JOHN SUMSER,
E D I T O R
LINDA WILSON,
R E P O R T E R
S P O N S O R S
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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
Advertising is
one of the minor
arts, so don't
be intimidated
by it. Try
not to lose
your sense of
playfulness.
Keep it fun.
Robert Bly
Reality
is more
complex
than
it seems.
John Gall
The System
is its own
best
explanation.
John Gall
It's better to
do a few things
really well than
than to do
a lot of things
badly.
If you can't
make the necessary
commitments of
time and energy
to your
electronic
marketing
efforts
scale back
your plan.
John Sumser
Suggestions?
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© 1995. 1996 by IBN
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February 8, 1997 Weekend Reading Here is this weekend's
"must-reads". - In
Your Face Ad Banners Get Louder from Wired News
FirstVirtual has created a new banner ad system. The
interactive banners
exceed normal byte restrictions by up to 4 times. The
advantage is that sales transactions can take place within the
banner ad eliminating the need for click-through. An idea that
probably won't catch on due to current bandwidth issues, but interesting
nontheless. - The
Dangers of Letting Technology Drive Design from WebReview
This
article asks marketers to resist the temtation to employ
technology for technology's sake. Using C|Net and Sun
Microsystems web sites as case studies, the author focuses on
the use of Java.
- Webmaster
Series: Secrets of the Webmaster MVPs from The Net Magazine
Working from the principle that we can learn from the best, Net
Magazine interviews nine webmasters and asks them for their
guarded secrets. Most of the tips are good simple design and
communication best practices. --Linda Wilson
February 7, 1997 Lycos & Infoseek Offer New Services In an
effort to compete for marketshare, both Lycos and Excite
announced new service offerings this week. Lycos introduced Stock Find,
which offers current stock quotes, personalized portfolios, and
financial and general news. Excite announced NewsTracker, a
news clipping service which also offers personalized
customization.
NewsTracker is the more exciting of
the two service for marketers. Previously news clipping
services as thorough as Excite's were only available on a fee
basis. The customization feature is excellent. Instead of
having to pick from several categories. You create your own
personal topics, by entering several keywords. NewsTracker then
suggests other keywords to refine your topic. The system also
keeps track of the articles you find useful to further learn
your preferences and needs. The trend towards adding new free
services to exciting web sites indicates a positive endorsement
of the advertising revenue model over fee based services.
--Linda Wilson
February 6, 1997 New Domain Names Announced In December we
wrote that The Internet Ad Hoc
Committee (IAHC), was going to add seven new top level
domain names. This would give users more choice beyond *.com
and *.net, etc. On Monday, the IAHC issued a press release
announcing what these seven new domain names would be and their
intended use. - *.firm for businesses, or
firms
- *.store for businesses offering products for
sale
- *.web for sites emphasizing activities related
to the World Wide Web
- *.arts for entities emphasizing
cultural and entertainment activities
- *.rec for
entities emphasizing recreation entertainment activities
- *.info for entities providing information services
- *.nom for those wishing individual or personal
nomenclature.
The names are expected be in use in four to
six months. The IAHC also decided to allow up to 28 new
registrars to grant registration of these new domain names and
existing ones.
Despite the new possibilities, *.com
will likely remain very popular. Most users know that the
quickest way to find a site is to try www.companyname.com and
this is attractive to marketers. To
what extent this will alleviate the demand for domain names
remains unclear. Most
large companies also try to get their name registered under every
domain available, including country domains. It seems unlikely that
Microsoft would allow any version of their name to go
unregistered.
--Linda Wilson
February 5, 1997 AT&T Business Site Closes
Earlier this month an article appeared in the Wall Street
Journal declaring the Web publishing industry unprofitable.
Many new businesses fail regardless of the industry. When that
business is a web site, it's easy to make sweeping
predictions about the fate of the Internet. Web ventures are
susceptible to the same mistakes as other media ventures. Poor
content, insufficient marketing, and bad planning can fail any
business.
The latest casualty is the AT&T Business Network Web
site. The
site is no longer being updated on a daily basis and is
expected to be removed by April. The site was produced for AT&T
by Nets Inc.
Did the site fail because it was never meant to
succeed? We don't think so. The site provided little new content and was
primarily
a list of links to other sites. There was very little promise
of content change to lure the user back. When a site closes its
doors, it's an opportunity to learn from someone else's
mistakes. --Linda Wilson
February 4, 1997 Article Research Association
The Article Research Association
provides a PR vehicle for you
to promote your site. For a fee, they will post an article you
write in a searchable database. Journalists then have free
access to use the copyright-free material. If you are lucky and
have written an article with strong editorial appeal you could
get some exposure. However, this exposure is not cheap. The
Article Resource Association charges $2,400 US to post up to
three articles in one year. If this exceeds your PR budget you
might still want to search this site for free content to
add to your site. An article related to your content but
written by a non-competitor could add editorial value.--Linda Wilson
February 3, 1997 Interview with HumanSearch Before we could
write about HumanSearch it became
a victim of its own success. HumanSearch was a search engine
powered by humans. Questions on virtually any subject were
researched and answered in 24 hours by several university
students. After receiving a lot of exposure, demand exceeded
their resources. HumanSearch temporarily shut down. Clay
Johnson, founder of
HumanSearch, explains what happened.
1ST STEPS: How did you get
started?
We started up here very slowly. Basically, we got initial use by
sending out
posts to about 15 different UseNet groups. After awhile, we started
getting around 3 or 4 searches a day.
1ST STEPS: How did you market
your site?
Shortly after getting featured in the campus newspaper, and the
Providence Journal Cybertalk section, I
scheduled an appointment to ask for university support. I got nothing.
Although I was told "we'll see what we can do." Indisearch was something
more of a marketing ploy from hell. I wanted to
be listed in Netscape's search page, and search.com. So I made a search
engine, that would submit the bookmarks that people submit to us.
(Netscape
doesn't have a link to us yet, but I'm sure that is due to the sporadic
availability of the product.)
1ST STEPS: How did you go about
getting media attention?
I told the guys on the team "If you build it, they will come" is
not a paradigm on the Internet. We needed some media attention. So I
quickly drafted a press release, and sent it off to news.com.
After we made the front page, described as the "The Ultimate Low Tech
Search Engine", we started getting around 200 searches per
day. We had to bring on more searchers (who are all volunteers) to meet
the
demand. We are still understaffed, even though we get volunteers to
search
every couple days.
1ST STEPS: We also saw you
featured on other sites as a result of
that press release. What is your current status now?
We're on Netscape's Whats
New page, which has topped us
up to 500 searches per day, and caused us to shut down.
1ST STEPS: What are your
plans?
Now we need financial backing. We need some resources to do this right.
We
want to keep HumanSearch free, but if my searchers aren't making any
money,
its only a matter of time before we explode. We are currently looking
for venture
capital and/or advertisers for the site. --Linda
Wilson
Take a look at the Archives.
We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.
Check out the Archives....75
Weeks of Back issues including:
Contacting Us
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All material on this site is © 1995, 1996
by IBN (The Internet
Business Network), Mill Valley, CA 94941
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