| The Social Scene |
| The year is 2003. Despite of steady increases in public school funding over the last several years, a continued increase in alternative schooling and an alarming decrease in standard examination results have caused a crisis of faith in education. Concerned parents want their children to be more informed and ambitious. Concerned employers desperately need well-trained employees to sustain their competitiveness. These consumer and business demands contribute to a vigorous market for stand-alone CD-ROM multimedia educational products as well as LAN based multimedia applications. |
| A second impetus for widely available educational material comes from the growth in the immigrant population in the US during the latter 90's. The ambitious immigrants turn to both cable TV education programming and stand-alone CD-ROM encyclopedias and other titles to improve their language and business skills. |
| The public network is a broadcast medium with limited interactivity (the back channel = standard telephone lines.) Data security issues are a major factor. Individuals have resisted making available private data over the public network fearing theft, while businesses have restricted communications to public information only. Competitive information shared with business partners and suppliers is transmitted on private, secured networks. |