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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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Discussions about the Internet often revolve around bandwidth, faster modem
speeds, the latest "killer app" and other, largely peripheral technologies.
Forget about 'em. The Internet is about relationships: individual to
individual, individual to organization, organization to organization.
Ask yourself why someone would visit your site. They probably want
information of one sort or another. And if they can't find it at your site,
they may mail you.
Your visitor will expect a prompt response, rendered in a friendly,
knowledgeable and welcoming manner. They will expect accurate information
- not a hard sell.
If the information your visitor requests is not immediately available, they
will expect an immediate response telling them that and a follow-up with
the requested information within twenty-four hours.
If this doesn't happen, your organization will be perceived as slow and
unresponsive. And it will doubtless be perceived the same in terms of the
delivery of your product or service.
This is the essence of doing business on the Internet.
It seems to us that far too many organizations do not, as yet, understand
this basic principle. It often appears that they have a site "because they
should" - they don't actually believe in the medium. The Internet component
of their sales and marketing effort is seen as peripheral.
Too many sites are static, rarely updated, full of excessive graphics, and
make no attempt to interact with their visitors.
The Internet is about building and consolidating relationships. In the
Digital Age, we need to remind ourselves from time to time that it is this
base which underlies the whole superstructure. --John Blower
In a recent issue of ClickZ newsletter Rob Frankel, Principal of ad agency
Frankel-Anderson propounded the decidedly retro notion of the Web as the Great Level Playing Field.
It sounds like Rob has been smoking the same stuff as the usually intelligently readable Gerry McGovern of Nua Limited, whose recent piece is a hymn to the notion that all information on the Web is - or should be - free.
Frankel propounds the absurd notions that "for next to nothing, our
websites can look as big and as powerful as Coca-Cola's…" , and that "nobody charges you for access".
Last time we looked at our bank statements, we noticed a few items called "computer equipment leasing" and "charges to ISPs". And those items are just the tip of the iceberg, and take no account of site architecture, design and maintenance, not to mention the amount of time we spend using and contributing to the Web as a whole.
"Time is money"…or has that notion taken the same hike as Frankel's and McGovern's sensibilities?
Anyone who has been involved in the New Medium for any length of time will have realized that the Web consumes time, money and content voraciously. Our columnists, for example, do actually have to buy groceries and pay rent. And we're happy to pay them for their words of wisdom.
And someone has to pay us. And that's you, gentle reader.
There is a sense in which each and every one of us pays for the "free" information available on the Web, be it through an extra penny on a box of detergent or through access to Northern Light's "Special Collection" documents.
In fact, the Web is like any other business medium. It's dominated by a few big players (ever heard of Microsoft, Rob?). Which is not to say that, through astute marketing, a small organization can't carve out a small but profitable niche for themselves.
"Information wants to be free", whines McGovern.
Yeah, sure. So do Mercedes Benzes. But the people who produce both information and Mercs like to get paid…
--John Blower
Home Run Advertising is an online ad agency with a difference - they don't look or act like an ad agency.
The site itself has a running "baseball" theme, and the overall design and architecture is clean and easy-to-use.
In keeping with the philosophy of giving information away, the Boys' site features a page entitled "10 Common Web Design Company Mistakes", which is a series of checkboxes covering:
Check the appropriate box(es) as they pertain to your site, fill out a form, and the Boys will eMail you a printable report with their comments.
Now, this is a pretty blatant way of capturing your eMail address, which probably means that you'll be "pitched" (geddit??) in due course.
However, it's a means of getting that "extra set of eyes" focused on your Web efforts, and is probably worth the risk.
Minor quibble: we'd feel more comfortable if the site included names, addresses, phone and fax numbers, instead of vaguely alluded-to "development team sculpted from a melting pot of Silicon Valley professionals...". Quite apart from the mixed metaphor (how do you "sculpt" from a "melting pot", exactly?), confidence is inspired by an address which is more than a PO Box.
On the whole, however, this is an interesting site with some useful content.
Nicholas Negroponte, founder and head of MIT's New
Media Lab,
addressing the European IT Conference '97, recently
castigated France
and Germany(and, to a lesser extent, the UK) for lagging behind in
providing
Internet access to their populations, and in particular, their children.
Part of the reason for this is that, in most European countries,
local calls
are metered on a "pay-for-use" basis. And, at least in the
UK and
Germany, the cost of a simple local call can be relatively high.
It's reasonable to assume that, as European telecoms become more
open to
national and international competition, this situation will change,
and that
the price of Internet access will fall.
In the meantime, however, most Europeans are simply unable to
afford the
luxury of almost limitless surfing such as we enjoy here in the
USA.
If you are attempting to reach a European audience, then this will
impose
significant constraints on your site design.
Given that - in the UK at least - the cost of hardware is
relatively high,
most Europeans are still using a 14.4kpbs modem as a standard.
This, allied with high access costs, argues for slimmed down,
graphically-sparse
sites which are fast to load. We would further suggest minimizing the
use
of frames, and, unless absolutely necessary, forgoing the use of
animation
and sound files.
Which are, we believe, good general guidelines for site design and
architecture,
but which assume much greater significance in a European context.
Indeed, anecdotal evidence from an associate based in London
suggests that
a common pattern of Web use is to log on, retrieve eMail, compose
responses
off-line and then log on again to send them. It appears that Web
usage is
driven by going to specified destinations.
Which seems to argue that, in order to reach a European audience, a
highly-targeted
eMail campaign driving your audience to a slim, fast-loading site is
the strategy
to adopt when selling into this market. --John
Blower
Take a look at the Archives. We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.
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