Economy.

According to an eMarketer September 1999 report, 80.8 million Americans use the Web. Over 50 percent of the adult cyberfolks use the Net for business.

It's no wonder the Internet has come into its own right as a major player in the nation's overall economy--and has built an economy of its own. Industry revenues are expected to reach $507 billion by the end of 1999, according to a study by Internet Economy Indicators. Growth between the first quarters of 1998 to 1999 alone was 68 percent.

IEI estimated there were 2.3 million Internet-related jobs in the first quarter of 1999. One out of every three of the surveyed companies didn't even exist prior to 1996. Yet, those young companies employ 305,000 people.

However, it's difficult for the smaller companies to stay in business without a lot of capital to keep up with...