Net Benefit

WINGHAM ROWAN is the producer and host of British television's long running series covering stories from the Internet, Cyber Cafe. Since the early 1990s he has been researching the possibility of electronic markets for public use with the help of key figures in online trading worldwide.

'This book...is a refreshing new angle on the world of electronic commerce and deserves our serious attention.' - Charles Hardy, The Guardian 'Genuinely original ideas are rare. This is one of them.' - Geoff Mulgan, Prime Minister's Policy Unit, 10 Downing Street 'A wonderful book.' - John Seely Brown, Corporate Vice-President, Chief Scientist and Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) 'Raises a great many thoughts often overlooked and incredibly important.' - Dee W. Hock, Founder, President and CEO Emeritus, Visa International ' Rowan outlines a very persuasive business model and I commend it to anyone interested in creating a viable electronic infrastructure for the twenty-first century.' - Victor Keegan, The Guardian ' In a world where the truly new idea is a rarity, this book provides a host of fresh ideas and new ways of thinking about our economic and social future.' - Ray Hammond, author of Digital Business 'A successful (Guaranteed Electronic Markets) system would become a very powerful brand, much stronger than even the most celebrated of today's retail brands.' - Information Strategy Magazine 'This book is rare in both creating an original vision and at the same time giving almost step-by-step directions as to how this vision could become a reality...I strongly recommend this book as vital reading for anyone involved in e-commerce, and for anybody keen for a glimpse of where I too hope electronic trading may go.' - Interactive Marketing 'Wingham Rowan has dared to think beyond the traditional broadcast metaphor and consider how marketplaces that exploit this medium might operate...His book forces us to question the attention paid to the new Internet superstores, portals and the struggle for megamarkets. It suggests that perhaps these are just comfortable diversions along the way to the real revolution...The real electronic commerce revolution will be much more subtle in its approach and more devastating in its impact. Net Benefit, at the very least, starts us thinking outside the traditional metaphors.' - Amazon.co.uk Customer Comment from Steven Telleen, California 'Earlier this year, I resolved not to wade through any more books about the future of the internet...but my resolution quickly crumbled as I flicked through the first pages of Wingham Rowan's book Net Benefit...Rowan has a simple but immensely powerful idea: why not use the internet to construct a new form of capitalism - a system in which everyone can trade with everyone else, instead of merely becoming customers of such commercial institutions as Amazon, Tesco and British Airways?.' - Laurie Taylor in The Guardian discussing his Radio 4 interview with the author

• Introduction: A New Frontier for Electronic Trade PART 1: HOW A GUARANTEED ELECTRONIC MARKETS SYSTEM MIGHT WORK Demonstration: Hiring Accommodation for a Night Demonstration: Connected Transactions - Hiring a Van and Driver A Public Electronic Market for Capital PART 2: A NEW CAPITALISM: THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF GUARANTEED ELECTRONIC MARKETS Portfolio Working Available to All Empowered Consumers Diminished Functions for Government PART 3: E-TRADE BECOMES POLITICISED: THE BATTLE FOR GUARANTEED MARKETS Likely Support for Government Backed Markets: the Coming Limitations of E-commerce How a Government could Instigate a Guaranteed Electronic Markets System PART 4: BUSINESS IN AN AGE OF GUARANTEED ELECTRONIC MARKETS Could Business Hold Out Against the New Marketplace ? Responding to a New Flexibility Appendices