The company has positioned itself as not just a free ISP company but as an advertising company. It offers advertisers a window to NetZero's service which pops up on the computer screen and stays there all the time. The window can also serve as a quick-jump guide to categories such as stock trading, news, sports, or weather which are sponsored by NetZero advertisers.

It's not just that: The company has refined its methods on demographic targeting of its ads. It uses technology to track a Web surfer's path online, everytime he clicks along his journey. It offer an advertiser a package that allows it to deliver ad missiles which allow a company like Amazon.com to post its ad whenever a user goes to a rival book site like Barnesandnoble.com.

Despite this, the naysayers continue to abound: Critics say that the service's customer database consists of low networth individuals, that is individuals seeking free internet access, so they are quite useless to advertisers.

However, NetZero's management is quite bullish about its future and is expecting the site to continue to thrive. As are investors who have kept the share pretty much buoyant.

Meanwhile, Livedoor Inc, the Japanese unit of a US internet company, has decided to offer an e-mail service with popular software such as Outlook Express, an internet browser and 50 megabytes of server space for setting up a home page - without having to pay a subscription fee in Japan. The firm was hoping to attract 50,000 subscribers when it started accepting applications on October 29. It's management says the response has been phenomenal. The company is also looking at making money from both subscriptions and advertising.

How many are out there
HERE'S more numbers on the penetration of the internet world wide. US-based The Computer Industry Almanaca says that the US will account for about 110 million users or 43 per cent of the total users by end-1999. The figure for the number of internet users globally is 259 million.

Japan follows the US with 18 million, the UK has 13.98 million, Canada 13.27 million. Germany has 12.29 million and Australia 6.8 million. Brazil is No. 7 on the list with 6.79 million. Number 8 is China with 6.30 million. France follows with 5.69 and South Korea is No.10 on the list at 5.68. Taiwan occupies the No.11 spot with 4.79 million with Italy accounting for 4.75 million users.

The Almanac says there will be 490 million internet users or 79.4 per 1,000 people worldwide at year-end 2002 with 118 per 1,000 people or over 765 million in 2005. The US will have one-third of the users in 2002 declining to 27 per cent of users by 2005.

VSNL service
VSNL internet subscribers who have an account with ICICI can now renew their internet accounts online. The URL for renewal of the account is http://internet.vsnl.net.in/icici. Wonder what other innovations the ISP will come up with? Free internet access hopefully.

(The writer is developing an internet portal http://www.indiantelevision.com and is the editor of The Indian Cab&Sat Reporter. Feel free to e-mail with your comments to television@vsnl.com or television@hotmail.com)