At a round table hosted by MasterCard recently, I was chatting to Arthur Goldstuck, MD of WorldWideWorx, about people`s propensity to shop online.
He explained that people take time in becoming accustomed to the Internet, and it doesn`t necessarily follow that just because a person has Internet access, they are likely to use this channel for shopping.
Apparently, after a couple of years, it is likely that they will start conducting their banking over the Internet, and only about five years after first coming online will they be comfortable and confident enough to actually spend their money there.
Sometimes, immersed as I am in information technology, I find myself genuinely surprised by my friends` lack of Internet savvy. A case in point was a tea party I was at this weekend, where we all wracked our brains trying to remember the name of the Sci-Fi movie released last year, starring Christian Bale.
The memory lapse was making my brain itch, so I logged on to the Internet, and found out that the movie was called Equilibrium.
My best friend, an architect, was amazed that I could search for something on the Internet and find it, without knowing what it was called (if you`re curious, I logged onto the Internet Movie Database and searched for Christian Bale`s filmography).
Which all goes to show, I guess, that technology is not the great unifier and people will continue to excel in their own areas of interest.
Georgina Guedes, editor, ITWeb Brainstorm
I also recently had to deliver an edict to my boyfriend that if he doesn`t get Internet banking soon, I am going to have to break up with him. This is a bit extreme, and also highly unlikely, but the frustration is very real.
He has some kind of bizarre magnetic field that frequently corrupts the magnetic strip on his credit and ATM card, rendering his money untouchable until he can order new ones. This almost invariably happens at the end of the month, so it gets us into a bit of a pickle. If he could just transfer money into my empty account, I could draw it, and we would be fine.
He responded to me that he is working on it, but that he only learnt how to SMS last year, so I have to be patient with him. He is, however, a prolific searcher, and would have had no trouble locating Christian Bale`s filmography.
I also acknowledge that it is highly unlikely that I would be able to draw a single line in AutoCad, the architectural package in which my best friend is proficient.
Which all goes to show, I guess, that technology is not the great unifier and people will continue to excel in their own areas of interest.
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