The Bermuda Chamber of Commerce can act as conduit for companies wanting to promote themselves online, the organisation's Internet advisor said this week.

The Chamber of Commerce is a highly recognised brand name and has an existing network as well as defined services and mutual cooperation at the international level, Bill Storie said at a Bermuda Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting on Wednesday at the Hamilton Princess.

Businesses with an E-mail address and a home page are only putting about five percent of the Internet's global marketing potential to work for them, he said.

Businesses need to go beyond these basics and target the right people who are online, he said.

The latest evidence of the Internet explosion is the massive increase in web sites internationally, he said.

In December, 1994 there were 29,000 web sites. By January of this year that number had grown to 170,000. In April there were 276,000 sites and the latest July figure, 484,718, he said.

"I would estimate that for every piece of information available in hard copy form, only about ten percent of it is on the Internet,'' he said.

And Goldman Sachs estimates that by the year 2000, there will be one million businesses on the Internet, he added.

"Now tell me, if you have a home page you'll be easily found on the web.'' One local initiative is the Chamber's global business exchange. Local Chamber members can put together an advertisement sanctioned by the Bermuda Chamber on this network.

The Bermuda Chamber also has an Internet advisory board which approves web sites, among them is the The Royal Gazette's GazetteNet. Risk & Insurance Management, Inc., Business Insurance as well as the US National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) are others.

And the Chamber recently announced a significant Internet link with Paris-based International Bureaux for Chambers of Commerce (IBCC).

Through the international organisation's IBCCNet, Bermuda's Chamber is linked to 800 chambers worldwide. It is estimated that that number is growing by about 15 percent per month. Linked to those chambers are thousands of members and their millions of customers. Paris' Chamber alone has 12,000 staff, an annual budget of $250 million and 275,000 members.

IBCC has strategically chosen to be an intermediary for business on the Internet.

In the global business environment, "the new sun that is rising is called the Internet, a phenomenon on which time and distance are no longer factors, a borderless economy,'' IBCC's global Internet project director Charles Collins said.

"(But) for those who have invented the past, the urge to preserve it can be overwhelming.'' Mr. Collins, who developed the strategic plan for the IBCC web site, one of the largest commercial projects on the Internet, estimated that of the 10,000 chambers of commerce worldwide, 4,000 to 5,000 will be linked to IBCCNet.

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