PJ Parks ReportPJ Parks ReportEditor's Musings
When you first glanced at this masthead you probably wondered just what it is PJ Parks is reporting on. You may even have mistaken it for one of those Christmas newsletters that fill you in on Mabel's Jazzercise classes and Uncle Jack's appendix operation last March. Well this is a newsletter all right, but hopefully it's one that provides some good solid business information you can use. After all, since I'm spending half my life doing research on the Internet these days, I thought it would be good to share the information with you.This issue focuses on technology, with particular emphasis on the WorldWide Web. Future newsletters will also address technology issues, but will deal with a variety of other marketing and business topics as well. My goal is to report on issues that matter to you, so I welcome your input. Please feel free to make suggestions, and let me know if there's a particular topic you'd like me to write about.
Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this first issue of the PJ Parks Report. Be sure to save it because who knows--this might just become the next Kiplinger Washington Letter.
Index
Caught in the Web
Well How About That?
To All you Fellow Computer Nerds
Spam Anyone?
And in TV Technology...
Caught in the Web As a key marketing decision-maker, suppose you were given an opportunity to advertise in the country's hottest new publication. Highly respected for its editorial content, the magazine has a huge circulation, which means far-reaching exposure for your company. To top it all off, you've been offered an advertising contract that's downright affordable. Chances are pretty good you'd sign up, right? The only hitch is the deadline's tight, and you're really eager to be in next month's issue. Your solution is to spend a couple hours throwing an ad together on your PC, which you hurriedly dash off to the magazine just in time for the close date.
Of course this scenario is ridiculous. You'd never be more concerned about a fast turnaround than about quality, no matter how tight the timeframe. You'd develop an ad based on strategy, one that conveyed the right image of your company and targeted the right audience. After all, it's pretty common knowledge that exposure can work against you if people get a bad first impression.
So why then are businesses rushing en masse to the WorldWide Web, hurriedly placing Web pages, without taking time to understand this new medium or the people who hang out there?
Talk of the town. There's no doubt about it, the Internet's a red-hot subject these days. This immense network of networks has been around for over 25 years, but only recently has become a household word, largely due to the WorldWide Web. Called a "weird combination of newspaper, direct mail, telemarketing, television, magazine, advertising, video game and software," the Web is like a whole new world begging for exploration.
The growing popularity of the Web is largely due to how it has changed the accessibility of information. Before it came along, 99 percent of all Internet activity was textual, data was extremely difficult to locate, and accessibility was limited to a narrow and privileged few. Now the Web has made it possible for this wealth of information to be searched for, displayed, listened to, interacted with, played with, moved around, communicated with, and basically accessed by anyone with a computer and a modem. Viewers can hop around from one site to another simply by clicking links programmed into individual Web pages.
Everyone's doing it. Most every major player has staked out Web sites these days, from Coca Cola to Ragu, MTV to the White House. At last count sites totaled somewhere around 100,000, and the amount just about doubles every month. No one wants to be left out, and everyone wants a piece of the action. But even in the wake of all this excitement, it's puzzling why most Web sites are so poorly developed- -or rather, aren't "developed" at all.
Definitely a different animal. The Web isn't like any other medium, and therefore isn't quite understood yet. Researchers have studied consumer behavior for years, producing audited circulation figures for print publications, and Arbitron and Nielsen ratings for radio and TV broadcasts. But there's no such research yet on "typical" Internet visitors. We do know they total somewhere around 25 million, and we're fairly sure they're intelligent, have higher-than- average incomes, are comfortable with computers, and are usually male.
But because members of this group are fiercely protective of their privacy, their behavior and preferences are difficult to measure. "Browsers on the Internet are like shoppers in a department store," says The Economist. "They prefer to poke around quietly on their own rather than be pestered by a sales assistant." Methods of gathering accurate information are improving, though, as research heavy-hitters like Arbitron, Nielsen, and Yankelovich get into the act. There are still many different opinions about the best methods of gathering consumer information about the Web, but progress is definitely not too far in the future.
Just give me a good reason. To most business people it's not a question of whether they should be on the Web, it's when and how. But it's just as important to understand why. In her book, Doing More Business on the Internet," Mary Cronin says, "Soon...getting a home page won't just be cool. It will be a requirement for doing business on the global network." Nevertheless, a decision to be on the Web should be based on an understanding of the Internet, including its opportunities and business potential, as well as on a careful study of other Web sites, including the competition's. And it's crucial for strategy to be a fundamental part of Web site development, just as it is any element of a company's marketing program.
Web wandering/window peeking. As a decision-maker, think of a Web site as the virtual lobby of your corporate headquarters--a partially open door to the outside world. First impressions definitely count here, as they do anywhere else, so a site should be interesting and entertaining. Give visitors information that's relevant to them, and give them a reason to hang around. Remember that with one click Web browsers can go sailing off somewhere else in cyberspace. Your objective is to keep them in your area, and compel them to come back. Consider a person's frame of mind when he's sitting down at a computer, and think about him as an individual who's personally experiencing your Web site--perusing your information, studying your graphics, and interacting with your content. Visitors are there by choice. Make it worth their while and they'll stick around, and probably come back later. Disappoint them, and your site could become as uninhabited as a virtual ghost town.
So where did all the experts come from? There do seem to be plenty of experts coming out of the woodwork these days, all well-versed in the art of Internet marketing and Web page development. Bookstore shelves overflow with HTML manuals and how-to guides, and WorldWide Web seminars are offered everywhere. Unfortunately, this trend toward handcrafted Web pages could be potentially damaging to the unsuspecting business person who listens to it.
