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Report #6 from Tom Vassos and Jacqueline Fortin
WARNING:  Long Append

Tom Vassos:

OK.  Thursday morning and today there are several half day and
full day tutorial sessions being offered.  What amazes me is
that at $495 (U.S.$) per day, some of the tutorials still have
120 people in them which equates to $60,000 in tutorial fees.
Wow, talk about being a profitable business to be in!  Well, the
good news is that people seem to be getting value for their
money because there's still hundreds of people attending the
sessions.

The tutorial that I went to was "Commercial Web Development".
The speakers were:
Chris VandenBerg, Microsoft, http://www.microsoft.com
Jim Sterne, Target Marketing, http://www.targeting.com
Michael Bauer, The Internet Group, info@tig.com

Notes from Michael Bauer's presentation:

GIF software was patented by Unisys, and Compuserve was enforcing
a royalty requirement for any software that creates GIF files.
The GIF files themselves are not patented by anyone.

Stateful vs Stateless servers:  With stateless servers, users need
to continually re-type their information into forms they decide to
fill out because the system does not keep track of that info
unless it is a stateful server.

Database vendors are starting to come out with capabilities that
will allow web users to access information stored in a backend
relational database. (note from Tom:  e.g., IBM announced the
DB2/WWW software which allows you to link your backend DB2
database into your Web site.)

One approach may be to help all the purchasing agents for
your products to get onto the Web.  You may also consider
restricting access to your Web pages to only those individuals.
(note:  This will keep out your competitors.  This
approach will only work of course, if you have a fairly
limited and well defined target market.)

David showed a chart which described the various components
required for the creation of a catalogue on the Internet,
including approximate times required, etc.  A 100 page
catalogue could take 200-300 hours of development effort.

Give people an incentive to fill out a survey to tell you how
your site is.

Internet Publishing Issues:

Graphic and Navigational Design
  Being able to create a unique feeling to your site can be
  very powerful (e.g. Wired magazine)

Organizational Change Management
  Get legal involved in your Web implementation

Integration, Security, and Administration
  Balance free speech with corporate security

Integrated Marketing Programs
  If you have CDRom marketing tools, these should be tied
  into the Internet

Measuring Channel Success

Put your URL and your e-mail address on your business card.

NaviSoft has some excellent tools for Web development...a
graphic display to create the links between your pages, etc.


Next speaker:
Jim Sterne, Target Marketing, http://www.targeting.com

Internet Issues:

Security:
  * Satan loose on the Internet...getting lots of press
  * Use a firewall to protect your internal data.  Or, use
an "airwall" to protect your internal data (i.e., that machine
is not even connected to the Internet).
  * Copyright:  Now it's infinitely easy to steal someone's
intellectual property.  Use a copyright notice...
Jim's presentation included this notice:
"All electronic images shown are copyrighted by the appropriate
organizations.  They are shown here under the fair use
provision of the..."    (oops, not a fast enough typist)

Browsers:
Don't use Netscape's proprietary extensions.  Make sure you
also cater to those that only have character-based offerings
such as Lynx.

Credit Card Sniffing:
Not a trivial thing to be able to do.  The servers with thousands
of credit card numbers are more of a target than just sniffing
for credit card numbers on a line.

Authentication/Verification of Transactions
This issue should be resolved with 12 to 18 months.

Digicoin/Cybercash
Anonymous purchases that can't be tracked back to an
individual.
...or, smart cards will let you go to your ATM and put
your money on them which you can then spend.

No Mass Market on the Net
Internet may be a fabulous place for customer service
and marketing, but not for sales.  What is selling on
the Internet....CD ROMs, books, modems, etc.  There is
no mass market yet for general commodity items.

Total domains registered by Feb 22/95:
com   34,145 (dramatic growth)
org     3,419
net     1,976
edu
(The Orange Juice Association has snagged the domain
OJ.com)

GNN offers the business yellow pages with 12 categories.
Indexing still isn't good enough.

Yahoo search page (not home page) is great for finding
things.  They now have advertisements.

InfoSeek is building a commercial offering to help you find
things.  They go to sites to get info vs Yahoo which depends
on sites going to them with their info.  One problem is still
that when you want to look for tennis shoes, you get 500 hits.
Business to business seems to work better right now than
business to consumer.

Ask your customers if they are on the Net yet.  Provide them
with a method for getting onto the Net.

Seven (well, almost) reasons to avoid Internet Marketing
No service guarantee
No regulations
No security
No viewer control
No way to take money....
   ...none of these reasons cut it.

