DTN Weather Services Bartered

Traffic Pulse Networks (TPN), a unit of Mobility Technologies, and DTN Weather Services have entered into the Traffic Pulse Partnership Program to develop high-end 2-D and 3-D television graphics and maps to display unique traffic information on TV stations nationally. (WNJU-47 New York will be the first station to showcase the graphic-rich traffic product.)

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Industry Standard Magazine's Third Internet Summit Looks At Implications Of Funding Drought

The Third Annual Internet Summit, a conference hosted by the Industry Standard, was held the first week of August at the tony Four Seasons Aviara, in Carlsbad, California. Here's a summary of the messages at the summit.

According to Mary Meeker, the Morgan Stanley analyst who became famous for charting the rise of the Internet economy, some $727 billion in wealth has been lost by the plunging market value of some 362 internet companies between December 1999 and mid-July. But she indicated that the biggest problem the U.S. suddenly now faces is that of not being willing to continue to take risks.

Meeker estimated that only 24% of the companies that went public in 1999 and 2000 are trading above their offering price, compared with a 53% average historically.

She says the chance to get rich by going public has receded with the stock market's downturn—suggesting that there will be about 20 technology IPOs this year, and possibly 30 to 50 next year—compared with 318 in 1999. Meeker warned that it might take another six to 18 months for the technology sector to work through the excesses created.

John Doerr, the VC known for extolling the wealth created by the Internet, says we're running into an innovation shortfall and contends that Congress should put up $2 billion a year in scholarships to turn out 100,000 more trained technologists a year. Doerr also believes U.S. residency should be granted to graduating foreign-born engineers, "Let's staple a green card to their diplomas."

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Recent Events Show Progress In China

The Shanghai government is lifting restrictions on property purchases by foreigners and will conduct future land sales through an open bidding process. The new rules will allow foreign individuals to purchase a class of property that until now had been off limits to them.

Shanghai's new rules are part of a wider effort in China to spur the domestic property market, which as been slowly digesting massive oversupply resulting from a building boom in the early 1990s. The move reflects a government effort to wean the country off the export-oriented growth it has relied on for two decades.

By encouraging people to buy homes, the government hopes to boost spending on consumer goods—televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.—a pillar of the U.S. economy for decades.

Secondly, China has moved a small step closer to letting foreigners participate fully in the country's domestic stock market, as an approval has been given that marks the first time a partly foreign-owned entity will be allowed to trade shares in China's A share market.

Heretofore, Class A shares had been reserved for local investors only. But now, China International Capital Corp.—a joint venture of U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley and China Construction Bank—will be allowed into this market. According to Q.C. Hua, vice president at J.P. Morgan in Shanghai, "This is a big, big development."

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