Benton continues the What's Going On series with Losing Ground Bit by Bit: Low-Income Communities in the Information Age drawing attention to the digital divide.
As part of a Kellogg Foundation initiative on libraries and community information, Benton undertakes strategic communications research published as Buildings, Books and Bytes: Libraries and Communities in the Digital Age and produces a communications toolkit, The Future's in the Balance: A Toolkit for Libraries and Communities in the Digital Age.
Between 1998-2000, Benton begins a series of online service hubs that demonstrate the power of the Internet to aggregate online resources, provide interactive forums, and report on communications issues such as Bridging the Digital Divide (digitaldividenetwork.org funded by corporate and private foundations including AOL and AT&T, and the Gates, Kellogg and Markle Foundations).
- There are over one million websites on the Internet.
- Digital television transmission begins at 26 stations in the top 10 markets.
- Google founded.