FRESNO, Calif. --
Since its initial public rollout in May of 1997, Tower2000.com has attracted
steady accelerated growth in popularity and visitors from all around the world.
Fresno's historic Tower District is now known worldwide as a legendary
place of eclectic theaters, classy restaurants, music and live entertainment thanks
to the technical and creative efforts of the Palo Alto Web design firm, Web
Portal Inc.
Many of those who sought and found fortunes in Silicon
Valley could just as easily have found them in Fresno's Tower District. But a
certain type of person who has made it big in Silicon Valley and in the Tower
District this year, probably could not have made it big at any other time
in history.
Take
Laurie Kobliska, for example. She's from Fresno and now lives in Fremont. Laurie
was built to work on the frontier of economic life when the frontier was once
again up for grabs. She's at ease with the new technology.
She is what the next big thing is all about - the
selling of digital things. Laurie is the editor & publisher of Mother Wire
Magazine, which she launched in 1996 on a shoestring and which is now an advertising
profit center for this thirty-something phenom.
"Traditionally, "she says, companies persuaded people
to invest in them by making money. Now, in this digital economy companies persuade
people to invest in them first and hope profits will follow."
In this new economy, "The perception of success
leads to success, and the perception of failure pushes you over the edge." Especially,
in this post Y2K economy. "You must be able to project your company Web
site as a vision of the future.
The most appealing companies become those in a state of
pure possibility." In other words, Kobliska concludes, "...To master the forces
of risk-taking and disruptive change and to hitch a ride on the next big thing,
you must have a concept of the market and its products that will, given a small
push, ignite the imagination and change the world. Profits will follow.
Laurie Kobliska is the ideal version of a digital
American frontier woman, boldly pioneering where none has gone before then moving
on to yet another vista while others try to duplicate her accomplishments.
In relating her success story to TNT, Kobliska gives
an enthusiastic account of even more complicated engineering feats involved in
the creation of her newest project, InteriorDeco.com
the most advanced cameo style interior decorator online in the world. Laurie makes
no attempt to hide the fact that she relies on the world web design leader, Web
Portal Inc. as her utopian guide to this particular moment in Internet history.
Laurie's two World Wide Web companies are -- lnteriorDeco.com
(which pioneered the possibilities of automated Internet computer-sales and ordering
system) and the MotherWire.com
(which aims to computerize chats about child care, education, and family health
care management).
This writer discovered the virtual experience Laurie
built into InteriorDeco.com - the one surfer's experience riding the crest
of a tsunami. It is one personal discovery and technical astonishment.
No wonder Laurie Kobliska's success story is revolutionizing the American digital
economy.
The post-millennium world will be a mass economy
where rewards are for specialization and consumption. It's an information rich
society where people are less reliant on specialists. A digital economy where
there is a higher ratio of information to mass, demands more knowledge by each
participant in management, and more information technology demand from remote
consumers.
Laurie puts it this way, "I discovered the secret
of digital marketing by studying the design and layout of the Tower 2000 [tower2000.com]
news site designed by Tom Hobbs' firm, WebPortal Inc. [www.webportal.com] in Palo
Alto."
She says, "That's when I realized the curtain had
begun to rise on the experience economy, where business of all kinds is an actor
on a stage. If you're good at you gain market share of the worldwide audience.
My Web page must be engineered to provide a memorable experience. That's what
the Web Portal design labs does for you.
The goods and services offered by my company's Web
site are only the "props " and "scenery" that help create the unique experience
which engages my customers in a personal way."
