Simply put, the internet is a vast system of linked computers located all over our planet. Like a huge building with many floors, each space is linked with connections.

Never before in any medium have so many people all over the world been able to access and interact with the same information sources. Today, anyone with a computer and a modem anywhere on Earth can connect with diverse sources of information as well as other "wired" individuals. Understanding the Internet's capability for global communications offers companies important opportunities to bring their message to a worldwide audience and to maximize the benefits of their investment in the Web.

The Internet is designed to link distributed information resources through a worldwide network of computer "hosts." Rather than storing data on a single central computer, the Internet serves information resources from more than 6.64 million different Internet host computers operating in more than 70,000 different inter-connected networks around the world.

As the first truly global network, more than 2.37 million of those hosts are located outside the US in more than 150 countries. Beyond the confines of local, regional and national borders, the Internet interconnects new people and organizations everywhere. Interestingly, so far more than 75% of these host computers are located in English speaking countries, mostly in the US (table 1).

While English is projected to be the Internet's dominant language through the millennium, the most rapid growth in Internet usage around the globe will come in non-English speaking countries. Table 2 shows projections for the number of people on the Internet in the US, Asia and Europe through the year 2000.

Today, business on the Internet must be viewed as a new global frontier. Rapid immigration and population growth fuels an Internet boom with an unprecedented expansion of 20 percent per month! Depending on whose estimates you believe, the Internet already supports 18 to 30 million users representing nearly every country. In fact, Jupiter Communications reports that all but 23 countries have Internet access today.

Estimates in 1999 projected that one-third of all U.S. household (33 Million) would have Web access, by the year 2000. The total number of U.S. Web access accounts in September, 2001 totaled 143 million active users, 54% of the population. This figure is currently growing by 2 million users per month.  

How does it work?

Much like the world's phone system, the internet allows information to flow from one computer to another by the flow of electronic information.  With the phone, one simply dials a specific number within the world system, and the phone rings at the other end.  A person there answers and the information flow takes place as the caller talks to the party answering the phone. This voice communication has become a basic need for people around the world.
It is fast, efficient and easy to use.

The internet has is similar in many ways.  Think of your computer as the phone.  Like your phone, which must be "wired" to a local phone system to access the rest of the world's phone systems, your computer must connect to the internet through a company which provides similar access to the internet system.  Such companies, which have connections to the internet are generally called "ISP's" ... or Internet Service Providers.  There are thousands of such companies providing this service, much as phone companies around the world provide telephone connections.  Many of the larger phone companies have added this service to their product line ... and for good reason.  It's a very good fit in their communications service matrix.

Other companies, such as America OnLine, started from the other direction.  They provided a system with internet access, but other customized services, as well.  Such services generally have tremendous contents of information, and may be referred to as "content" providers or "networks."  America OnLine is now offering discounted telephone services to its members.

When you "sign on" to the internet, you are actually doing the same thing as picking up your phone, but instead of calling a person ... you will be calling another computer.  The number of that computer is the web "address" of the site you are calling.  Another name for that address is the "URL" of the site.  You may see this spelled out as http://www.anycompany.com, or something similar.  This address resides on a computer file somewhere in the world.  It is generally referred to as a "home page."

That home page file is on a computer called a "host."  A single host, sometimes also known as a "host server," may have thousands of such files, all waiting for your computerized call .... and there are thousands of host server computers tied into the internet.  There's more.  Each of the primary or home page files often have a number of other files which are "linked" to the primary file you "called" in the first place.  These files comprise the content or additional pages associated with the "home page."

When you go to a "home page," think of yourself as having called the operator at a large company.  After receiving some basic information, you may want your call transferred to another department or employee there.  The "home page" serves the same function, giving you choices for other information you may be interested in.  Instead of being transferred to a phone extension, the home page has "linked" pages containing the information you desire.  Click on the link and you'll be transferred to that page or file.

Once you have made your selection, the computer housing the file you have selected "downloads" the electronic information in that file to your computer using the internet system as a sort of pipeline.   Many things affect the speed of the information flow, such as the capacity and speed of the server computer, itself; the amount of requests for information it is currently processing; the amount traffic on the internet "highway" or pipeline; the speed of and current traffic on your ISP; the capacity of your phone connection to the ISP's computer; and the speed of your computer's modem which sends and receives information across that connection.  Wow!  No wonder the internet is sometimes referred to as the "World Wide Wait!"

Of course, there are major differences between the internet and the phone system.  For example, there are no "long distance" charges on the world wide web.  It costs the same to connect to China as it does to your next door neighbor.  And ... that cost is very reasonable.   Instead of voice or fax information received by phones, you are able to receive text, graphic, sound and data files directly to your computer screen ... information that simply can't be efficiently delivered by phone or quickly by mail.  The greatest differences may be the 24-hour a day access you have with the internet and the self-directed nature of your making the choices about what information you need.

The nature of the internet is that the people using it "pull" the information and services they need, rather than having it "pushed" toward them, as with conventional marketing.  For business, this "interactivity" and self-determination puts the customer in charge.  It also requires the providers of internet sites to be more customer driven ... providing the content and information their prospects and customers need.

One of our favorite phrases for marketing is "You can't push a rope."  This points out the fact that the most effective marketing creates an environment where potential customers make self-determined decisions which lead to doing business ... they pull the rope ... in other words, the products or services ... rather than having them pushed upon them.  This overcomes a major hurdle in marketing ... resistance.

