The first comprehensive book on the Australian Internet, Virtual Nation offers a surprising, thought-provoking, and rigorous introduction to a technology that we now can't do without.

This title was first published in 2000: The book will be a set of essays addressing various aspects of regulation. It will concentrate on regulation as a precondition of successfully operating markets - by opening up markets and establishing conditions of trust. It will cover a broad range of varied forms of regulation. The book will respond to recent developments, for example, the shift from deregulation to better regulation will be explored. Most chapters will be written jointly by an academic and a legal practitioner (from the commercial solicitors firm of Shepherd and Wedderburn), thus ensuring an integration of theoretical analysis with practical problems.

"Addressing the ongoing quest for teaching excellence in an increasingly technological society, the information presented in this volume addresses how to effectively implement teaching technologies across disciplinary boundaries. The scholarly dimensions of belief, inquiry, argument, and reflection in information systems are presented with attention to educational theories of metacognition, technology literacy, and community informatics. Training for e-business and public agency work are discussed to better equip instructors for the distinctive information needs of these sectors."

Compiles top research from the world's leading experts on many topics related to electronic commerce. Covers topics including mobile commerce, virtual enterprises, business-to-business applications, Web services, and enterprise methodologies.

The Internet is revolutionizing retail merchandising and shopping. Software agents are capable of automating the more routine, tedious and time-consuming tasks involved in the trading process. Internet Commerce and Software Agents: Cases, Technologies and Opportunities addresses some major Internet commerce issues and the challenges to be met in achieving automated and secure Internet trading.

Every day trillions of dollars circulate the globe in a digital data space and new forms of property and ownership emerge. Massive corporate entities with a global reach are formed and disappear with breathtaking speed, making and breaking personal fortunes the size of which defy imagination. Fictitious commodities abound. The genomes of entire nations have become corporately owned. Relationships have become the overt basis of economic wealth and political power. Hypercapitalism explores the problems of understanding this emergent form of global political economic organization by focusing on the internal relations between language, new media networks, and social perceptions of value. Taking an historical approach informed by Marx, Phil Graham draws upon writings in political economy, media studies, sociolinguistics, anthropology, and critical social science to understand the development, roots, and trajectory of the global system in which every possible aspect of human existence, including imagined futures, has become a commodity form.

The world's banking systems could not exist without the sophisticated technology that now forms its base. But systems age, software becomes outdated, and customer service then suffers and new product introductions are delayed. Banking Strategies Beyond 2000 is not just a review of available banking technology; rather, it is a practical and impartial review of how financial services and banking institutions can re-evaluate strategies and incorporate new technology and systems in order to enhance productivity, improve customer service, build new business, and improve the bottom line overall.