E-Commerce

E-COMMERCE

The Web Grows Up: Cool Stuff I Saw at Internet World
by
Chaz Austin
Copyright © 1998 Chaz Austin. All rights reserved.

New media has become such a broad field in the six years I've been in it that it's imperative to specialize in a particular area and then pedal really fast to try and keep up with the changes that seem to occur weekly. One no longer has the time to see and hear everything at big trade shows like Internet World (Los Angeles, March 9-13, 1998). If an expert is someone who's three pages ahead of everyone else in the same book, then this particular session of the road show that is Internet World was cause for a great deal of pedaling.

My focus has long been on the area of the Internet that seems to be showing the most promise as a business: electronic commerce. I attended a day's worth of conferences about e-commerce and electronic retailing, and (surprise, surprise) they weren't a complete waste of time, as conferences can so often be.

Most notable among the presentations I heard was the talk, given by Eleanor Haas (eahaas@interport.net) of MarketQuest in New York, called "Ten Ways To Build An Internet Audience." Judging by how many people approached her after she concluded her presentation, I was not the only one who found it useful.

I also enjoyed hearing from Craig Danuloff, iCAT's CEO. iCAT makes software that allows people to create stores on the Web. He put it very well when he said e-commerce was about "show and sell," and that unlike paper catalogs (Web commerce has been described as electronic catalog selling), the Web offers depth and immediacy.

Andy Parker, President of Mercantec, who spoke on the same panel with Craig, "Implementing Online Shopping Technologies," cited a promising statistic from Active Media: 40% of e-commerce Web sites are profitable within a year!

Cool Software

The Web is truly growing up. It's getting more personalized, more user-friendly and more sophisticated. Here are some examples of that that I saw at the show:

Open Sesame sells a suite of server products that allows companies to learn the interests of the people who visit their site. This then allows the site to personalize content and advertising to that user.

To those concerned with issues of privacy on the Web, the ability to track and personalize Web sites is a necessary trend in order for Web businesses to monitor efficiency and attract advertisers. Unfortunately, if you surf the Web, you'll need to get used to having someone looking over your shoulder.

At Engage Technologies, I talked with Diane Elavsky, with whom I'd met before, to get an update on their services. They recently released Engage Knowledge to add to their suite of products which offer behavior-based profiles of Web site visitors. Engage Knowledge is a networked database, shared by Engage's customers, which offers a multi-site anonymous profile of users that can be used by any of the sites in their network. And don't worry-it has an opt-out mechanism in case users want to limit access to information about themselves.

Matt Parks of Qualcomm demoed Eudora Pro E-Mail 4.0 for me. If you use email as heavily as I do (100 emails a day, to the point where a phone call is an event), this is a winner. It allows you to use email in the same way you use Word, giving you the ability to vary fonts, font sizes, colors, etc.

Being a dedicated Mac user, a big question for me at Internet World was: Where was Apple? They had no presence there. I didn't have an anxiety attack about this, though, thanks in part to Taran Reese and Wendy Streeter of Connectix, who showed me Virtual PC 2.0, which will allow me as a Mac user (provided I have a G3) to import PC files with ease. Whew! I hate to admit that it's a PC world, but if I can operate in it and still keep my Mac, I'll be happy.

They also showed me Surf Express, a Web accelerator that has a proprietary cache technology that allows for faster Web surfing. Anything that reduces the wait in the World Wide Wait for someone who surfs a lot (as I do) is welcome and appreciated.

MerzScope from Quebec-based MerzCom is a zooming Web-based graphical navigation tool that allows a visitor to a Web site to view and navigate that site via graphical site maps. After Sebastian Okada demoed it for me I called it an "of course" tool (as in, "Of course this makes perfect sense. Why hasn't anyone done it before?").

I got a preview of Microsoft's Windows 98 from Product Manager Stacey Breyfogle. It's very cool with some great new features. (Do I have to resign my membership in the L.A. Mac Group because I said something nice about Windows in print?) Check it out.

Kathy Greenler, Alta Vista's Marketing Director, told me Alta Vista had created a Translation Service which will allow Internet users to automatically translate from English to French, German, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian and from any of those languages back into English (for starters). While machine translation will always miss idioms in various languages, it's a good start toward making the Internet less English-centric and more truly global.

Kathy also told me that Alta Vista is beginning to roll out various content zones (entertainment, sports, finance, travel, family, etc.), a natural progression for them (and the Web) wherein you'll be able to go to the area in which you're interested and get immersed in it, and never have to leave-and they'll find your bony skeleton hunched over the keyboard drilling down into the 43rd level of Paul Simon music and memorabilia.

George Gould of Amplitude showed me Event Center, an automated system for event and calendar publishing. I really liked this one. It allows any selected member of any group (company, club, trade organization) to generate event information into a customizable calendar of events for the rest of the group to see and link from in order to obtain more information. It also provides subscription services for email notification of upcoming events.

For example, say you're the person in a company responsible for company picnics. You could add information about the next picnic onto the company's intranet event calendar, with a link to a form RSVPing employee attendance and providing directions, and have everyone in the company you want invited to be notified of the event via email. In a few years we may well wonder how we ever did without this.

The good stuff didn't ever seem to end. I met with Mark Brewer and Gary Brown of Andromedia. They've released Aria 2.5, real-time Web site activity analysis software. It does what it says and promises to be a vital tool for complex Web sites that need to constantly tweak their content and advertising.

I also met with Rick Hunt, VP, Electronic Media for the Total E site. It's owned by Columbia House, and no, it's not a club. There is no membership; it's "open to all," as Rick said. This is an entertainment software superstore where you'll be able to buy CDs, videos, CD-ROMs, audiobooks and books in one place. So if you do a search for Bob Dylan, you'll be able to find (and buy) all types of software related to him.

The challenge for Rick and Total E will be whether or not this concept can compete successfully with established sites that specialize in CDs (CDnow, Music Boulevard) and sites that specialize in books. Total E's business model is better service without trying to lowball those other sites. That may sound a bit weird, but then Rick has a B.A. in Economics from Harvard and an M.B.A. from Yale, and has worked in the record business for years. Now that's weird.

It was refreshing to talk to Ken Wruk, President of WebPromote. Here was someone who markets and promotes Web sites and isn't full of Hollywood hype and slickness. (Have I been living in L.A. too long?) That may be because Ken is from the Midwest; WebPromote is headquartered in the Chicago area. He understands the business and knows it's becoming results-driven.

Jeff Abbate of Intel showed me their new toy, the Create & Share Camera Pack. This allows you to make videos and attach them to an email. The picture is jumpy and small on the screen, but it's a start.

Last, I want to mention Intertainer, based in Santa Monica, CA. They showed a beta test of their broadband distribution service for on-demand entertainment and shopping via a television or a PC. A very beautiful product, it points to the future of hybrid machinery in the digital age.

Chaz Austin is President of Austin Digital Media Consulting, which expands market share for Internet and new media companies and represents out-of-area clients in the Los Angeles market and Hollywood.