Greg Sherwin is the Web site technology lead for Snap!, a joint venture between NBC and his former employer, CNET: The Computer Network. As a senior Web site/software architect at both Snap! and CNET, he has helped specify, design and develop some of the Internet's most popular Web sites, their supporting technology, and worked with many of their strategic Internet industry partners. He is also the co-founder of the national American Red Cross Web site and a consultant to various Internet and e-commerce businesses. Greg has been an Internet user for over a decade and worked on the first Web site in the U.S., launched in May 1991. He can be reached via e-mail at greg@ connecting point.com Emily Avila is a communications specialist with UCSF Stanford Health Care and is currently developing a Web site and Internet public relations strategy for Lucile Packard Children's Health Services. She was previously the content manager for the UC Davis Health System Web site and oversaw production of an award-winning weekly television medical news magazine, PULSE. Before joining UC Davis, she worked in television as a news assignment editor, reporter, editor, writer, producer and public affairs director. She can be reached via e-mail at emily@ connecting point.com Together, Sherwin and Avila instruct university courses on Public Relations and the Internet, and they are the featured weekly columnists for ZCommerce. They developed the concept for Connecting Online in April 1996 when they were preparing the curriculum for the course they taught in June 1996. The February 1998 release of this book marked the culmination of nearly two years of researching, writing, and refinement. Visit their Web site at http://www. connecting point.com. |
This Is Not a Toyby Emily Avila and Greg Sherwin,co-authors Connecting Online: Creating A Successful Image on the Internet [Originally written for ZCommerce] Sometimes the Web reminds us of a big plastic shopping bag. As purveyors of e-commerce, we've used it to try packaging just about every kind of perishable and non-perishable good. We've thrown our branding on it, added carrying handles for the convenience of our customers, and have sometimes tried to stuff more into it than it will reasonably hold. And on the bottom, there's plenty of room for the warning label This is not a toy. This last item would be lost, however, on anyone caught wearing the bag over their head, dizzy from hyperventilating recirculated air. Yet that often accurately describes the Internet industry's cloistered environment. Many of us have the Internet's minutiae so engrained in our daily lives that it's easy to lose touch with the mainstream -- the very people who will determine if any Internet company will live up to its overhyped potential. Isn't That Some Cheesy, Fake-Chocolate Soft Drink from the Fifties? For example, most of us won't dispute that Yahoo! may be the most widely recognized brand native to the Internet. However, very few of us would have anticipated that Yahoo!'s unaided brand recognition among non-Internet users is a mere two percent. Yet that's exactly what Intelliquest discovered from research performed earlier this year. When it comes to the mainstream, those of us "in the know," well, largely don't. And when it comes to brand recognition, it's not just the quantity but also the quality that we guess wrong. Not Bad If You're in the Oil Change Business The latest Internet market research studies performed on mainstream audiences have shown a serious image problem with most Web sites. This problem can be best summarized by this specific example: mention a Web site like Lycos and John Q. Public immediately thinks "two guys in a garage." "Two guys in a garage" was endearing when Bill Gates was a precocious Harvard dropout making beer money off paper tape copies of the BASIC programming language. Today, with millions of dollars invested in Web sites -- and Bill Gates fully capable of buying Old Milwaukee and the rest of Wisconsin for that matter -- this characterization is downright embarrassing. Is the Problem With the Web Itself? You could argue that the Web as a whole is still struggling for credibility. High-profile news media on the Web feed that impression by continuing to publish self-promotional, self-evident headlines like "U.S. Bombings blast news sites with traffic" or "Hurricane watchers clog weather Web sites." Yet traditional media are equally guilty of covering themselves, even if it may reflect more laziness than any yearning for validation (think "Washington media frenzy in wake of Clinton scandal"). Dan Rather, or Rather Danielle? Sure, you can also point to Webcasts of sex change operations and teenagers losing their virginity as desperate signs of the Web's continuing struggle for validity, but how different is that really from television news? The Web's credibility as a medium is already well on its way. The Web is far beyond its experimentation stage for business. Major corporations are making progressively larger investments into their Internet efforts, continually upping the ante on each other and raising the expectations of the general consumer public as a whole. No, this image problem isn't so much with the Web itself. Instead, the real problem for e-commerce sites is in establishing that individual credibility -- that sense of professionalism that demonstrates they are not simply hobbies or toys. Only then will they earn the respect and trust of mainstream users. Otherwise, who in their right mind is going to trust their credit card numbers with two guys in a garage? How Do You Establish That Credibility? We're glad you asked. All too often we've witnessed Web sites that have thrashed about on projects lacking clear goals, procedures, and methods. This is hardly anyone's fault per se; the newness and unfamiliarity of the medium has lent itself to major inefficiencies, uncertainties, and little successful knowledge nor experience to fall back on. And while there isn't a simple formula answer, there are definite practices and processes you can implement to take a more professional approach with your e-commerce site. Visit our site to read more about these processes: http://www.connectingonline.com/articles/articles.html We even promise you'll find more than the usual cliché questions such as "Why are you on the Web?" and "Who is your audience?" Copyright © 1998 Greg Sherwin & Emily Avila return: idea site for business main menu |