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Report #5 from Tom Vassos and Jacqueline Fortin
WARNING:  Long Append

Jacqueline Fortin notes:

The first session I'm attending on Wednesday morning is:
"Creative Uses of the Internet:  What's Up and What's On"
Wendie Bernstein Lash, President, The Internet Roundtable
Society."

The Internet Roundtable is a live talk show on the Internet
that airs weekly on Wednesdays at 10pm (EST) featuring well
known authors, policy makers, and national figures.  (I believe
they recently had a Senator as a guest.)  Internet users can
participate for free and ask questions.

WebChat(tm) provides live real time chat (including audio and
video) on the Internet.  It's a neat way to interact with other
WWW users.  It's easy to use and works with all of the major
browsers.  WebChat also provides hypertext links to other web
pages.

Wendie also gave a number of potential WebChat applications
such as:
Community builder
Producing live shows
Building customer relations
Roping in new businesses with useful info
"Teleconferencing around the globe at local phone rates."

Nancie also discussed several other sites.  I thought
you might be interested in some of the URLs, so here they are:

Encyclopedia Brittanica
http://www.eb.com

Radio Station Live 105, 105.3 FM
http://www.hooked.net/alex/radioa.html

The White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Time Warner
http://www.timeline.com/

La Louvre
http://mistral.enst.fr/~pioch/louvre

Library of Congress
http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/


http://www.webcom.com/~broadway/


The next session I attended was:
"The Law of Cyberspace for Non-Lawyers"
Mark Radcliffe, Attorney with Gray, Cary, Ware and Freidenrich
(no e-mail address was given)

Laws on the Internet eventually will become more defined.
Yes, it's true that the Internet is an Anarchy, but, more
and more litigation has stemmed from improper use of
information on the internet.  To some degree what applies
in the physical world is being applied in cyberspace.
Personally, I feel that the rules should be the same.
It would certainly be much easier to use existing laws
(where possible),than to try and create separate laws
for the Internet.

Some interesting points brought up in this session:
If you create a document or project in the scope of
  your job, you do not own the work, your company does.
You can be sued if you should say something detrimental
  to another company or person.
Try to get some legal counsel if you are going to do
  a great deal of business on the Internet or the WWW.
  The laws that apply in your country may not apply
  in another country.  For example an individual was
  posting Internet notes denying the holocaust ever
  occurred.  These notes originated from outside of
  Germany, but were sent to Germany.  Now the German
  authorities are trying to get this person extradited
  to Germany to face charges for this offense.
If you display outrageous behaviour on the Internet
  you may very well be shut down.

Basically this particular speaker feels that you should
seek legal counsel early on or, "have lots of money for
possible litigation." Especially if you don't agree with
some of the laws that may become a part of cyberspace, and
you feel you would like to challenge them.


Tom Vassos:

The fist speaker on my agenda today is Chris VandenBerg
with Microsoft.  His topic is titled "Commercial Web
Development."

One of the first suggestions Chris made was that if you're
serious about creating an Internet presence, spend $900 (U.S.$)
and buy the report called (sorry, missed the name) and the
phone number is 203-834-0033.  This report includes ten
case studies of Web implementations.

The technology will allow us to bring a total experience to
buyers including text, graphics, sound, video.

It is going to be harder and harder to get mindshare due
to the huge growth of the Net.  Yahoo gets more than 500
new submissions per week (Tom note:  I think the number
may now be up to 1,000 per week).

If you want to stand out.  Put an icon on your Web pages
that pops up and says (yes, actual audio clip) "May I
help you?"

Use "Virtual Place" technology.  That means that someone
that works for your company is actually "there" with the
user to answer questions on the fly.  Ubique has been one
of the pioneers in the use of "Virtual Place" technology.
One of the problems with standard chat rooms is that you
just don't quite get the feeling of full interaction.

NI Online has a series of live events utilizing "Virtual Place"
technology.  You can broadcast a theatre to give users some
general info and prequalify them.  Then the interaction can
begin.

When you get involved in this scenario, first you choose
an icon that becomes you.  People won't get involved if
you start off by asking people to fill out a form.

Chats and virtual places can add value to the experience.
There is an actual person at the other end answering your
specific questions, as opposed to endless searching through
pages of information.

Virtual places also brings up several issues and potential
problems.  First, you must staff for a global response because
the questions will come in 24 hours per day.  Another option
may be to properly set up the expectation to say that you can
only staff the virtual place from 6am to 8pm Pacific time.
Make sure you have the right people manning your virtual place.
They can't keep saying, "sorry, don't know the answer to that".

Establishing a real time 2-way dialogue can be a very
powerful tool.

This technology can be used to create virtual tradeshows.
One show that was held was a "Virtual Vegas" in May/94.
The cost per lead can be very effective...less than $5 per person.
And the quality of leads seemed to be very good.  The conversion
rate to actual sales was a high 10%.  80% of the people actually
wanted e-mail follow-up after the show.

