In the first year or so of Web business, most of the action has revolved around efforts to tap the consumer market. More recently, as the Web proved to be more thana fashion, companies have started to buy and sell products and services with one another. Such business-to-business sales make sense because businesspeople typically know what product they're looking for.
However, many companies still hesitate to use the Web because of doubts about its reliability. "Businesses need to feel they can trust the pathway between them and the supplier," says senior analyst Blane Erwin of Forrester Research. Some companies are limiting the risk by conducting online transactions only with established business partners. Another major shift in the model for
Internet commerce concerns the technology available for marketing. Until recently, Internet marketing activltie8 have focused on strategies to "pull" customers into sites.  In the past year, however, software companies have developed tools that allow companies  to "push" information directly out to customers, transmitting marketing messages directly to targeted customers. Most notably, the Point cast Network uses a screen saver to deliver a continually updated stream of news and advertisements to subscribers' computer monitors. Subscribers can customize the information they want to receive and proceed directly to a company's Web site.
Companies such as Virtual Vineyards are already starting to use similar technologies to push messages to customers about special sales, product offering,  or other events.  But push technology has earned the contempt of many Web users. Inline culture thinks highly of the notion that the information flowing onto the screen comes there by specific request. Once commercial promotion begins to fill the screen uninvited, the distinction between the Web and television fades.
But it is hardly inevitable that companies on the Web will need to resort to push strategies to make money. The examples of Virtual Vineyards, Amazon: com and other pioneers show that a Web site selling the right kind of products with the right mix of interactivity, hospitality, and security will attract online customers. And the cost of computing power continues to fall, which is a good sign for any enterprise setting up shop in silicon. People looking back 5 or 10 years from now may well wonder why so few companies took the online plunge.