[...]... inconsequential? Is the evidence that new firms rose in Germany, France, Sweden, and many other countries contrary to the traditional logic of their economic systems? Is the Internet an intrinsically global technology, riding upon the already existing backbone of the global communication network? The simple answer to these questions is that the Internet has borders The Internet economy developed di¤erently... to a global economy The Two Explosions of the Internet The Internet technologies evolved far more steadily and incrementally than their economic and commercial exploitation One date by which to mark the explosion of the Internet onto the business and cultural scene is 1994, the year an easy-to-use Internet browser with secured transactions called Netscape was launched From this date to 2000, the number... And then came the second response, ‘‘But still, I would like to know the answer ’’ The dangers and wonders of curious minds I would like to thank above all these participants who had to give so much of their time to learn about the Internet, to gather the facts, and then to write their interpretations of what they observed We thank as well the participation of many people who helped us along the. .. Los Altos The cultural significance of the Internet went far beyond business culture The Internet brought new worlds to internauts People entered chat rooms, tried out new identities, and encountered dialogues outside their local lives The quip that on the Internet no one knows you are a dog summarized the potential for anonymous exploration of new selves 2 The Internet economy promised a new economy. .. Intentionally Left Blank 1 Introduction: The Internet Has Borders Bruce Kogut Technologies di¤use rapidly in the modern global economy Certainly, the di¤usion of the technologies that make up the Internet occurred with great rapidity over the past two decades This is hardly surprising given the global web of ties among people, firms, and institutions Many of the Internet s key components were created... crest new firm creation and the transformation of existing companies that permanently influenced the trajectories of national economies around the world The Internet as a Cultural Event The Internet o¤ered the possibility for the delivery of new services Some of these services were the provision of information Some promised to rationalize the supply chains of entire industries Others o¤ered opportunities... varied in the speed and the extent by which these investments were made, all but a handful of countries were connected to the global Internet by 2002 This story of the global Internet gold rush hides another and a fascinating tale Here we have an intrinsically global technology—for once a country is connected, it becomes virtually co-located with all other countries—but its development occurs within the. .. University He is the author of several articles that cover the internationalization of R&D, the theory of the firm as a social community, and a comparative study of the Zeiss firms in East and West Germany His most recent area of research is the impact and power of ideas on international firms and society, addressing the myth of unidirectional and smooth globalization The Global Internet Economy This Page... is that the global Internet did pierce borders, but with e¤ects depending upon the national specificities The Internet of the 1990s did not represent a major new technological trajectory, for the basic technologies were already known The Internet instead represented a revolutionary and cultural challenge to the traditional models by which the relevant competence should be organized to explore the new... highlight the importance of national and global communities to the evolution of Internet technology (For a more complete history, see hhttp:/ /www.isoc.org /Internet- historyi and Abbate 1999.) The story of the creation of the Internet is unmistakably about the role of the U.S government and a few remarkable people But it is also about the creation of a computer science, and sometimes hacker, community, and the . x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" The Global Internet Economy This Page Intentionally Left Blank The Global Internet Economy Edited by Bruce Kogut The MIT Press Cambridge,. time to learn about the Internet, to gather the facts, and then to write their interpretations of what they observed. We thank as well the participation