New I-commerce plans may make 1998 the year business booms.(Between the Lines) (Internet/Web/Online Service Information)(Column)

I-commerce hype still outpaces the reality, but based on announcements expected at Internet World this week, I'm going to go out on a limb to predict that 1998 may be the year of tangible Internet-commerce.

In the ideal I-commerce world, shoppers reach for their browser as easily as they reach for their car keys. That won't happen until the industry addresses several issues: financial institutions' skittishness over the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol for credit-card transactions over the Net, merchant concerns about updating existing processes and systems, and (most importantly) consumer concerns about credit-card security.

The recent three-month …