The substance-to-hype ratio for Internet innovations has been pretty impressive so far. As promised a few years ago, today we can shop, download music, and chat with nearly anyone in the world online. But what happened to all that talk about abolishing rush hour forever and working from home? Whatever opportunities our dot-com economy has created, telecommuting isn't one of them yet.
That's not to say this relatively small segment of the job market has remained static. According to an InfoBeads Technology User Profile study, the total number of telecommuters in the United States jumped from around 5 million at the beginning of January 1998 to almost 7 million just a year later.
And that number will continue to grow. Telecommuting expert Sumita Raghuran, an assistant professor of management at Fordham University, estimates that within five years, the figure will increase about tenfold.