For the chat areas, a couch will appear and your icon will then
appear, sitting with the other icons.  He then showed a much
more sophisticated "virtual" experience where you would first
see the door to the area you are entering (e.g., Eddie Bauer store)
and then you walk in and see something that looks almost
exactly as it would if you were then walking through the store.
Clothes on display, etc.

All through this presentation Chris utilized sound bites to
get across certain messages.  At one point, Chris talked about
trying to get repeat visitors
to your site.  The sound bite used was Arnold Schwarzenegger (sp?)
saying  "I'll be back."  After all, isn't that what we want?


The next presenter was Jim Sterne (esteemed fellow INET
participant) with Target Marketing.  Topic was: "Building
a Commercial Web Site:  The Importance of Content"
(Sorry, several Web sites are mentioned, but no URLs were given)

DealerNet offered a contest for a free car.  The only thing
you had to tell them was your name, e-mail address and the
make and year of your car.  They then asked if you want to
be added to a newsletter list.  It is likely that the person with
the /82 Volkswagon bus will get a different newsletter than
the person with the /91 BMW....customized marketing.

Some purchase decisions have been made based on how
much technical information is on the Web site.  Users that
need technical info will buy computers from the best sites.

The Ragu site is fun.  Mama Couchina is there to tell you
about things.  It includes a map of Italy and you can click
on a city to see what the good restaurants are, etc.  It
even allows users to enter in their favourite restaurants.
They provide free coupons to buy their product.  If you
click on one of the icons, you get an e-mail message back
telling you how you can get one of their Ragu T-shirts.
Copyright notice is fun... "Mama's niece wrote this because
she's the lawyer in the family."

Good Year provides a service to help you determine what
size of tire you need for your specific car.  They then
ask you questions about your needs (snow, rain, etc.),
whether or not you want to spend a little or a lot, etc.
and then they recommend certain tires specifically for you.

Banks are providing services to create things such as
amortization tables based on your specific data.  Once
you have keyed in all the info and gotten the quote, you
simply click one more time to send info to the bank to
formalize your application.

DEC claims that they have made $500 million in sales from
people that have test driven their Alpha machines on the
Internet.

In the past,
Jim tried out the Fedex waybill entry program and it told him
his package (destined for New York) actually was shipped to
England a month ago.  After calling the 1-800 number, they
pointed out that he had incorrectly typed the waybill number.
That's one good reason for having a 1-800 number at your
Web site....to help out your users.

The airlines are moving quickly to put up their airline
schedules, etc.

When asked about what he thought about "under construction"
Web sites, Jim suggested that "you would never send out
an 8 page brochure with the last 2 pages under construction
would you?"  The time wasted to click on that icon and
get an "under construction" message, is simply a promise
broken to the consumer.

During Q&A Jim talked about how it's possible
to actually determine where your visitors are coming from.
This would allow financial arrangements to be made between
sites (i.e., I'll give you a penny for every person that you
send from your site to my site).  (note from Tom:  it may just
be easier to work out reciprocal arrangements with several
other sites (i.e., you point to my site and I'll point to yours))

Most sites were created by technical employees, and later on,
marketing found out about it.  Then when marketing realized
that engineering was representing them worldwide the blood
drained from their face!  (And the scary part was that
sales actually went up!  :-)   )


Next on the agenda was an interview with a PC magazine
freelance writer (I'd tell you the publication and the
person's name but I forgot to get permission to do so, and
I better not since the article is not complete yet).
The article was being written about the demographics on
the Internet so I tried to cover things such as male vs
female, age, above average income/education, dramatic growth
of commercial use vs education/government, geographic
breakdown of users, NSF backbone traffic volumes of
FTP/WWW/NNTP/etc (WWW growing fastest), categories of
Internet users (ie. professionals, technical, students, etc.)

The next speaker was Gregory Giagnocavo with Wentworth
Worldwide Media:  "Building a Commercial Web Site:
Attractive Interfaces"

Greg suggested that you cannot simply depend on the WWW for
your Internet marketing.  Use List Servers, USENET, InfoBots,
etc.

InfoBot, E-mail and URLs should be on your trucks, yellow
page ads, etc.

Your WWW front page should be clear and uncluttered.  e.g., one
graphic and 4 simple options including one that says "Sign
in to win" something.  If you don't offer anything, no one
will fill out the form.  If you give something away, everyone
will fill out the form!

Limit your use of colours and make sure you coordinate
all of the graphics on the same page.

At the bottom of every screen should be a graphical or text
bar to give people several navigational options (back to home
page, etc.).  Text bar is better because download time is
shorter.  (note from Tom:  At IBM we have set up global
rules for all of our divisions with specific instructions on
what this bar must look like.  This maintains consistency
for the users.  It includes things such as home page, search
tool, how to contact IBM, how to order, etc.)

