I do my best to not spend too much time worrying about things, but the more I read and hear about Y2K, the more possible problems I see.

There was a news story on the web a couple of days ago with the headline "Y2K Bank Run Protection". It explained that the US Federal Reserve Board has created a new loan program for banks that have fears of Y2K-related cash shortages caused by consumer unrest regarding the date rollover.

There are more and more things like this. Our problems with computers are probably going to be nothing compared to the problems with People, the Government, and the Media.

Think about it, even if no computer in the country has any problems with the year change at all, we still need to fear some people somewhere doing something because they think something might happen! Help!

What worried me about this was the suggestion that banks might be thinking about keeping their own stash of ready money on hand and maybe planning to cut off people or businesses wanting and needing loans, credit, credit lines or whatever.

What do you think? Are banks really worrying about this phantom bank-run thing? And, if so, what might they do to protect themselves?

Relate this idea to the story below about the Expected Holiday Shopping Season.

Two Cents Worth Editorial by Georgia Bell - NetCoalition.com

On to more opinion . . .

What about NetCoalition.com? Nine of the world's "leading" internet companies joining forces to "direct the future of the World Wide Web".

As a member of this World Wide Web myself, I would rather not have members of congress, the press, or the public in general thinking that America Online, Yahoo, Amazon.com, DoubleClick, eBay, Excite@Home, Inktomi, Lycos, and the globe.com represent me or speak for me.

This group of "leading entrepreneurs" explained all kinds of "Internet" things such as "advocating market-driven policies to empower users", "the cusp of driving new economies and new ways of doing business", "address the tough issues facing our industry", and "the intention of making the Internet a critical part of our lives".

Hello.

There is also a very different internet out there, one much more individual, more personally creative, more potentially beneficial to the whole world, than the internet this group knows. And this is coming from a very very business-oriented person; I'm always con- cerned with doing business, prosperity, success, the economy, etc.

But, I have found so many new ideas, new groups, new synergies on the internet -- all far more important and more meaningful than "new ways of doing business", and it's my wish that every person in the world will find them too, as soon as possible.

I worry that they not only won't be able to do that -- they may never even have a chance to hear that such things exist.

Give me some feedback here, please.

Perspective on Time

Because a Thousand Years can be hard to grasp, I'll be giving you a little time-related fact here in each issue. Think about how long a thousand years really is.

But this time, I'm only thinking about today's time -- who today isn't thinking about time -- making time, enough time, time flies, etc.

In the last issue of this newsletter I mentioned this piece about 1999 ---- well I still haven't found an author, but maybe someone will claim it ----

You know it is 1999 when:

• You try to enter your password on the microwave.
• You now think of three espressos as "getting wasted."
• You haven't played solitaire with a real deck of cards in years.
• You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
• You e-mail your son in his room to tell him that dinner is ready, and he emails you back "What's for dinner?"
• Your daughter sells Girl Scout Cookies via her web site.
• You chat several times a day with a stranger from South Africa, but you haven't spoken to your next door neighbor yet this year.
• You didn't give your valentine a card this year, but you posted one for your email buddies via a Web page.
• Your daughter just bought on CD all the records your college roommate used to play that you most despised.
• Every commercial on television has a website address at the bottom of the screen.
• You buy a computer and a week later it is out of date and now sells for half the price you paid.
• The concept of using real money, instead of credit or debit, to make a purchase is foreign to you.
• Cleaning up the dining area means getting the fast food bags out of the back seat of your car.
• Your reason for not staying in touch with family is that they do not have e-mail addresses.
• You consider 2nd day air delivery painfully slow.
• You refer to your dining room table as the flat filing cabinet.
• Your idea of being organized is multiple colored post-it notes.
• You hear most of your jokes via email instead of in person.

Site 901 Newsletter Update

***** News from Subscribers:

Y2K and Millennium Shopping at http://www.y2kus.net/ has added new items and features including a Y2K Mental Health Survival Kit and a message board. How about clicking there now and posting a message about your current state of mental health? Also a newsletter -- see below. Ramona also says that her prediction about millennium/y2k traffic picking up late summer looks like a winner -- things are starting to happen now.

Dan from http://www.firstfax2000.com/ First Official Communication of the 21st Century (newly added Featured Site -- see below) says that they have more Millennium projects in the works and he'll send me a press release.

Yikes, the Press Release idea I haven't got going yet. Send them in folks -- that will encourage me to get that started -- some people are like that, you know.

