The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito prepared for publication in Direct magazine.

For the past three years, the U.S. stockmarket was infected with an anomaly that produced the phenomenon know as "dot com" fever. Venture capitalists and Mom and Pop investors alike were sure that pouring money into any of the latest hot new Internet ventures was the sure road to financial riches. It was the kind of dillusion that often results from a high fever. If dilirium's onset in ordinary adults begins when a fever hits 104 degrees, "dot com" fever must have caused body temperatures to soar to 105.

Judging from the stockmarket these days, the fever seems to have broken. Ordinary investors and those with "smart money" appear to have regained some sensibility. No longer is the Internet believed to be the yellow brick road.

Some within what is often called the postal community still seem to be suffering their own version of dot com fever. For them the symptoms appear as a stalwart belief that the Internet (particularly e-mail and the World Wide Web) will void the need to publish and distribute printed catalogs. Of course, that's as much a sign of dot com fever-induced dilirium as is investors' fantasies.

After experimenting with doing business with this new medium, magazine publishers and catalog marketers alike are beginning to realize that publishing on the web still requires a prodigious amount marketing to induce easily distracted minds to visit and return often to your web site. And when it comes to searching out and grabbing eyeballs, there's nothing that beats the mail.

They say there are 20 million people in the United States who use the Internet everyday. There are, however, about a quarter of a billion people who call the United States home. While not everyone has access to an Internet-enabled computer, practically every person in America has access to a mailbox. Whether we like it or not, mail is still the only medium that can reach every home and business in America.

There is a point to be made, and it's this. Mail is now and will remain an important part of our nation's communications and economic infrastructure. It's as important to American businesses as telephones, transportation, and utilities. In short, it's too important to be given only the most fleeting of thought, largely at postal rate increase time.

Many within the "direct merchant" industry have taken mail too much for granted, and have devoted little energy, time, or thought to the challenges our nation's postal system is facing within its current legislative and regulatory guise. I have no doubt that thinking about matters such as postal reform is enough to give most direct marketers a headache. Knowing that, however, does not relieve us of the necessity to work our way through the pain.