| Summary |
| Information is like electricity. In the home, office, car, airplane, almost everything electronic is plugged into the world of data, once named the "information superhighway." It is almost impossible to act without invoking the source. |
| Cars are guided along the road by it, as well as custom manufactured to your tastes by it. Children are shown the world by immersing themselves in it, and their parents are employed in creating it. Communities appear where people congregate to work, shop, discuss, and entertain themselves, all electronically and facilitated by interactive multimedia technology. |
| Interoperability and interactivity are so ubiquitous that the network appears seamless, and because of the profound changes it has led to in both the consumer and business worlds, imagining life before it is like imagining life before the telephone, only worse. |
| The power of the network allows small companies to provide the services that, in the early 90's, would have required a large organization. This is a world where the conglomerates of the 90's have dissolved to become the virtual companies of the new millennium. This is Virtual World.Ê |