Take with a hefty amount of salt grains the proclamations the author makes on the way the Web is going.

Optimism: "There are an infinite number of ideas in the universe waiting to be discovered.." And earlier: "A person who is in charge of Web strategy for a corporation must be constantly on the lookout for better ways to market products...new ways to bring in revenue. The discovery of such ideas brings growth. And it might not even be growth at a competitor's expense, but fresh growth that expands, not redivides, the economic pie." As in "a rising tide raises all boats."

Nine principles are all valid & some challenge entrenched "truths" people believe in.

First principle: "The Quantity of People Visiting Your Site Is Less Important Than the Quality of Their Experience." Current ad rates are based on number of impressions. Not so, says the author: "All eyeballs aren't created equal" is a section in the chapter on his Second Principle ("Marketers Shouldn't Be on the Web for Exposure, but for Results."

We certainly agree with this observation. Certainly the market for management consulting is far smaller than for flowers, books or chili sauce. People always asks us about the number of "hits" or site gets. Believe me, that's not our criterion for success.

We violate his third principle ("Consumers Must Be Compensated for Disclosing Data About Themselves"), at least in principle (excuse the pun). That is, our guestbook form asks for "name, rank and serial number," so to speak, and won't allow any message to be sent until address information is filled out. This is to make visitors think twice before sending nasty messages - not that we've gotten any (knock on wood!).

On the other hand, we've titled the "message" section "Extra Credit Question" and ask visitors "If there were one thing you could do to improve your organization, what would that be?" Could be construed as being pretty nosy, especially since we don't offer anything additional in return...although our site offers a lot of information to all visitors, free, at the click of their mouse button.

Remarkably, a hefty percent of the people filling out the form *do* take the time to think through and respond to this question. And there's a mutual benefit: *we* can reply to their specific interests and *they* have had to reflect enough to formulate a brief, focused response...not always an easy task.

Principle Five, "Self-Service Provides for the Highest Level of Customer Comfort" is definitely right on. Why call an 800 number and get four levels of menu to track a shipment if you can dial into a Web site and see for yourself where it is, if it got there, and who signed for it...in half the time? That's why we installed a simple search engine on each page of our Web site and, in fact, used it ourselves in writing a couple of proposals.

Principles Six (""Value-Based Currencies" Enable You to Create Your Own Monetary System") and Seven ("Trusted Brand Names Matter Even More on the Web") each contain a wealth of creative ideas, although I personally think his report of e-currencies' death to be highly exaggerated.

Principle Eight is only a bit of an exaggeration, although it may seem a lot so at first ("Even the Smallest Business Can Compete in the Web's Global "Marketspace"). No, that's not a typo. "Marketspace" is the virtual world of information, where businesses compete today in parallel with the physical world of tangible resources. Negligible cost of e-mail vs. international phone and fax. Downloadable software and subscription information may be replicated at will and delivered around the globe while consuming next to no physical resouces (and therefore incurring next to no costs to the supplier). A paradise.

Reality -- and the potential for Paradise Lost -- sets in with Principle Nine: "Agility Rules-Web Sites Must Continually Adapt to the Market." It's a buyer's market, where consumers could have at their fingertips practically perfect market information for comparing prices, specifications and other criteria for getting the best deal. Efficient markets? Oh, yes! Will you get left behind if you don't keep up with the digital Joneses? Yes, indeed. Webonomics is *not* your father's economics. It's a brave new world. And this book gives some great insights into just how brave (i.e. not be afraid of failure; the Web's a great place for trial-and-error on the cheap) and new the World of the Wide Web can be.