1st Steps: Marketing and Design Daily


JOHN SUMSER,
E D I T O R


S P O N S O R S


Find out more
About IBN


Articles

Archives

8 Corners of ECommerce


Register to receive
e-mail when
this page changes.

Email address


Hall Of Fame
8 Corners of ECommerce

Types of Links

Red Herring
H C I Readlist
Webstyle guide
The Pilot
Daily Webnews
I A Daily
Webcatcher
Professor Pete
Ad Tutorial
Advert World
TRADEWINDS
WebMaster Mag
HT Marcom
Dave-Net
A1 Index
Telecosm
Submit It

Suggestions?



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?

All material on this
website is the
property of IBN
(The Internet Business Network)
You may download
a copy for personal
use. Redistribution
without permission
is strictly
prohibited.
All material on
this site is
© 1995. 1996. 1997 by IBN



OUR HOME

...


Click OK to receive our occasional Newsletter

September 09, 1998

Phew! At Last...

Canny Mac users will probably already have found a nifty little application which filters out banner ads.

Surfing with the app makes us somewhat nostalgic for the old days of the Web, before banner ads became ubiquitous. And, in many cases, poorly conceived, creatively-bereft and intrusive.

Now the rest of the world can join in the unfettered pleasure allowed only to one cohort, courtesy of the wonderful folks who brought us Cybersitter, the filtering software which filters out - well, tons of interesting and useful stuff as well as smut.

Solid Oak Software recently announced the release of an enhanced version of Cybersitter "in response to consumer demand", according to VP Marc Kante.

Apparently, Solid Oak developed the newest incarnation of CYBERsitter so that surfers can free up modems crippled by the heavy graphics (and subsequent L-O-N-G download times) of some banner ads.

Is this A Good Thing?

Well, it depends on your standpoint. We have no beef with banner ads per se. But we do feel that the apparent need for products such as Solid Oak's merely points up the paucity of creativity at the creative end of banners.

In another sense, the whole issue draws attention to the apparent haze of oblivion in which many site and banner designers seem to be enveloped. Whilst the creatives may have a super fast processor, a 21" monitor and a T1 connection, us lesser mortals have to make do with a 28.8, a slower processor and a 14" monitor.

Solid Oak's constituency lies amongst those of us who are tired of the World Wide Wait, and who yearn for a Kinder, Gentler Net...

--John Blower

September 08, 1998

To Mall or Not to Mall...

The notion of an "Internet Mall" has always seemed a little perverse to us. The Web, after all, is not the "real world", so the idea that users will decide to purchase a CD (for example), whilst looking for information on vacations flies in the face of our belief that sophisticated users use the Web to obtain very specific information.

Our beliefs have been bolstered by a report by Paul Marshall.

Here are the salient points:

Businesses that have sites on malls were surveyed and asked to rate their experiences. Five of the questions used a scale of 0 to 10. A rating from 0-3 means they are very dissatisfied, 4-7 is somewhat satisfied, and 8 and up are very satisfied.

84% of the respondents are very unsatisfied with the leads or sales they have received from their site, and less than 2% are very satisfied. The average rating was 1.4. More than half of the respondents, 55%, have not received any business from their site. Most of the 43% who have received business have received only a few orders.

Further, 89% of the respondents said that they are not getting the results that they expected. Again, less than 2% are receiving the results that they expected. The average response was 1.1 out of 10.

Another area of dissatisfaction includes mistakes made by the mall owners that are never corrected. Here's a particularly striking example:

One site was listed in the mall's directory as a "Clam Substation Specialist." The business was a research company; they were a "Claim Substantiation Specialist." This error was never corrected and remained on the mall for at least 1 year.

Somehow, we're not surprised by these results.

"To Mall or Not to Mall"? A resounding NOT.

--John Blower


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:


Sep 06, 1998
  • Web Bloat
  • Utility/Futility
Aug 23, 1998
  • Local
  • Alexa
  • Relationships
  • Cheap Is Dear
Aug 16, 1998
  • Branding
  • What's That Tag?
  • Design Practices
  • Web '98
  • Standards
Aug 09, 1998
  • NUA
  • Yell
  • POV
  • Fat 'n Sassy
  • Doctor
Aug 02, 1998
  • Browserola
  • Recommend It
  • Web Design
  • Ireland
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
Complete Indexed Archives
(49 months of marketing and design)
Complete Indexed Archives
(49 months of marketing and design)

Contacting Us
Call, fax, write, email. We'd love to talk about your project.

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