I've got my own "Survival Tips For the Year 2000" Calendar from Rex Rubenzer at http://www.hnet.net/~rexrube and it is great. I had asked him why his name seemed familiar and to let me know about other cartoon things he had done. Are there any Packer fans out there? Rex has published the cartoon book "You're a real cheesehead if..." and other calendars in a series called "Generation Rex". His Y2K calendar is available at other places too like http://www.y2kus.net/ .

***** New Newsletters:

I heard from Vance at Capsule Day at http://www.capsuleday.com/ -- maybe not really a newsletter, but an email letter with news, so -- Capsule Day is coming up soon (August 23, my son's birthday too), and it's an incredibly creative project -- check out the website to see for yourself.

Nalina and Arvin of Prasad Travel http://www.nexusds.com/prasadtravel/ let me know that they have a second newsletter. This one is called the Millennium Cruise Newsletter, and it lists all available cruises for the Millennium with all the information about them. Special with this one is the offer to discount the cost by 5% off the cruise only rate for any cruises booked from this newsletter. I could only read through the list and dream myself, but I keep thinking that you never know what might come up!

Then there is the new "Yahtuki Alert" from http://www.y2kus.net that I mentioned above. To be published periodically as needed -- this would be a good one for anyon keeping track of new Y2K novelties from all around the US. Subscribe at the site and enter to win a t-shirt too!

Feature Article: Holiday Shopping News

There seemed to be a lot of news out about shopping on the web this past week -- but, then I guess there always is. One thing I noticed was the fact that the experts seem to have finally noticed that as more women come online, more shop- ping is being done. What would we do without all this carefully researched, expert news!

The next thing I noticed were a bunch of surveys and studies about Holiday Shopping this year.

And the news is looking good -- just about everyone seems to think that online shoppers will start their holiday shopping early this year (before any y2kaos hopefully).

One poll said more than 25% planned to start before October and almost half before November. I know that whenever I do that myself I never STOP shopping early -- I just keep buying more and more right up to the week before Christmas.

I read another article that proclaimed that it's already too late to get online with your holiday store if you haven't done it yet. They were talking about some pretty large, elaborate stores and businesses I guess.

This story went further and predicted that even stores already online would have to put new features and site improvements on hold until after the holidays. Towards the end of the article, there was mention of getting online for the holiday season being just barely possible by doing it through an outsourcer.

Sounds pretty discouraging at first glance for the smaller retailers out there who are just getting things going online. But that depends on the size of the business. The smaller you are, the quicker you can get things going in general.

I just heard this week about a really new way for retail merchants to sell their goods in an online virtual storefront with utrade.com. This looks like a great way to get online quickly without any large initial expenses or long learning curves.

Utrade.com is making this thing very easy and inexpensive for the retailers who want to try selling online for the first time and for retailers who already have a website but want the traffic and other benefits of an established internet company like utrade.com. Over a half million monthly shoppers sounds pretty good.

It's called the Storefront on the Web. Retailers get their own ecommerce site on utrade.com where only their items are listed; there is also a Storefront Area where online shoppers can look through all the Storefronts. You would subscribe for any length of time from a month to a year at a time with the monthly cost going down to $500 for 12 months if you prepay. Utrade points out that this could be less than the cost of a yellow page ad.

There are other services from Utrade that retailers can purchase, and all the prices seem really pretty low -- things like newsletter advertising, image posting, home page design and hosting.

I went to http://www.utrade.com/seller/retail.htm?MID=99579 yesterday and browsed through the Stores in that section -- everything looked really professional too -- very easy to use for both the shopper and the storekeeper I think -- I thought the pictures of the items being sold along with the written descriptions were especially good -- worth more than Forty- some Dollars a month probably.

If any of you know of some retailers who might be interested, the URL is http://www.utrade.com/seller/retail.htm?MID=99579 . There is a lot of information there, and if they have questions, there's quite a few ways to contact someone at utrade.com.

I could also help with any questions because this is a part of the One and Only Network that I'm affiliated with for the Personals and Auctions Sites -- you've probably seen banners on Site 901. One and Only is really a highly-thought-of company too. They are also growing rapidly and have a number of good programs that give them such an impressive customer base.

I'm hoping to be able to help some local people that I know personally that want to try to get online but aren't quite sure about their commitment to the idea yet. I'm going to first ask them to try to imagine a possible half million potential customers, imagine being open 24 hours a day, and being able to sell anywhere in the world.

Maybe I should think about it myself.

Site 901 Web Site Update

***** New Featured Sites on Site 901:

First Official Communication of the 21st Century at http://www.firstfax2000.com with Millennium gifts and collectibles and more coming soon.