There's much more to developing a quality Web site than most people realize, so consulting with a professional is a wise move. However, be careful of whom you select. Don't confuse a true Internet marketer with someone who knows a little about it. Instead, look for someone whose skills combine marketing strategy, creativity, and technology. And just as important is that person's clear understanding of your company, your culture, your positioning in the marketplace and your marketing goals and objectives, including objectives for your Web site.
So say you decide to take the plunge... Once you have a presence on the Web you'll be in a good position to start identifying opportunities for your business. You can tabulate how many "hits" you have per day, or the number of visitors to your site. You can monitor and respond to visitor feedback, hear their reactions to your Web site, and make discretionary changes based on input you receive. Plus, the information you obtain can be invaluable in learning about your audience, as well as in creating a database of customers and potential customers. This feedback can also help you keep your site current, so visitors don't get irritated by out-of-date information.
With the Internet fast becoming the communication and information mainstream, having a Web presence is one of the most savvy things a business can do today. After all, where else can you find an opportunity to strut your stuff in front of a captive global audience? But more important than just having a Web site is spending the time and energy to do it right. Because the image that's conveyed about a company to a network of over 25 million people can make a profound difference in how the world perceives it.
Index
Well How About That?
According to Adweek, tobacco companies are hesitant to put cigarette advertising on the Internet, and not because they think it would fail. Rather, they're skittish about the legal ramifications they might have to face. It's not clear whether tobacco advertising would actually be illegal on the Internet (as it is on television) but since tobacco companies tend to be considered the bad guys anyway, they're not likely to risk any more negative publicity.Business Week predicts the biggest Internet business may be providing easy access to the Net. In the U.S. alone, this market will grow to $1 billion in 1996 from $47 million last year. Companies such as Delphi Internet Services, UUNet Communications, and Performance Systems International (PSI) are leading the way right now, but experts say it won't be long until regional Bell companies, cable-TV operators, major long-distance carriers, and who knows who else will want a piece of the profitable pie.
You've heard about it by now, but have you seen it? Toy Story, released in December, is the first film ever drawn completely by computers, The film was created using a staggering number of computer hours and an even more staggering amount of computing power. Saying the movie "lights up the silver screen with a burnished, dimensional look and feel of heightened reality that's simply never been achieved before," Wired magazine calls it a great leap forward in computer animation.
Internet World reports that in China, citizens must cut through wads of red tape to get online. To gain Internet access, a Chinese computer user must get permission from the Chinese Academy of Sciences by proving an academic or research need. And even if permission is granted, users are still not allowed to log on from home. This strict monitoring by the Chinese government is largely due to a reluctance to let unlimited information into the country from the West, and is in accordance with their belief that "when the door opens, some flies are bound to come in."
Wired says anyone wanting to peruse a precise map of the human body will soon find it on the Web. Scientists at the University of Colorado are digitizing the body of a 59-year-old woman, a victim of cardiac failure, whose corpse has been cut into 0.3-mm-thick sections for studying. The name of this endeavor: The Visible Human Project. In case you're interested, it's located at http://www.uchsc.edu.
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To All you Fellow Computer Nerds out there, ever wonder where the word "nerd" came from? According to the book, America Online's Internet, the word "nerd" first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo. "...just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo a Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" The nerd is pictured as a small humanoid creature, sort of a cartoon version of Don Knotts. The theory is, the word was picked up from the book by preschoolers, who passed it on to their older siblings. By the mid-1950s, "nerd" had become the official definition for someone hopelessly uncool.
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Spam, Anyone? When you think of Spam, most likely your mind forms an immediate picture of jellied, processed meat in a can. But on the Internet, "spamming" can get you in big trouble, as an Arizona law firm found out. It seems the firm decided to saturate over 1,000 Net bulletin boards with unsolicited promotional information about themselves, an activity considered self-serving and strictly taboo by Net standards. The result? Readers of the boards were outraged, and immediately began "flaming" the firm, sending them irate protests via E-mail. Before long, word of the law firm's "crime" spread throughout the Net, followed by more flaming, and then disaster: A really angry Net-head in Australia programmed his computer to send an e-mail response to the law firm once every second for 24 straight hours, flooding the firm's computer and causing it to crash. Another Net user in Europe wrote a program that would automatically destroy any future electronic communication the law firm attempted to put on the Internet. The moral of the story? Respect the rules and culture of the Internet, or suffer grave punishment at the hands of your peers.
Index
And in TV Technology... Heard anything about interactive television yet? According to experts, interactive TV will be a reality in the very near future. When you think about it, we already are interacting with our TVs to some extent, by channel surfing, muting commercials, and ordering programming via pay-per-view. But new kinds of interactive television will allow us to make individual programming and advertising choices, customizing what we watch based on our own individual preferences. A recent PBS presentation of Frontline profiled an interactive television system called "Stargazer," which will allow viewers to select movies in the privacy of their homes, without needing to venture out to the video store. And if they agree to provide personal information about themselves, their buying habits, their preferences, etc., viewers can win free movies. Of course everything does have its price: Advertisers will use personal consumer information to individually tailor advertising. Which means that different people on the same block watching the same television program may watch entirely different commercials. And here's the real kicker: In exchange for the "free" movies, the viewer won't be able to fast-forward through or erase the advertising. (Did someone say Big Brother?)
Needless to say, there are still plenty of bugs to work out, particularly over issues of privacy, and how much invasion into their lives consumers will tolerate. But without a doubt we'll be hearing tons more about interactive television in the very near future.
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PJ Parks Communications specializes in smart marketing solutions for business. We provide marketing consulting and plan development, as well as strategic, creative, and targeted communications programs to support your objectives. PJ Parks Report is a business and technology update produced by PJ Parks Communications. Please feel free to fax comments or article ideas to 616/956-5907, or E-mail at PJParks@voyager.net. Or telephoning is always a nice option: 616/956-5910.
