To Our Readers

In 1969 French author Georges Perec published La Disparition, a postmodern mystery thriller. The book is remarkable not only for its compelling plot and literary virtuosity, but because in all its 300-odd pages the letter e does not occur a single time. This week's special report on the Internet in Europe could not have been produced under a similar constraint. Over the past six months, Time correspondents have been scouring the Continent from a remote island off the coast of Estonia to the living room of a German entrepreneur to chronicle how e-commerce and the wireless Web are changing the ways Europeans live, work and play.

Typical of our approach is the triptych of profiles that kicks off the e-Europe special report. Senior technology writer Jennifer L. Schenker followed an entrepreneur as he struggled to get his start-up off the ground; staff writer Jennie James shadowed a venture capitalist as he sized up potential investments; and Romesh Ratnesar, also a staff writer, took a ringside seat during lastminute.com's IPO, one of the highest profile public listings in Europe. Their assignment: get inside the lives and minds of these individuals to discover how they are putting the Web to work.

Schenker, who has been covering the European tech sector for the past 15 years, got to know her profile subject Kristian Dicke, ceo of Matchbid.com in March while munching on tapas at a Barcelona restaurant. The occasion was the European Investment Academy, a kind of boot camp for European Internet entrepreneurs. Schenker was interested in Dicke because "he and his family neatly illustrate Europe's transition from the old economy to the new." Dicke passed up the chance to take over the family firm, a screw manufacturer in the heart of Germany's Ruhr Valley, to create his own Internet company, a business-to-business exchange for the industrial sector. "Companies like Matchbid, which combine old economy expertise with the efficiencies of the Internet, show promise," Schenker says.

Spotting promise is the business of venture capitalist Michael Whitaker, ceo of NewMedia Spark in London. Jennie James followed Whitaker through investment pitches and strategy sessions to explore the role of the VC. "The venture capitalist is the unsung catalyst," James says. "It's the VC who sources the funding and screens entrepreneurs and then brings the two together."

The goal of this matchmaking is an initial public offering, a harrowing process that Romesh Ratnesar witnessed up close with Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox, the founders of lastminute.com. Ratnesar hooked up with lastminute just as the U.S. high-tech bubble reached the breaking point. When the market started to burst, lastminute's prospects exploded too, reminding everyone just how much the fortunes of Europe's dotcoms still depend on those in the U.S. "It's remarkable that when I started reporting this story," Ratnesar says, "lastminute was the toast of Europe's dotcom scene, and now its stock is in the gutter."

Art director Paul Lussier used the sizzling illustrations produced by London-based Why Not Associates to give the package a fresh, sparkling look to match the dynamism of the subject matter. We think and we hope you'll agree that this week's special report captures all the energy and excitement of Europe's new economy.
, Editor, TIME e-Europe