Bob Lilienfeld understood that just as storekeepers in a small town would do well to join the Kiwanis Club, virtual storefronts should be part of Net life. JoAnn would soon go to a toy convention, and at some point, she might well share her impressions with the denizens of misc.kids and similar newsgroups, as opposed simply to touting her products. At the same time, yes, by way of a signature at the bottom of her posts, people on the Net could find out about the toy store. She might even start a mailing list for the receptive. Bob had already shown the success of this model by way of the list and other tools used to promote his consulting activities. A toy-oriented list could be much more than ads. “Going shopping isn’t just spending money,” Lilienfeld observed, “it’s a social phenomenon. It’s seeing people you know, it’s being part of a crowd.” And it’s also picking up gossip and maybe even solid information. “Ultimately the toy store will be bigger than just a toy store,” he said. “We might be providing information on child development, of the appropriateness of certain toys or coloring books. If you’re a model train hobbyist, we might be able to help you hook up with model train users groups.” In fact, by way of the mouse-activated links from White Rabbit to newsgroups and other Web sites, he was already offering much more than just a store. The line between merchants and information providers was blurring in the case of Bob and JoAnn; the higher the quality of the information at White Rabbit, the more it would be a virtual gathering place for people on the World Wide Web. I wasn’t surprised to hear some people say that librarians might be the star sales reps of the future. It wasn’t hype. Information, not just prices and selection of merchandise, would be what drew Netfolks to sites such as the Lilienfeldss’ . Of course Bob Lilienfeld might want to be choosy about what links he listed. If he listed too many of the mediocre ones, then he would simply be replicating the function of the powerful search programs on the Web and adding to people’s “information overload,” to use an ever-popular phrase. Software already let sophisticated Netfolks zero in on items of interest. Merely by typing in the word “toys,” for example, I could find scads of listings—from mentions of adult sex toys to the Web site advertising the gun that fired Ping-Pong balls. And these programs would soon be simple enough for even technoklutzes to use. So the Lilienfelds had better offer something that the software could not supply: Their judgments about which Web sites, newsgroups, and mailing lists were the most fun or most informative.