Archives

We seem to have missed a great web-flower.

David Strom is a well placed journalist who covers the Internet for InfoWorld , CBS, Forbes ASAP, and others. He's been writing a weekly column. called the Web Informant, since late September, 1995. The articles are compact little gems and can be received via email by subscribing at his site.

The material has a solid industry orientation with some interesting musings on the evolution of the Web. It's similar to Dave-Net with a more regular pulse. Definitely worth a visit.

Dwight Eisenhower once said, "The plan is everything, the plan is nothing." By this, he meant that the best way to learn to see beyond the limits caused by your current successes is to continually plan and replan knowing full well that the final result is preparedness not detailed control. Or, plans are maps of uncharted territories that are useful for wrestling with principles and imagining scenarios. The actual reality is guaranteed to be different than the map you create in the planning process.

We got to thinking about the importance of strategy and planning after reading a provocative essay called Digital Sculptures by Leo Schwab, a visonary at the 3DO company. By imagining the consequences of technology 400 years from now,the essay tries to track back to contemporary assumptions about media. At the bottom line, it says that we've begun a journey into an era where everything is infinitely reproducible. Therefore, it goes on, thinking about things as if the "form" mattered is counterproductive. We agree.

The problem is that not all of our current assumptions are rooted in traditional manufacturing ideas. A close look at the last two decades of Western Business history shows an increasing dependence on process management and a de-emphasis on inspection as a means of control. These are precisely the adaptive qualities required by our new era. So, the strategic trick is figuring out which of our existing assumptions will continue to be useful. New assumptions will unfold and we need a way to tell what baggage is unnecessary.

We think that business ultimately has an edge in this arena. Underneath all of the broohaha and changing fads, business is the process of creating value through a series of relationships. Form is fundamentally irrelevant (though the biggest trap most businesses fall into is identifying themselves with a particular product or way of doing things). Adaptive businesses continually re-invent themselves adding novelty and new value to existing structures. Interestingly, that's what the web seems to require.

Netree says that it's the "shortest path to the rest of the Web". While we're unsure about the claim, Netree wins major points for information design in our book. The site is a mix of a clever directory tree and links to "Instant News". While packed with info, the screen is entirely navigable and responds quicly. We like it.

Netree is an offering from Internet Solutions who use it as a gateway introduction to the rest of their services. We admire the forthrightness of the approach and point to it as a model of how to do Web Marketing.

In yesterdays's mail, we received a jubilant press release from an organization calling itself the Virtual Magistrate Project. The project's "first case" was "settled". The dispute, between AOL and a mass email firm, was resolved by determining that AOL should remove a posting announcing the sale of huge email lists.

Here's what we don't get: Only AOL participated in the dispute resolution. Sounds like more of the same questionable logic that has dogged the commercial development of the Web. We're, frankly, too stupid to figure out how arbitration can have meaning when both parties don't participate. It's not that we favor indiscriminate email (a horribly ineffective tactic). It's that we'd be ashamed to be associated with this sort of bogus quasi-legal boondoggle.

Invoking the vague concept of "Internet Custom", the one sided arbitration attempted to put a legalistic face on a witch-hunt. This sort of ill-considered public relations ploy ranks with the current Java Scare (see Last week's Fear Sells) for slimy self promotion stunt of the month. If ethical business practice and arbitration are the desired outcomes, we suggest that the parties visit with Net Check Commerce Bureau (reviewed yesterday). Meanwhile, rational business people will stay away from a world in which processes like this one proliferate.

For all of its promise, the Web has yet to consistently produce a working business model that can be easily applied to online publications. The electronic recruiting industry seems to be taking solid steps towards profitability. Book and music retailing, while not yet profitable, are able to generate a cash-flow that stems some of the losses. Small scale real estate has several shining success stories and some major innovations. Business sites used as a part of an overall advertising campaign are expected to be cost centers.

Publishing, on the other hand, is off to a slow and treacherous start. High profile operations like HotWired have established interesting cashflows but seem to add staff faster than money. The Wall Street Journal (and others) have framed their web offerings as introductory trials to be followed by subscription services. (We still prefer the paper version, kept in the office restrooms.) But, no one has yet to make it work.

It's a kind of blindness that comes from a semantic misunderstanding. Many struggling publications hope to make their money ON the web. We're convinced that business is conducted THROUGH the web. The difference? Doing business THROUGH the web implies that there are relationships and alliances at the root of any business success. Doing business ON the web implies that distribution is at the root of success. It might sound like a minor distinction. We think it's at the root of a whole worldview. Business, per se, can't be conducted ON the web. It can be done, very effectively using the web as a tool.

Launching a new, untested print periodical involves developing a business plan, soliciting startup advertisers and clearly defining audience demographics and targeting. The bulk of the initial outlays are not spent on design and content, rather, they're invested in circulation and ad rate discounting. At the root of a successful launch is a partnership with the companies who will be the long term advertisers in the fledgling product. Unfortunately, the audience, as passionate as it might be, simply receives benefits from the successful business relationships at the heart of the enterprise. There are very few (none come to mind) examples of audience supported media. In the most optimal cases ("public" television and radio) the audience provides 30% of the cashflow required.

It's an interesting paradox. The publishing industry is slow to adopt the Web as a delivery vehicle which makes for market opportunities like Web Review. But, as newcomers to the business, periodical startups lack the publishing experience with developing advertising relationships. It's a central problem in any user designed product.

Last week's article was harsh and we apologize. Reinventing the wheel is hard work and we admire the vision of both 'zines. We prefer swan songs that take responsibility and avoid the delivery of guilt. A 10% response rate (Web Reviews stated survival objective) is "leading with the chin". We'd suggest aiming for 2% and calling in some favors at key ad agencies. It would take reframing the publisher's role at Web Review It would also require solidly pitching quantifiable benefits in a long term partnership with key advertisers. It's at this juncture that real publishing, with all of it's attendant ethical dilemnas, will emerge on the web.

This article was inspired by Robert Seidman's balanced treatment of the question in the current issue of "Online Insider" which should be on your "Required Reading" list by now

In our article on Types of Links, we talked about the fundamental category of links which we called mechanical or commodity links. The very first order of business in developing an internet presence is to arrange as many mechanical links as possible. There are two major approaches.

The "Do It Yourself" approach has some of the basic research work laid out for you. You can vist any of these sites to find ready made access to the major link directories and search engines:

• A1 Index of Free URL Submission Sites: an amazing database of over 600 places to list your site.

• Places to list your WWW Page!, a short but solid starting point

• Our own PROMOPHOBIA which lists about 350 sites.

The range of links offered by either the Do It yourself packages or the paid services are a bare bones beginning to a full promotional campaign. You probably won't be satisfied (for long) with the results of these simple mechanical links. You might remember that we suggest that you'll need around 5,000 inbound links of varying kinds to build economically sustainable traffic to your site. (Obviously, there are any number of caveats to this figure and the real number in any particular case is dependent on your objectives and your industry. The goal, after all is to build the right traffic, not volumes of it.)

There are a few organizations around that will work the next layer of promotion for you. Some target USENET Newsgroups while others conduct focused relationship development campaigns. We'll be bringing you more about these approaches in later issues.