The Electronic Shopping Mall: In this dynamic extension of the first scenario, a concentrated number of providers will take over the Information Superhighway and render it a giant electronic mega-mall. This means, for starters, that the customer must pay an entry fee to gain access to the “mall,” even to “window shop.”
Predictor: Hoffman, Donna L.
Prediction, in context:Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak of Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management present three development scenarios for the “information superhighway” in a 1994 article for The Owen Manager. The second reads:”Scenario Two: ‘The Electronic Shopping Mall.’ In this dynamic extension of the first scenario, a concentrated number of providers will take over the Information Superhighway and render it a giant electronic mega-mall. This means, for starters, that the customer must pay an entry fee to gain access to the ‘mall,’ even to ‘window shop’ (think of Prodigy or other commercial online services). Further, if what the customer wants is not in the mall, she can’t get it, at least not without going to another mall (with its own entry fee). The Electronic Shopping Mall vision would place the customer in a more active role than would Couch Potato Heaven, although the channels of communication would still be primarily between centralized service providers to individual customers … the service providers would still retain the upper hand in the balance of power.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Owen Graduate School of Management Magazine: The Owen Manage
Title, headline, chapter name: Commercializing the Information Superhighway: Are We in for a Smooth Ride?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/research/papers/html/manuscripts/smooth.ride.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Krout, Kevin M.