You must always say what size your GIF files are so that
users will know whether its a "one beer wait or a two beer
wait". :-)

Consider including the following on your web site:  related
USENET newsgroups, instructions on how to subscribe to
appropriate Listservs, other sources of valuable info.

Over time, and once Microsoft/95 comes to the market, the
Internet demographics will no longer be an issue.  Internet
demographics will equal the world demographics.  What will
become more important is specific site demographics.

Be careful when you talk about specific "local" things such
as holidays, time of year (e.g. it may be winter for you but
not for Australia), specific cultural aspects:
In North America, an owl may mean "wise", but in other
countries, it may have the exact opposite meaning.
In the orient, a snake means life, but a different meaning in
North America.
Some countries are offended with graphic images of women's
faces.  Their culture says that women must wear a veil.
In North America, a yellow ribbon means cowardice, but in
China it represents honor.

During the summary comments, Greg reiterated that a Web
approach will only reach a few million of the 30+ million
on the Internet.  Therefore your Internet marketing approach
must incorporate the Web along with all of the other Internet
technologies that have been mentioned.


The keynote speaker of the day was Gordon Bell, Computer
Consultant and former first Assistant Director for Computing
at the National Science Foundation and one of the pioneers of
the Internet.  The topic was called "Mapping the Net, Yesterday
Today, Tomorrow"

"Stamp out bogus GIFs.  AT&T's logo is 60k and takes forever
to load.  Don't they ever look at this stuff?  Even once
you get ISDN the logo will still take 8 seconds to load.  I don't
want to waste 8 seconds of my time to see a logo that looks
like granular cybersludge!"

Goals of Internet 3.0....the next architectural version of the
Internet.....universal digital dial tone.  Should be about
25mbps into the home.  That's what we need.  Don't buy
ISDN.  It's not fast enough.  Cable will provide us with
enough bandwidth for phone, audio, video, etc.  A reasonable
price would be roughly our current phone and cable bills com-
bined.  i.e. we need bandwidth of 1,000 times what we have
today at the same price.   :-)    ...2D and 3D video, etc.

He then went through the top 10 list of why the Internet isn't
quite here yet....and the number 1 reason is  (sorry, i missed 10
through 2)....because Microsoft hasn't announced it yet.

He is adamant about the cable/tv model of Internet into the
home, not the telephone model.  Telephone and cable companies
are now putting in parallel solutions to do the same thing.

Data rates are growing at a rate of 62% per year.

Video on demand requires high bandwidth.  Even T1 would
take 2.7 hours to download a video.  CD's store 600 MB
of data but are growing to 2 GB or more.

He doesn't believe that the Info Superhighway will help the economy.
The bit police are coming.
The post office should have a major shake-up because of this
  technology.


The next speaker was Laura Fillmore, President, Online Bookstore
"Online Publishing and Advertising:  The Fine Line"

The border between publishing and advertising is starting
to blur.  The traditional publishing model is a contained
media with a front and back cover and content in between.
Publishing on the Internet allows you to live in and integrate
with the rest of the Internet.

The BookFinder service allows you to find (using fuzzy
language search) any book based on your search criteria
(in 269 different languages).

One prevalent publishing model on the Internet has been
a "sponsorship model".  You put up and publish your
information for free, and the site gets the volume of
traffic to help their site.

"Internet for Everyone" (Wiggims) McGraw Hill uses a
"gumball model" of publishing.  The book has a hypertext
link directly to Novell.  McGraw Hill has just lost the
reader to Novell.  This model should include a payment
from Novell to McGraw Hill who have "handed them"
this particular reader.

The next model of publishing is based on number of hits.
(e.g., Global Network Navigator and HotWired)
The advertisers now pay for this model, not the users.

...rare and migratory bird....called your attention...a valuable
commodity.

Books on the Internet are not just books, they are entire
central sources of information.

http://marketplace.com/obs/top.htm

Nelson Mandela's book "The Long Walk to Freedom"
(autobiography) is an example of sponsored publishing...
making context out of content.  The site is accessible for free.
They then provided 24 links to other sites.  For example,
it can take you to the Clarinet news service who have several
ongoing stories about Mandela and South Africa news as it
occurs....This capability makes this site "kinetic".  In effect,
you are punching a hole in the book and going elsewhere.


Well...let's call it a day....see you tomorrow.

***********************************************************************
TOM VASSOS, B.E.S., M.B.A., Part-time Instructor, University of Toronto
Internet Writer, Educator, Speaker:  Call for courseware, keynotes, etc.
Manager, InfoHighway Marketing Strategies, IBM Software Solutions Div'n
E-MAIL: vassos@vnet.ibm.com  PHONE: 416-448-2189  FAX: 416-448-2893 (c)

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