THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 17, 1995 TAG: 9507150255
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, BUSINESS WEEKLY
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Despite all the hype about it over the past few years, the Internet, the unruly global web of computer networks, is still an exotic mystery for most small-business owners.
Bill Winter wants to change that.
He's director of Christopher Newport University's Joseph Center, which recently won a $25,000 grant from Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology to help set up an Internet business community in Hampton Roads.
Winter said by fall, he hopes to have signed up the first of a planned 20 small businesses that will be encouraged to use the Internet in their daily businesses and let researchers at the Newport News university closely study their on-line activities.
One of the research goals, he said, is to see if widely different local businesses will, just by their occupation of a common community in the on-line world, begin sharing resources and jointly pursuing new business opportunities.
With the explosive growth of the Internet, ``we think we can offer a big advantage for those who are selected,'' Winter said.
The idea of setting up such an electronic business community was hatched last fall by some professors in CNU's computer-science department. Winter said Blacksburg's Electronic Village experiment, in which that town's citizens get free access to the Internet through the public library, inspired the idea.
CNU had already spearheaded the creation of a regional ``free-net'' called SEVAnet, which creates a presence on the Internet for local governments and schools. Branching into the business community seemed a logical extension. The Center for Innovative Technology, which under Gov. George F. Allen is re-tooling to more directly help businesses, jumped on the grant proposal.
Winter, who is also a professor of government at CNU and the chairman of the SEVAnet council, said some businesses have already expressed interest in the experiment, which is expected to last a year. He said he's aiming for a diverse group of businesses of between 10 and 300 employees.
He said they'll likely have to pony up between $1,000 and $2,000 to participate. But he contended that the services they will receive in return - including the creation of Internet ``home pages'' to publicize their products and services, the ability to send and receive electronic mail and access to portions of the Internet - could cost as much or more on the open market.
Plus, he said CNU will act as an ``agent'' for the businesses - and go surfing the Internet for information that could be useful in developing new opportunities.
After the grant ends, CNU will publish the results of the experiment and distribute them to other businesses in Virginia that are interested in using the Internet. MEMO: For information on the program, call Bill Winter of Christopher Newport
University at 594-7092.
by CNB