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The advertising industry is on the verge of being shattered into a thousand fragments due to the knowledge explosion and the proliferation of new technologies. There are no more grand theories that hold sway over the entire industry. Michael Strangelove
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Web Digest For MarketersLarry Chase is establishing a real name for himself as a web marketing guru. The site, Web Digest For Marketers, went through some changes earlier this year and we got out of the habit of following it. If you joined us in the exodus, take another look. The biweekly email newsletter, reviewing big industry marketing efforts is back. In addition, many of Larry's columns (you might have seen them in Ad Age) are now a part of the site. Very nice resource. Notable Bookmarks
Symptoms of Internet FeverIn this great, big, modern, wonderful, digital world, we just spent two days fighting hardware. A hard drive crashed. Diagnosis, replacement and reinventing the machine took two full days. We're dependent on the net so money was spent, tempers lost and shortcuts taken. As we worked (and it took the efforts of three!), clients dropped by saying "Imagine if you were us and had to call someone". Total bill (in hardware, lost productivity and time spent dealing with idiots at computer stores)....about $2200. We had backups or it would have been much worse. We were going to call this note "Stomach Bigger Than Eyes". It takes moments of complete focused panic to remind us that no one really knows where this Internet thing is going. We've moved into a phase where some content on the net is just plain unavaiable to most people who use it. Java enabled sites tend to crash our systems, so we generally steer clear of them. The research staff often turn off the graphics on their browsers so they can get work done. While we were walking around grumbling about the disk crash, a researcher was overheard cursing "I waited 5 minutes for this?". The "Duh" factor is huge. A long time player sent a note that said, essentially, "I've got this great idea...why not advertise jobs on the net...hey, that would be really cool..Uh huh uh huh." In a fit of politeness, we pointed out the Electronic Recruiting News and 1st Steps in the Hunt. We've been reviewing a huge pile of sites and have to walk away from it all from time to time. It's just primitive ill-formed, boring and self-centered crap for the most part. If we get one more phone call from a genius who has breathlessly re-intuited the obvious, we're liable to go postal. But, that's how this thing works. In this experimental environment, reinventing the wheel, calling it fire and then throwing a rush dinner party to show off your cooking is just part of how we all learn about the potential and future of this thing. It's messy, confusing, primitive, uncertain and delightfully human. Like sailors off to explore uncharted seas, we're on our way. Look with suspicion on anyone who tells you with certainty that they know where the ship is going. The net is a huge ocean of potential and we're each small specks in it. Getting lost is part of the game. Assuming that you know everything is a symptom of Internet Fever. GIF WizardWe wish that we were always smart enough to understand everything. The really good news is that the web provides solid access to tools and resources to supplement our limitations. We really like the GIF Wizard. It takes graphics that you've generated and offers you smaller (optimized) versions. The net result? Your web pages ship faster. The tool is another traffic builder from Raspberry Hill Publishing. The company specializes in high end CGI programs that create customized pages and graphics for each page request. Their links page shows several great examples of sites using their work and points to the basic set of GIF tutorials.
Effective BannersDoubleclick, the media brokers, offer some very sound advice on banner design in their page Test It!®. The site is their description of a useful service that tests the relative effectiveness of two competing banner designs.
Take a look at the Archives. We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.
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