Those companies that are most successful on the Internet are exploiting the new possibilities offered by the medium. They are not simply repeating what is effective in other media and placing that, unchanged, on the Internet.

You are not going to be successful on the Internet unless you create new value for the consumer, points out Fred Pursell of ChannelCraft International. The key, he says, is to talk to your target customers and ask them what they think. “Ask them, ‘Would it be useful to have this available in this form?’ ” Pursell says.

Examples abound of companies and organizations that are not doing this. They are using the Internet, but they do not see the opportunities offered by the new medium. If they do see them, they are not exploiting them. They are taking the contents of a brochure, a newsletter or a newspaper and dumping it on the Internet. Doing that achieves nothing of much value. The print materials are harder to read on a computer screen, less easy to page through, and are organized in a way that works in print but not on the Web.

True, sometimes it’s useful to an Internet user to be able to access information about a company. But in most cases the people who want that information are a select few who search for it with a special purpose in mind. Their search on the Internet for the information is akin to looking on a dusty library shelf for a reference on a company needed for a research paper; it’s a chore performed only when someone needs that information for a special purpose.

Indeed, the chances of reaching consumers and attracting them to your product or service by merely placing your brochure on the Internet are about as great as attracting readers by scattering your brochure at the side of a busy freeway. You think it is great to have it out there; it might be pretty and it might contain some clever gimmicks, but you have to ask yourself: Who will bother to read this? With millions of sites available, who will seek out mine? Why would they want to read this on the Internet?

It has not always been this way. In the first days of the Internet, brochureware (simply placing your brochure online) was acceptable. The medium was new, so that merely obtaining an Internet site and getting it to work was considered something of a feat. But the Internet has advanced beyond those times. Quickly and irrevocably.

Following earlier patterns

Development of the Internet in many ways is following the pattern of the development of other new forms of communication. In the early days of the movies, simply seeing moving pictures fascinated people. They would sit and watch a crude black-and-white picture of a moving train, for example, and be totally spellbound. As the medium developed, however, people became more interested in seeing moving pictures that told stories or conveyed information. Later color added a new dimension. Today, of course, simply seeing a moving picture — even one in brilliant color and with sharp definition — holds little attraction for anyone. People are now mainly concerned with the story being told in the movie. The medium itself is merely that — a medium. The important element is the information being conveyed through the means of the medium.

Similarly, the early days of television were marked by a fascination with the fact that pictures could be transferred through space across thousands of miles. Today that transfer no longer startles anyone and certainly does not provide a motivation to watch television.

The Internet is going through the same process of transformation from a concentration on an intriguing new way of conveying information to an emphasis on the nature of the information being conveyed.

At first, the Internet fascinated people because it could convey information and pictures instantly and yet have them available for perusal at any time — unlike radio and television in which information is conveyed at restricted points of time. Early sites (and many still exist) were marked by an obsession with animated pictures, bright colors and relatively large displays that conveyed no real information but looked really impressive (at least to those who created them). Today’s successful sites have moved from exploiting the gimmicks of the Internet for the sake of showing off those gimmicks to passing on information and establishing services of value to users. The gimmicks now add a useful service to a site or they are not used at all.

A major difference between the Internet and the development of other media is the speed at which the change is occurring. Whereas it took years for movies to move from enchantment with the new medium to its creative use, it is taking mere months for the Internet to move from a fascinating new way of transferring information to an awareness of the importance of the “story” being told through the medium.

“You used to be able to differentiate yourself just by being on the Web,” says Tim Knowlton of Wells Fargo Bank who specializes in helping companies with electronic commerce. “Now you have to do something unique.”
To be unique is a challenge. You will need to provide something that is so different that no one else is doing quite that.

For many companies, however, there is no need to be unique; after all, dozens of companies now provide the ability for people to trade stocks over the Internet and many of them appear to be successful. The demand is not necessarily to invent something that has never been done before, but to use the unique capabilities of the Internet. That means using the capabilities of the Internet that are available in no other medium.

Says Harley Oda, marketing director of Web designer Design 21, “The Internet is different than the printed media and cannot be treated like them. It is a combination of print, advertising and audio. You are trying to combine the three.”
“Certain things work on television that don’t work in other media,” says Tom Coughlan of Open Door Technology Marketing.

“Certain things work on the Internet because it is the Internet. You need to adapt your site to make it leverage the advantages that the Internet has over other media.”