beyond pt 0 23/1

New costs
As in most areas of e-commerce, the consumer and the vendor have to
acquire the capacity to engage in the new business mode. They most both
have access to the Internet and payment systems. Obtaining this capacity
will require new intermediaries and costs.
New business models
The book retail industry has been the scene of one of the most successful
e-commerce ventures to date - Amazon.com. The ability to provide a huge
searchable index, combined with the ability to create communities of
interest around subject areas, and use efficient supply management and
distribution has provided a significant value proposition.
There are now numerous online book stores. This has brought a ceiling to
growth of traditional book retailing.
Academic book publishing has been under pressure for some years as a
result of the preparation of ‘reading packs’ of photocopied material. This
trend is likely to accelerate with the development of online courseware.
The shift from text book to CD-ROM has not occurred as some
had anticipated.
Drawing on complicated
algorithms, ClearType taps
the power of the red, green
and blue supplements of
each pixel to allow
characters to be sharpened
with unprecedented subtlety,
as though honed with an
extremely fine electronic
paintbrush. With a
resolution of 200–300 dpi
on a small display, even the
italics in The Road Ahead
emerge crystal-clear, and
they look even better on a
sharper screen. As Hill
recalls: ‘Bill (Gates) was so
excited. We recognized this
was a breakthrough, because
if you can really read on a
screen, it’s going to change
everything.’
:http://www.upside.com/texis/
mvm/story?id=378bdc8f0
There is considerable research work being done into improving screen
resolution so that screens have equivalent readability to print. Microsoft
has an e-book venture that has moved from research into product
development. Rather than using new screen technology, it uses the
colours to more sharply define the edges of type, with a software
product called ClearType.
This is not likely to cause any significant erosion in the book industry
over the next five years, but over the next ten years, this, and other
methods of providing more readable text on screen, may start having an
impact upon book publishers.
External dimensions
It is to be expected that book imports will increase in response to the
greater variety, convenience and often lower price of purchase from
online book stores
7.7 Gambling
The sector
Gambling is a substantial growth industry, with total expenditure reaching
$11.3 billion in 1997–98, more than double what it was a decade ago in
real terms, and treble the level of 15 years ago. Expenditure is the
amount that gamblers loose. The total amount gambled in 1998 was
$80 billion. 23
The greatest gambling innovation of the future promises to be Internet
gambling, of which there are two distinct types available: virtual online
gambling (e.g. software generated games such as slot machines, blackjack,
roulette and baccarat) and gambling on single events.
The Productivity Commission’s report asserts that gambling is a supply
driven industry: the more outlets there are, the more money will be
23 Productivity Commission, Australian Gambling Industries, Draft Report, http://www.pc.gov.au
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