Internet Companies

Joseph T. Sebastianelli has done it all. He has been a lawyer, a health insurance executive, a hospital administrator and an Internet expert. Now, Sebastianelli, who spent 26 of the last 30 years in health care and insurance in the Philadelphia area, is returning to become the new president and chief executive officer of the Jefferson Health System, the Philadelphia region's largest hospital network. The Jefferson Health System board is scheduled to announce today that Sebastianelli, 55, will succeed Douglas S. Peters, who said in October he would step down as head of the Jefferson system July 1, after 5 1/2 years on the job. Sebastianelli is chairman and chief executive officer of RealMed Corp.

Internet Capital Group Inc., the Wayne company that invests in e-commerce start-ups, said yesterday that two Hong Kong investors offered to pay $100 million in cash for ICG's stake in its Asia subsidiary. ICG had purchased 53 percent of ICG Asia Ltd. for $116.8 million last year. ICG Asia manages business-to-business exchanges in Asia. The sale of its interest in ICG Asia is another move by the company - once worth more than General Motors Corp. - to pare operations and conserve funds in a market climate that no longer favors Internet companies.

Personal sympathy for Warren V. "Pete" Musser abounded yesterday, but investor and corporate reaction to his ouster as chief executive officer of Safeguard Scientifics Inc. was muted. Musser, who founded what became Safeguard in 1953, resigned under pressure as the Wayne-based holding company struggles to rebound from the market collapse of its Internet investments and its own stock price. "I'm sorry that it happened to him," said Ralph Roberts, chairman of Comcast Corp., who bought his first cable system from Musser.

Infonautics Inc., one of the first Internet companies in the Philadelphia area, has agreed to be acquired by Tucows Inc., a Toronto firm that sells domain names and distributes software online. The fate of troubled Infonautics' 40 remaining employees and its King of Prussia office remains to be determined, officials of both companies said yesterday. There was no doubt, however, that the deal would mark the end of the Infonautics name, though the company's 80,000-subscriber Electric Library online-research service and its Internet-trolling Sleuth Web sites will survive, at least for the time being.

Two formerly high-flying Internet companies in the area are downsizing dramatically, and one of them is moving out of the region completely. 4Anything Network, an online search company in Wayne, said it would hand out pink slips today to 40 of its 54 employees - 74 percent of its workforce. Meanwhile, U.S. Interactive Inc., an Internet-services consulting firm, confirmed yesterday that it would be closing its King of Prussia headquarters by March 23 and laying off the remaining 43 workers there.

Since its New York Stock Exchange debut on Aug. 5, Internet Capital Group shares have tripled in price, to around $60, and market value, to $7 billion, triple the worth of its corporate godparent and largest shareholder, Safeguard Scientifics. Internet Capital, of Wayne, jumped $5.375 to $58.875 yesterday when Merrill Lynch analyst Henry Blodget estimated that the company's stock would more than double, to $125, by 2001. Merrill Lynch managed the stock sale, so you wouldn't expect its analysts to trash it. Blodget's report is a giddy list of openly rosy assumptions studded with warning lights.

For three years, a veteran developer has been frustrated in his efforts to provide a supermarket and clean up a blighted area between the Fairmount and Brewerytown sections of the city. The empty hulk of the former distribution center for the Acme grocery chain, looming over the neighborhood, has frightened away potential retail tenants despite considerable effort by the developer, Slavko Slavko Brkich, and city officials. The project still lacks financing, and no deals have been signed.

One click away. " That, according to Philadelphia's chief information officer, is how far city government is from using the Internet to streamline the delivery of government services. It couldn't happen a moment sooner. As Daily News staff writer Michael Hinkelman reports today on Page 29, Philadelphia's city government is getting ready to unveil its new Web site, its business card to the virtual world of the Internet, where people are increasingly turning to make purchases, get information and - in many cities - pay taxes and report problems.

In Ridley Township and Folcroft Borough just outside Philadelphia, a fierce battle is being fought door by door, salesperson by salesperson, phone call by phone call. And this is one fight you don't want to break up. The combatants - upstart telecommunications company RCN Corp., of Princeton, and Philadelphia's own cable company/sports-team collector, Comcast Corp. - are locked in a battle for cable-TV and high-speed Internet customers. On some streets, as RCN salespeople spread out to talk to potential customers in their homes, Comcast reps race to beat them to the doors.

Back in the 1800s, while New York, Boston and Baltimore were enjoying the energy benefits of gas, Philadelphia was still in the dark ages. City government, according to the massively detailed history book "Philadelphia," was too suspicious of the new technology. It wasn't until Samuel V. Merrick, an advocate for gas lighting, was elected to City Council and pushed the issue that a gas plant was built along the Schuylkill River.Philadelphia's streets were finally lit by the warm light of gas. History once again is repeating itself, with New York, Boston, San Jose and other cities enjoying a new technology - the Internet.