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Why Bill stepped down
He wants to run for president -- and a cornucopia of other "top 10" reasons from our e-mailbag.
By Salon Technology Staff
[01/18/00]

Technology: View from the top
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[01/18/00]

Does AOL Time Warner spell trouble for new-media companies?
Lots of Web companies count on visitors from AOL. Will they get as many when the online service owns its own content?
By Janelle Brown
[01/14/00]

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The geeks vs. the marketroids
The AOL-Time Warner deal sets the freewheeling Internet on a collision course with the masters of mass-market convenience.
By Scott Rosenberg
[01/14/00]

Digital dad
I thought the Net belonged to my generation, until my father surprised me with his start-up.
By Janelle Brown
[01/13/00]

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Webvan, Peapod and other online grocers can drop off the ingredients for a nice fettucine Alfredo, but you need cookbooks, pots, a clean shirt. Kozmo will deliver videos, snacks and other stuff for the bachelor lifestyle in less than an hour -- but not wine glasses or fresh towels or the kind of stuff that might impress Mom. Besides, you're still at work and wouldn't be home to get a delivery. You're in trouble.

Soon, however, Mom's surprise visit may not induce a panic attack. A bevy of start-ups are focusing on how best to deliver the goods you buy online. Shipper.com will soon offer same-day delivery of housewares, clothing and all kinds of stuff that you might pick up at a mall today. Already, Streamline.com is delivering groceries and providing door-to-door service for dry cleaning, shoe repair and photo development on a weekly basis to the suburbs of Boston and Washington. (It has plans to expand, starting in New Jersey and Illinois.) And several firms are developing secure boxes to receive deliveries when you're not home.

What all of these companies are attempting to do is make the physical logistics of e-commerce really work. Nobody likes coming home to those yellow sticky notes -- and almost nobody can wait around the house all day for a delivery. We need better solutions.

"People love the front end of the Web," says Carter Griffin, co-founder of MentalPhysics. His Vienna, Va., company is designing secure delivery bins that will accept goods when you're not around to sign for them. "It's a sexy way to shop. But the fulfillment mechanism often breaks down, making it an ultimately unfulfilling experience for a lot of consumers."

As anyone who has ever tried to hold down a job and take possession of something sent via the United Parcel Service (UPS) knows, the ability to receive packages at home when you're not there would make buying things online a whole lot more appealing.

Streamline takes a novel approach to solving the "Sorry we missed you" problem. For $30 a month, the company will not only schlep your stuff across town, but will install an electronic lock to your garage or basement and lend you a fridge or shelves, so they can make secure deliveries even when you're not home. It's like giving the milkman a key, but only to your refrigerator, says Kate Carswell, a Streamline marketing manager.

Rather than give couriers access to your home, MentalPhysics's approach is to attach a tamper-proof box to your house; the box's lock will be wired to the Internet, and when you make an online purchase, a temporary access code will be assigned to the courier. Once he or she has opened the box, the code will be deactivated.

"We're looking at a tectonic shift here in the way retail commerce works," says Griffin.

Next page | Futuristic mailboxes and late-night deliveries