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SCMP Reporter

Hong Kong has enjoyed commercial Internet access for six years, but 1998 is likely to be seen as the year it finally came to grips with the Internet.

 Much like the real world, sports and pornography are about the Net's most popular content. As far as porn is concerned, we did not see anything special - unless you count the Clinton Zippergate tapes [www.maddogproductions.com/ starr.htm].

 But sports coverage from sites such as ESPN [www.espn.com] has become a serious money-spinner.

 In this year's month-long football orgy, France 98 was the competition's on-line debut, and the official site at [www.worldcup98.com] took as many as 59 million hits per day - the biggest hit rate since the Nagano Winter Olympics [www.nagano.olympic.org].

 Locally, the Hong Kong Football Association [www.isfa.com] now provides fans with a stylish site offering league tables, results, news stories and photographs on all the local teams.

 Sports Connections promises to bring alternative sports to Hong Kong via its site [www.sportsconnections.com.hk]. It is a beautiful-looking Shockwave-powered site, and holds much promise.

 Off-shore betting on sports events came to Hong Kong when EasyBets [www.easybets.com] launched in English and Chinese to offer betting on football, basketball, boxing and horse-racing.

 The Internet can bring current events to the desktop in a way news has never been delivered before - interactively. US space agency NASA has produced some of the most fascinating and informative sites, with the Lunar Prospector home page [lunar.arc.nasa.gov] and the Galileo mission to Jupiter [galileo.ivv.nasa.gov] offering live shots from space unlike anything we have seen on television.

 Closer to home, the Hong Kong Tourist Association's redesigned and relaunched site [www.hkta.org] offers excellent Web-cam views over the harbour - when the air quality is good. Even on smoggy days, there is a stack of archive footage on-line to check out.

 If the 1980s were the decade of dissent by fax, the Internet has now taken its place as the dissident tool of the new era. Whether in Malaysia or the mainland, dissidents are posting views on-line to be printed out and distributed to the masses.

 Mainland human rights sites are listed on-line at Human Rights In China [www.igc.apc.org/hric/index.html], but the site that gained the most attention was the semi-official Chinese Society for Human Rights [www.humanrights-china.org].

 Publicity surrounding its launch in October quickly led to its downfall as hackers cracked the site and replaced it with a rant of their own design [www. antionline.com/archives/pages/china rights].

 Web cynics have long regarded the Internet as a threat to our privacy, but ironically, it has been a boon to exhibitionists.

 Health Network [www.ahn.com] in the United States broadcast the world's first on-line birth in June, an event only eclipsed by the mother's arrest shortly afterwards on fraud charges. It seems the woman was a wanted felon who had not imagined she might be recognised when the world tuned in.

 The world almost remembered the first time for two teenagers who promised to lose their virginity live and on-line [www.ourfirsttime.com]. The whole thing was a hoax, but the organisers are still on the lookout for the right pair of exhibitionists to get the ball rolling again.

 For Hong Kong, the ultimate embarrassment was the July opening of the new airport at Chek Lap Kok. The Airport Authority's Hong Kong International Airport Web site [www.hkairport.com] naturally does its best to show the project in a favourable light, so it stopped updating the Key Dates and Events section in June.

 Among the biggest beneficiaries of the on-line commerce boom have been discount brokerages. US brokers have reaped fortunes by offering budget trades on the Nasdaq exchange, and the slump has not discouraged Hong Kong start-ups from trying their luck.

 Boom Securities [www.boom.com] in March let Hong Kongers trade in SAR securities without leaving their keyboards. It followed up in May with a Chinese-language service, making it the first bilingual trading service in town.

 In October, it was joined by splendidly named Celestial Asia Securities Holdings, or Cash [www.cash.com.hk]. While Boom uses third-party brokerages, Cash became the first to offer direct Web trading in Hong Kong stocks.

 Park'N Shop was not the first local supermarket to hit the Web, but its new site [www.parknshop.com] makes an excellent introduction to consumer e-commerce. Fast, colourful and easy to use, Park'N Shop's Cyberstore stands up in any company as a world-class e-commerce site.

 After a string of disappointments, Cityline unveiled its long-awaited on-line reservation system [www.cityline. com.hk], where you can read reviews, buy movies and book seats at any UA cinema in Hong Kong.

 On the subject of movies, Jackie Chan in August opened a site to promote his autobiography I am Jackie Chan; My Life In Action [www.randomhouse.com/ features/iamjackiechan].

 Besides the book, the site also has many on-line diversions that should attract visitors, even if they have no interest in reading. And face it, when you have got the Web, who has time for reading? NEIL TAYLOR neiltaylor@bigfoot.com 



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