The Internet is just a fad." That statement by a respondent to the EE Times salary survey seemed pretty funny last fall. But in some ways, the response was on the mark.

The number of people who find info on the Web is growing faster than the number of reality shows on TV. But the paucity of users who actually conduct a business transaction, find a job or complete an interaction on the Web certainly lends credence to the survey respondent's view that the Internet is but a blip on the world of commerce. Although job advertising, for example, is a big success story for Web companies, "phone a friend" is still the way most engineers find jobs.

The paradox of the Internet is that for every good it does, it breeds a new annoyance. That was driven home a couple of weeks back, when a media representative for a former member of Detroit's Big Three called from Europe regarding another survey we had sent out.

We had asked press-relations people to send us about five data points-simple things like corporate revenues and the number of patents issued last year.

"You can look that up on the Web," he said. "Just download our annual report and search through it. That's what I would have to do."

Does the Internet breed thoughtlessness, or has this guy always been a jerk, like the information desk attendant who tells you where to find a map? How ironic it would be if a technology created to speed and simplify communications ended up creating even more people with whom no one cares to communicate.

The virtues of being helpful and taking time to create a better working environment are often extolled on these pages by other columnists. It was good advice when we all learned it growing up, and it won't lose its value even if the Internet does indeed become a primary vehicle for conducting transactions.

It pays to have a sense of humor when dealing with the downside of the Internet. When you're trying to manage finances through a site that only works sporadically, like Scudder University, it helps to laugh at the fact that Scudder should be able to pay for network administrators who are graduates of a university, not still undergrads.

Indeed, the prediction that the Internet would prove to be just a fad was pretty funny-perhaps as unintentionally comical as another question on last year's salary survey: "How interested are you in going to work for a dot-com company?"

Internet searches are fruitful, then fruitless, then frustrating-just like using the phone, or attending a trade show.

That's a truth that, I'm sorry to say, is not just a fad.

http://www.eetimes.com/