His newsletter, known as _The ULS Report_ (short for “use less stuff”), carried an item about CD-ROM disks. It described them as “an environmentally friendly way to reduce waste and save resources. One CD-ROM, including packaging, weighs under half a pound. The 22 books that it replaces weigh 70 pounds.” Knowingly or not, he was helping to pave the way for the virtual White Rabbit—where the same principles applied. Via the Internet, White Rabbit could advertise to thousands without printing up catalogues for them. Oh, they might request catalogues later, but then they would have prequalified themselves, reducing the solid waste. Lewis Carroll would have approved of the reasoning here. What’s more, unlike paper catalogues, Lilienfeld could update his electronic catalogue to change prices or play up the fastest-selling merchandise. The World Wide Web was the main way to put White Rabbit on the Internet. Once merchants on the Net would have favored a service called Gopher (as in “go-fer-it”) in honor of the mascot at the University of Minnesota. Gopher displayed text very well and needed less bandwidth on the Net than the Web did. But it lacked the pizzazz of the Web-Mosaic combination; that is, the ability to conjure up pictures and even sound so easily. Although Bob used Gopher for digging up scholarly works about the environment, it was like black-and-white television while Web-Mosaic was color and all the more alluring for commercial purposes. Getting White Rabbit on the Web was surprisingly cheap in some ways. The Lilienfelds’ network provider charged JoAnn just $50 a month, plus $2 an hour for when she was using electronic mail or handling other chores. That didn’t include Bob’s time, however. He knew at least the basics of the necessary programming language and didn’t require the services of a consultant to the extent that others might have. Net.business, 3D-Style You can’t _touch_ merchandise on the World Wide Web. But the next best thing may be in store. Virtual reality will let you “walk” through Web businesses and see merchandise in greater detail as you get “closer” to the object on your screen. You can vary the angles, too. So you could use your mouse to tour a parking lot of automobiles. You could spot the Volvo or the Saturn of your dreams, and admire not only the outside but also the interior. No, the Web will never replace actual shopping in most cases, but virtual reality will be increasingly good at helping you screen preliminary choices. Keep an eye out, then, for WebSpace—the new 3D viewer from Silicon Graphics, the California company whose technology helped create many of the special effects in _Jurassic Park_. WebSpace will work as an add-on with popular Web browsers such as Netscape and Spyglass Enhanced Mosaic.