Y2Kritters at http://www.y2kritters.com features real Y2K computer bugs made from computer chips. Really cute and make great gifts for any computer user.

2000 Millennium Wear at http://www.2000millenniumwear.com says the New Millennium comes every 1000 years and you will never see it again -- Now you can own what will be a part of history. Clothing made to last and embroidered with colorful logo so you can be ready to celebrate the New Millennium with your 2000 Millennium Wear.

Astrid Park Plaza Millennium Celebration at http://www.parkplazaastrid.com says come to Antwerp, Belgium and celebrate a great Millennium with gastronomic dinner, live music, good wines in the atmosphere of the twenties. Harlem in New York, jazz music, the charleston, and tap dance. Email: astrid.plaza@euronet.be or fax +32 3 203 12 75.

***** Site 901 Directory

This time I don't have a long list of new sites to put up; been too busy with too many other things I guess. There are now about 350 Millennium Web Sites listed on Site 901 -- I can never get a good total number for any length of time because as I'm adding new ones, I'm also checking old ones for links that aren't good any more and deleting those that don't work after a few intermittant tries.

Remember also that I'm not listing those sites that deal strictly with the Y2K computer problem (there are too many of them and too many other places that list them), or the TV show, or some music group -- I have my own definition of "Millennium Web Site".

***** Morphing and Browsing

If you cruise around Site 901 these days and pay attention to the "look" of the pages, you might notice some subtle changes taking place there. To some people it might look like every other page has a different logo, heading, menu, etc. But to some of us who are more willing to accept little bits of temporary disorder it might look like Site 901 is in a process of transforming itself.

Web Sites do that, you know.

Check out the Millennium Book Store if you haven't been there lately. There are now more than 100 millennium and y2k books. Start at http://www.site901.com/millenniumbookstore.html or, for my personal pick of most interesting, look at Y2K Fiction on http://www.site901.com/bookstore/y2kfiction.html .

And, visit Site 901 again next week and the week after, etc.

Not-So-Little News Thing

Here's some interesting news that anyone on the web should check out for themselves and pass along good information.

I was forwarded an email about an E-mail Surcharge last week; then, since a bell went off in my head telling me that I had seen something about this before, I went looking around the web to find out about this Bill #602P proposed to let the US govt charge a surcharge on every email delivered because the US Postal Service was pushing the idea.

Sure enough, there's a lot of information about this because apparently it's one of those huge scary rumor things that can really travel around the Internet. Just key in the word "hoax" in any Search Engine and you'll see what I mean.

I found a number of different news stories from sources such as CBS Market Watch, The Washingtonian, and CNet News all explaining that it is really nothing but a hoax. Apparently there is no such Bill #602P, no such Representative as the one named as sponsor, no reference to "email tax" at the House's website, and the Postal Service has issued a very thorough denial.

Since I found this whole idea kind of interesting, I kept looking at other "hoax" websites (and there are plenty of them). Here's a good one to find out about email hoaxes, virus hoaxes and email chain letters -- http://ciac.llnl.gov/ CIAC, US Dept of Energy -- Computer Incident Advisory Capablility "Keeping DOE Secure".

I hate to say this, but think about that name -- to me it sounds like something some hoaxster would make up -- but that's maybe just me.

This site has some very interesting information posted about internet hoaxes in general and specifically. How to Identify a Hoax, Validate a Warning, What to Do When You Receive a Warning, a list of the Big Hoaxes, How to Recognize a Chain Letter and What to Do with Them, and a list of Known Chain Letter Subjects plus a lot more. It's a very interesting web site.

If you don't have time right now to check it out yourself (like maybe because you read this whole newsletter) email me at jeorjia@bigfoot.com for a summary I've written.

Next Issue and Beyond

Well, I didn't say a thing about Woodstock, the Class of 2000, the Official Hawaii 2000 Millennium Web Site, Web Traffic and the JFK Jr. Tragedy, or Alta Vista! Maybe this will be the time when I put out an in-between-issue issue.

Tell people about Site 901 and this Newsletter. They can read the first issues on the web now or have them sent to their email address by autoresponder.

Go to http://www.site901.com/newsletter/archive.html .

General Info

Disclaimer: Millennium News from Site 901 is copyright Georgia L. Bell 1999 except where indicated otherwise. All rights reserved worldwide. Reprint only with permission from copyright holder(s). All trademarks are property of their respective owners. All contents provided as is. No express or implied income claims made herein.

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