About Page

What is Swatch Internet Time?

It is a new system of time developed by the Swatch company.  It involves setting the current day into 1000 "beats" instead of 24 hours.  Internet Time eliminates the need for geographical time zones, perfect for the internet.

Internet Time was inaugurated on the 23rd of October in 1998 in Biel, Switzerland.  There is a marker at the Swatch International Headquarters in Biel.  Biel is one time zone ahead of Greenwich, which makes the local time there (GMT+1).

Biel, Switzerland is the home of Biel Meridian Time (BMT) which is where internet time is based.  At midnight BMT, internet time is @000.

Why a new Internet Time?

Many people respond and claim that the existing time system works well, and there is no purpose in changing over to a new time system.  This is true... to a point.  The existing time system works well within one time zone.  But when catching flights between various countries, or reading news reports on the internet, 1:18 PM PST does not mean much compared with @929.  The @929 means that it is one time all across the world.  Now that the world is becoming interdependent, it will become even more useful to have a central time system.  Plus, it just makes more sense to have a system based on Base 10.  Really, metric is better.

Possible uses of the new Internet Time:

• Online chatting, and online gaming are the most immediate uses for internet time, as people from all over the world are communicating.

• International, or trans-time zone flights are made simpler when transferring from one station to the next.

• Project collaboration with people from all over the world becomes easier when everyone is using the same time system.

• Timing of news posting on the internet can be more clear to determine exactly when a news item was published.

• Events viewed worldwide, such as a soccer match or the Olympic Games can post times in internet time so that no confusion about local time zones exists.

• Metric-like base-10 time system allows for simpler calculations for scientific and mathematical problems involving time.

Problems with Swatch Internet Time:

• The Swatch "branding" of the time may be a disincentive for other watchmakers to produce watches that display internet time.

• Why use BMT?  GMT would be a much better meridian because it is already accepted worldwide.

• "seconds" for beats would be really helpful, example @929.42 is more precise than just @929.  A proposal?  Expand the vocabulary to include metric prefixes such as millibeats and kilobeats.  This would allow for a greater range of measurement possibilities.  Check out the naming conventions page for more on this.

However, on the internet, there are already ports of internet time without the Swatch logos, etc.  And the "seconds" functions will come along eventually as the system catches on.  As for BMT... it's not perfect but hey, it doesn't really matter where the time is based when it's the same time everywhere!

Tell the world what you think of Swatch internet time at our message board  You can talk about your own problems with internet time, or what you think about the swatch watches, or even just ask questions for the people who work with the stuff.

In case you missed the above links, check out the naming conventions page.

About the fan page

This website is designed to be a fan site for Swatch Internet Time.  I am always open to suggestions by viewers if you think any particular change could be necessary.  I try to make the page as easy to load as possible because of my slow server.  To accommodate this, I only use a few small images, and mostly text.

These pages were designed in FrontPage 98 and FrontPage 2000 beta.  They have been tested extensively in MSIE 5 beta for Wintel.  Also, I test them occasionally in Netscape 3.02, 4.08, 4.5, and even Mozilla binaries.  All of the above browsers are running on either a Win95 or WinNT OS.  I know that Mozilla has a lot of trouble with my CSS... (thanks Brian!) but if your browser can't read the page let me know and I will try to remedy that!

Style Sheets capability and a Java-capable browser are strongly recommended, because this website takes liberal advantage of both.   The page should be visible to those in the audience that still use a 600x480 resolution, though it is designed for 800x600.  Also, this page uses the Tahoma and the Arial fonts quite frequently.  And of course I use many colors for the header graphic.   If you are using this page without the full use of the above capabilities, you may be missing some of the full effect of the page.  However I have tried to make the page so that you can still read it.   It's just not as pretty without the above features.

About the Author

Ryan Thiessen (that's me!) is a hard working 3rd year student at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC, Canada) in the faculty of Commerce and Business Administration.  I like internet time because I developed a similar system (10 "hours", 1000 "minutes" in a day) but it never caught on (perhaps because I never published it).  Plus I tend to be in favor of new, innovative systems.

If you want to write me, my email address is ryanthiessen@iname.com.  Feel free to ask me questions about the Swatch Internet Time, or about anything else that comes to mind.  If you are really bored, check out my personal home page at www.ryan.thiessen.com where it tells you all about my personal life.  If you think that could be interesting, you are horribly mistaken! :)

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05 Mar 99@041.23