THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 2, 1995 TAG: 9509300188
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Close to a year ago, when a Norfolk-based startup, then known as Internet Presence & Publishing Inc., began to help organize a conference on the Internet, there were only a couple of such events on the horizon for 1995.
This week's ``Internet 95'' conference at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott is now among more than 115 such trade-show gatherings that will have been organized this year in the United States alone.
There are those who predict that the Internet, the global web of computer networks, will soon fall off the charts. They use the plethora of Internet events as evidence of another case of pop-culture overkill.
But the former Internet Presence - recently rechristened iTRiBE Inc. - is riding the cyberspace rocket as far as it will go.
With some good timing and good luck, it has managed to pull together what promises to be one of the best-attended of the flock of Internet events competing for cyberjunkies' attention around the country.
Headliners like Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape Communications, the Internet's most popular browsing software, pack the schedule of ``Internet 95,'' which runs Wednesday through Friday.
Others among the dozens of scheduled speakers and panelists are Adam Curry, a former MTV host who's now active in Internet-related businesses, and Tim O'Reilly, president of O'Reilly & Associates, whose study of Internet usage, released last week, rocked the fledgling industry.
The study estimated only 5.8 million adult Internet users in the U.S., about two-thirds less than commonly suggested.
Jason Scott, a business consultant for iTRiBE, said the company is expecting about 6,000 people from as far away as Australia to attend the conference in Norfolk.
About 25 exhibitors of Internet products and services - ranging from Adobe Systems and Bell Atlantic to Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems - have so far signed up for displays.
The conference will be broadcast live over the Internet and Scott said The Discovery Channel, Cable News Network and the C-Span public-affairs cable-TV network have all expressed interest in covering it.
For iTRiBE and its principals - who include Keith Basil, Johnny George III, Mark Imbriaco and Anil Palat - the conference is ``most importantly a marketing tool,'' Scott said.
He said iTRiBE will follow up the conference with ``mass advertising'' for its Internet shopping mall, called Shops.Net.
Over 120 businesses selling everything from funerals to long-distance telephone services are part of the mall. They pay $30 to $130 a month to sell their products and services and have the ability to continuously change their graphics and inventory for sale, Scott said.
The growth of the mall and demand for other Internet business services have helped iTRiBE to grow to about 20 employees at its offices in downtown's World Trade Center.
Scott declined to disclose revenues for the company, but said iTRiBE expects to make a profit from ``Internet 95.'' MEMO: Internet 95 will be Wednesday through Friday at the Norfolk Waterside
Marriott. Cost for the entire conference is $475 per person. Cost for
any single day: $200 per person. Admission to the exhibit hall only: $10
per person.
For information call Jason Scott at 1-800-638-6155. A full schedule
and registration form for the conference is available on iTRiBE Inc.'s
World Wide Web home page at http://www.ip.net/i95/
by CNB