of user groups or chat rooms can be created.
UIt's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
UWith no central control and no hierarchy, it's almost impossible to censor.
The digital age "is more than a vision of tomorrow. It's the reality of today," Walker said.