Why non-Web Internet tools?
Most people only have e-mail
Integrate these tools into your Web site.

Here's a new technique for surveys on the Internet.
Don't do surveys.  Do a "question of the week" (i.e.,
more like a poll than a survey....and give them the
results later as well.)  It's real easy for someone to
reply to your note and just say yes or no.

Saturn reply cards now ask you for your e-mail address
to get on their "special customer mailing list".

John Patrick (IBM VP), said that Internet users often
have feelings about topics earlier than the general
public.  Reacting to those ideas and feeling can better
prepare you for the market.

Jim feels that you shouldn't put "This is my point of
view, not my company's" on your signature files.
If there are some thing you will be typing that are
not corporate related maybe you should get your own
personal account on AOL, etc.  Many people in the
audience gave a different point of view of why it
might make sense to put this type of disclaimer on
your sig file.  Disney recommends that all of their
employees use this type of disclaimer.

Info Vending Machines...Archive servers, mailbots, FTP,
Gopher, etc. ...like faxback on the Internet

"Ogilvy and Mather's 6 Internet Rules
1. Don't send intrusive messages.  (i.e., unsolicited e-mail)
2. Don't sell consumer data without the express permission
of the user.
3. Advertising should appear only in designated newsroups
and list servers.
4. Conduct promotions and direct selling only under full
disclosure.
5. Conduct research only with the consumer's informed consent.
6. Never use Internet communications software to conceal
functions."

Set Realistic Objectives relating to things such as:
Corporate image
Customer Service
   This should be a key objective for many sites.
Prospect Qualification
Product Sales

What's a reasonable length of time to respond to an e-mail/WWW
inquiry/question?
Well, that depends on whether the question is "My child
is suffocating, what should I do?" or "I'm thinking of buying
a cat, what should I do?".....but, in general, you should
respond within 24 hours of the inquiry.

Sun claims to save $1.5 million dollars every month because
of their Web site.

There are several Web features that you must get used to
vs other mediums you are used to.

Sterne's 6 rules (plus discussion points)
1. Use the technology
     Don't give people an snail mail address to get your
       order form.
     IBM used a video to actually demonstrate how their
       new butterfly keyboard opens up.  That's not something
       that's easy to describe without a video so it works well.
2. Don't abuse the viewer
     AT&T uses several graphic images which take forever
       to load (and they're only decorative).
     Pacific Bell has a big "under construction" graphic.
       Instead, they should have a "what's coming" section.
3. Provide navigation
     Help them navigate.  Make it easy for them to find what
       they're looking for.
     Even if you have a graphic image for navigation, you must
       also have it in text as well for those that have graphics
       turned off.  This text must match the words in
       the graphic image....they didn't at the AT&T site.
     Some sites like Bell Atlantic give you three different options
       which you can choose depending on the speed of your access.
     WilTel has a U.S. map which you
       can click on to find local support (Some browsers won't
       let you view the whole map properly.
4. Give something useful...content, content, content.
     Rockwell has lots of info updated regularly but some info
       which is promised to be update monthly, is not.  Their
       cybercafe includes success stories....Generic article on
       cybercommuting...of course if you cybercommute, you'll
       then need to buy their router offerings.....nice link....
     Guide to Ribbons and Cartridges provided a huge listing of
       what cartridge you will need for what printer.  Once
       you find out what cartridge you need, you just click
       on another button to order it from this company.
     FedEx allows you to type in your waybill number to track
       your order.  (Have you heard this story enough times yet?)
     One sites allows you to download a video simulation of
       the Nicole Simpson murder.  Why would anyone want
       that?  Who knows, but it's a busy site.
5. Get something valuable
6. Engage
     Viacom (Star Trek) gave users navigational tools which
       looks like the panel to the Starship enterprise.
     At Grammercy Press (MCI) you navigate through their
       office.  You can click on the calender or the phone or
       computer screen and get lots more info...with subliminal
       ads about MCI.
     Doonesbury gave an e-mail address you could send a note
       to if you're a member of the digital elite.  The message
       back said "If you had time to respond to this you're not
       a member of the digital elite."
     Silicon Graphics asks for user input into their site which
       engages the hearts and minds of users....great for your
       resume if your info gets added to this list.
Cross marketing:  Black Box describes their online catalogue
in their hard copy publication.  It is mentioned on the front
cover, plus takes up a full page inside the catalogue.

Well, that's it for my report today....

Tom Vassos                    Jacqueline Fortin
vassos@vnet.ibm.com

***********************************************************************
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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