Tom Whitehurst

Sunday, August 27, 2000

It's time to cast a wide 'Net

All is not rosy these days in Austin, the city that's first on the livable-cities lists, first in New Economics and first in the hearts of we who use it as a yardstick for what Corpus Christi ought to be when it grows up.
   In the past two weeks, Austin-based Living.com Inc. closed up shop, Mall.com Inc. laid off half its workforce and drkoop.com acknowledged that it is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
   The Austin American-Statesman described Living.com, an online furniture seller, as "one of the richest and most promising startups to emerge from Austin's high-tech community in the past few years." Mall.com, an online shopping mall, is trying to nail down venture capital from an Austin firm that's a self-styled rehabilitator of wayward dot-coms. That sounds like a great business to be in these days, considering that the Statesman described Mall.com as "at least the sixth local tech business to drastically scale back its staff this year."
   Drkoop.com's medicine
   One of those is drkoop.com, which could be considered the symbol for dot-coms in need of a prescription. Drkoop got it last week, in the form of a $20 million bailout that included a management shakeup that flushed out all of the original team except its namesake, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.
   None of this is to say that Austin is hurting, or that Internet-based businesses are a bad idea. Far from it. Those displaced workers are expected to find new jobs without any problem, although the Statesman didn't address whether the job-searching would entail unspeakable indignities such as midriff concealment and nose ring removal.
   Others' mistakes
   No, this is just a new perspective on the Marsha-Marsha-Marsha of Texas cities as the new wears off of the New Economy, as e-commerce seems to be entering a this-is-not-a-toy stage, and as Corpus Christi appears to have jumped in now that the bugs have been worked out.
   We may have missed out on all that inflatable money that pumped up Silicon Valley and Austin, but we also have the luxury of learning from their mistakes.
   Now, local businesses can enter e-commerce with a more proven product. Some local Internet entrepreneurs, higher education faculty and the Chamber of Commerce are pulling together a conference Oct. 5, in conjunction with Buy the Bay Showcase at Bayfront Plaza Convention Center, to help local businesses use the Internet to their advantage.
   The Oct. 5 conference aims to take some of the mystery out of e-commerce and Web page design and to introduce local entrepreneurs to proven Internet business plans.
   Another outgrowth of the conference is the likely formation of a local Internet Technology Society, now in the works.
   "Corpus Christi is well positioned to develop an Internet industry," says James Duerr, who's organizing the Oct. 5 conference and who started the shopping search directory StopSurfing.com and other e-commerce ventures. Here's why he thinks so:
   "1. Intellectual capital provided by our local colleges and universities.
   "2. Low cost of living.
   "3. Internet industry is non-polluting, thus complementing the existing tourist industry.
   "4. Beautiful bay and beaches with plenty of water sports to attract the young Internet professionals."
   That's already happening. Local real estate agents tell us that Austin's Internet rich are buying Padre Island homes as getaways. Chamber CEO Tom Niskala has said that some of them are bound to like it here enough to make it their permanent home.
   One way or another, it seems, we'll be the next Austin.
  

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