Commercialization of the WWW

By 1996 it became obvious to most publicly traded companies that a public Web presence was no longer optional.[citation needed] Though at first people saw mainly[citation needed] the possibilities of free publishing and instant worldwide information, increasing familiarity with two-way communication over the "Web" led to the possibility of direct Web-based commerce (e-commerce) and instantaneous group communications worldwide. More dotcoms, displaying products on hypertext webpages, were added into the Web.