Yahoo!, rediff top two sites
Business Standard, (Corporate Bureau), August 4, 2000

Yahoo.com and rediff.com are the top two website accessed by Internet using businessmen and executives in the country.

They are followed by 123india.com and satyamonline.com, at number three and four respectively.

This has emerged from ''net monitor,'' a survey conducted by cyber.org-marg.com, the specialised Internet research division of ORG-MARG, among 24,848 individuals belonging to the upper socio-economic group in eight cities during May and June 2000.

According to the survey, only seven per cent of all Internet using businessmen have conducted any kind of e-commerce transaction for their business over the Net.

With another 11 per cent saying that they plan to conduct some e-commerce transaction on the net within the next one year, the e-commerce revolution in India appears to be at a nascent stage but one that is undeniably gathering momentum.

''Fifteen per cent of all net using businessmen said they have a website for business, and another 17 percent said they intended to develop a website within a year. Another 4 per cent said they would have some web presence but after a year,'' the survey points out.

On an even more upbeat note, the attitude of businessmen and executives towards e-commerce is quite positive-61 per cent of these businessmen and 67 percent of these executives felt that the Internet was a ''very promising'' medium for commerce.

Low awareness and poor infrastructure are likely to be the two key barriers for the development of e-commerce, being cited by 38 per cent and 23 per cent and 27 per cent of the executives respectively. Again, only a few of them felt that the Internet is too risky a medium for commerce (15 per cent of businessmen and 12 per cent of executives).

Many of the executive surfers are relatively new to the Net. ''Forty-one per cent of all junior, mid-level and senior executives accessing the Internet have started doing so as recently as a year ago, and 69 per cent only in the last two years.'' the survey points out.