The Birth of a Corporate Myth:

"Internet Time represents a completely new global concept of time: No
Time Zones. No Geographical Borders. Swatch has divided the virtual and
real day into 1000 'beats.' One Swatch beat is the equivalent of 1
minute 26.4 seconds. That means that 12 noon in the old time system is
the equivalent of @500 Swatch beats." "Every watch is equipped with a
new universal time created by Swatch. It is the same all over the world.
The current time 24h divided into 1000 units (beats). 000 Internet time
is midnight in Biel, the home of Swatch (during Swiss winter time). This
is equivalent to UTC+1 (Universal Time Coordinated, former GMT,
Greenwich Mean Time)." –from: http:/www.swatch.com/internettime

Amongst the first users of the "Swatch beat": CNN Interactive
(http://www.cnn.com), Pioneer Electronics Service,
(http://www.pioneerservice.com), CarEngineer Automotive Knowledge Base
(http://www.CarEngineer.com), http://dancewarez.cjb.net,
(kongsgaard.com/internet.time), the nu paradigm,
http://www.paradigm.nu/itime/internettime.htm, Warez My Ass
(http://www.justfun.demon.nl/index.html), http://www.bump.net,
http://www.yazno.de, Slovenian Internet Directory
(http://www.slowwwenia.com), http://www.matthewkingston.com,
http://members.xoom.com/debralim –from: Internet Time Fan Page (2 fans
so far…): http://ryan.thiessen.com/swatch/websites.htm

"The system's meridian is located, conveniently enough, over the Swatch
building in Biel, Switzerland, where midnight strikes @000 beats. The
company has also made software that displays Internet time on a computer
screen available free from its site on the World Wide Web. About 45,000
people downloaded it in January. Perhaps it is not surprising that the notion
of a world without time zones strikes a chord even among some of the more
gimmick-weary Internet users. With its capacity to collapse distance, the
computer network has already managed to alter the physics of space. And
whether or not Internet time