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JOHN SUMSER,
E D I T O 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


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July 30, 1998

Talking of Ireland...

If you happen to be tooling around Europe this autumn/fall, you may wish to take a trip to Dublin to attend the Internet World Ireland Conference.

"The Internet creates a Network Economy, a network connecting people and business, not machines. This conference will explore the business rules for operating with a network environment", as the press release tells us.

The topics that the Network Economy Conference will to cover include: principles for doing business within a network, online communities, relationship marketing, online brand building success stories, case studies that illustrate best business practice within a network environment.

Keynote speaker is Esther Dyson, who, as well as being famous for being - well - Esther Dyson, is, apparently, Number 12 in Upside's Elite 100. Upside recently wrote that Dyson's "stature is based entirely on her ability to influence others with her ideas rather than directly control companies or huge amounts of capital."

Ireland appears to be emerging as Europe's digital powerhouse, so if you have the chance, it's probably well worth attending.

Internet World Ireland Conference
Venue: Dublin
Date: Tuesday October 20th 1998
Conference Title: The Network Economy
Conference Organisers: Internet World Ireland, Nua
--John Blower

July 29, 1998

Web "Design"?

The Encyclopedia Britannica Internet Guide is another of those "Best of the Web" guides, which ranks sites on a 1 ("noteworthy) to 5 ("best of the web") star grading scale.

As such, it is as useful as any other list o' links. (We must admit to a bias against any Encyclopedia Britannica after the 1898 edition...however...)

The third item in eBlast's current list of goodies is an excellent article on the state of web design by David E Brown. David is a former associate editor of Metropolis design magazine.

David bemoans the lack of inspirational creativity evident in both online and mainstream media design. We are inclined to agree with him. ABC's recent billboard campaign, featuring black text on a yellow background (Semiotics 101) is a fine example of a boring lack of originality.

Good design in any medium is the seamless melding of form and function. In the case of web design, it involves intuitive site architecture married to illuminating graphics and solid information design - qualities which are all too rare on today's Web.

David does, however, point us in the direction of RockShox, a company which makes suspension units for bicycles.

We like this site. It incorporates animation on the homepage unobtrusively and effectively. Graphics are original and small, and one is never in doubt as to what one will find at the end of each link. We found the site as a whole fast to load, even at a miserly 24,000 bps.

Take a look at this site, even if, like us, you haven't been on a bicycle for years. And take 10 minutes to read David's article - it's food for thought. --John Blower

July 28, 1998

Recommend It

Everyone knows that the best form of advertising is word-of-mouth, and this is nowhere more so than on the Web, where (mis)information spreads faster than a Florida wildfire.

Well, now the folks at Web Cards - who produce postcards printed with an image of your homepage - have just added a new service to their site called Recommend It

Here's how it works: You add a "Recommend It" button to your site, and when visitors click on the button, they are presented with a brief form to fill out. Recommend It uses robots to create an email message which is instantly sent to their friend recommending your site.

Any fears you may have about presenting Recommend It with your email address, and thus attracting a well known processed "meat" product is assuaged by the site's rubrick:

"No Spam Guarantee
Email addresses that travel
through our service are never
sold, distributed, or published.

This is quite a nifty idea, although it's apparent that it's not suitable for all sites. Long-in-the-tooth 'Net sophisticates will probably spurn the notion, but as the level of "Web savviness' declines, this could well be a shrewd way of generating traffic.

The Recommend It site features their Top 10 and Top 50 pages. While they don't disclose figures on their member site traffic, they have many sites that they claim have generated well over 10,000 Recommend-It emails since they joined the service.

--John Blower

July 27, 1998

Browserola!

Everyone knows that different makes and versions of browsers render HTML differently, not to mention the differences imposed by competing platforms.

The prudent site designer will keep several different browsers "on tap" so that viewing options are constantly available, and the design can be tweaked for optimum effect across a broad consensus of browsers.

We all do that - don't we?

Reasons for not keeping several versions of Netscape and IE, Lynx, Opera and a slew of others open to view completed pages range from "Not enough memory," to "Can't be bothered," to "Uh?".

Here's Browserola v1.01 for Windows 95. This nifty little number "lets you view your HTML creations through the eyes of other browsers, without keeping a copy of each on your machine." ("Other browsers" are confined to Netscape and Explorer, but nonetheless...)

You simply select the browser(s) you want to emulate, the HTML standards level, type in the file location and - voila! - Browserola checks the page.

So now you have no excuse for having to slap a "Best viewed with..." button on your page.

Unless you're working on a Mac, of course...

--John Blower LinkExchange
LinkExchange Member


Take a look at the Archives. We've indexed all the past issues with topic pointers.



Check out the Archives....180 Weeks of Back Issues including:


July 27, 1998
  • Iran 2, US 1
  • What's New?
  • Clutter
  • WebPosition
  • Surveys
July 20, 1998
  • WIIFM (Wiffem)
  • Global Reach
  • New Kid
  • Utility / Futility
July 13, 1998
  • 5 Cs
  • Take No Prisoners
  • Deadly Sites
  • Link Info
  • EGR
  • Great Recruiter
July 06, 1998
  • Web Bloat
  • Utility / Futility
  • Transactional Analysis
  • Site Design Principles
June 29, 1998
  • Gone Fishin'
  • Search Tech
  • Mediocrity
  • Creating Deadly Sites
  • The Lenox
June 22, 1998
  • Want An Award?
  • Offline Promotion
  • It's Local
  • SOHO
  • Deep Throat
June 15, 1998
  • WebTV Design
  • Communities
  • Lifetime Value
  • Too Good To Be True
June 08, 1998
  • Logos
  • SearchZ
  • Gadget Gurl
  • Good Site Design
June 01, 1998
  • The Monkey Scratches
  • The Gorilla Speaks
  • Net Medic
  • WebTV?
May 25, 1998
  • European Design
  • Boys Of Summer
  • Relationships
  • Cheap is Dear
May 18, 1998
  • WinJobs
  • GifWizard
  • Tao of Design
  • Parry
May 11, 1998
  • Nice Niche
  • Scribes
  • Simple
  • Reveries
May 04, 1998
  • Tags
  • Trademarks
  • No War
  • Contentious
  • Sales Ambassador
April 27, 1998
  • George Lois
  • Dallas
  • Newsgroup Marketing
  • Pay 4 What You Get
  • Taking AIIM
April 20, 1998
  • Pragmatists
  • Asps
  • Bad Job Site
  • ClickZ Plus
  • Intellisys
Complete Indexed Archives(49 months of marketing and design) Complete Indexed Archives(49 months of marketing and design)

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All material on this site is © 1995, 1996 by IBN (The Internet Business Network), Mill Valley, CA 94941