Small Business "Webification"

Dun & Bradstreet's database lists some 75 million businesses worldwide, the vast majority of which are small outfits. An October 2002 study conducted for the U.S. Small Business Administration found that 57% of U.S. companies with 250 employees or less, estimated to number 21.3 million, use the Internet.

But few have a Web presence. In the U.S., only 30% of small businesses have a site, according to an annual Verizon Communications survey of companies with less than 50 employees.

The SBA study produced similar findings. Some 60% of the companies with Internet access had a site, and 35% sold products and services online, mostly to consumers. Based on these results, there are 7.2 million U.S. small business sites (34% of the 21.3 million small businesses) and 2.5 million e-commerce sites (11% of total small businesses).

According to The Yankee Group, 80% of companies with 2-19 employees have Internet access, and 28% have a site. The researcher predicts that the U.S. small- and medium-sized business shared-hosting market will reach $1.3 billion in 2003.

Biggest obstacles facing small business webification:

• ROI -- Verizon found that fewer than half of companies surveyed reported revenue gains after launching a site. The figure was even lower, 24%, according to an NFIB Education Foundation study of companies with fewer than 250 employees.
• Budget -- Just 30% of the small firms surveyed plan any kind of capital investments soon, a figure that hasn't budged for thee consecutive months reports NFIB. Verizon survey respondents typically spent $500 on average developing sites and $112 a month on maintenance. About 11% in the NFIB 2001 survey spent as much as $10,000 for design and $500 or more on monthly maintenance.
• Lack of e-commerce -- Only 24% of small company sites allow customers order online.

In November 2002, AOL launched AOL for Small Business to better serve its 2 million SOHO (small-office/home-office) subscribers. Yahoo! has upped its spending on its small business portal and now reports hosting 20,000 online stores. Microsoft pegs the worldwide small-business software market at $2 to $10 billion (the latter figure includes home offices).

What does all this mean for my business?

In some ways, marketing on the Web is really no different than marketing through any other channel. In any transaction, buyers and sellers establish a relationship based on an exchange of equal values. Each party to the exchange brings their own unique needs, useful goods and services, or means of exchange to the table.

It is in the nature of the relationship between companies and their customers that marketing on the Web distinguishes itself from other channels.

A defining characteristic of the Web channel is that customers on the Web exercise a much greater degree of control over the whole process of exchange than in any other channel. At every moment in the relationship, customers can choose to either stay or leave.  It is up to the seller to provide customers with easy access to all the information they need to make a decision or take and action to complete an exchange. In marketing terms, this means that business on the Web is shaped by "customer pull."

To be successful in doing business on the Web, companies will have to learn new ways of interacting with customers by establishing virtually personal relationships based on understanding and meeting the unique revealed preferences of each customer.

What the Internet Can Do for Your Business?

As a fundamentally new communications technology, six capabilities of the Internet's World Wide Web distinguish it from conventional media:

• Global Access
• Immediate Real-Time Access
• Virtually Infinite Space
• Multimedia
• Interactivity
• Database Driven Communication

Together, these powerful features offer companies on the Web important opportunities to enable and enhance marketing programs with unprecedented capabilities. Let's define and explore the business uses of each of these distinguishing properties of the Web to help companies understand how investing in developing these powerful features on their Web sites can maximize the business benefits of the Web.

Surf Locally, Interact Globally.

Never before in any medium have so many people all over the world been able to access and interact with the same information sources. Today, anyone with a computer and a modem anywhere on Earth can connect with diverse sources of information as well as other "wired" individuals. Understanding the Internet's capability for global communications offers companies important opportunities to bring their message to a worldwide audience and to maximize the benefits of their investment in the Web.  Even the non-global company can take advantage of this technology, using inter-related promotional techniques which direct prospects and customers to this readily available source of information.

Immediate, Real-Time Access.

As marketing guru Tom Peters points out, on the Internet, anywhere on the planet is just six-tenths of a second away! Now anyone who has tried to access the net with a 14.4 baud modem knows that estimate is a bit of an exaggeration. Still, with a new wave of access modes expanding delivery capabilities, Internet access speeds for average users will increase and Peters' optimistic assessment will prove increasingly correct.

Today, the Web is accessible twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Everyday, at every time of day, Internet users access diverse sources of information all over the world with an immediacy never before possible in any media. In the comfort of home or office, with the click of a mouse button, Internet users send digital signals to host computers in any part of the world ordering the near instantaneous delivery of desired information. Email, electronic file transfer, the World Wide Web and other Internet capabilities enable virtually immediate access to people, data, images, sounds, animations and even video clips.

Such immediacy is called "real-time" because unlike conventional media, users themselves control when they send or receive these near instantaneous information transfers. Likewise, information placed up on the net can be changed and updated in real-time as well. Product catalogs, pricing, sell sheets and a host of other business materials can be kept fresh and up to date with an immediacy never before possible in any medium.

For business, real-time immediacy means that sellers can keep dynamically published information fresh without incurring the expense of printing and publication. In addition to accessing current information on products and services, buyers can receive near instantaneous answers to their questions and sellers can substantially shorten the sales cycle by providing access to the information buyers need and by enabling online commerce capabilities on their Web sites.

"I could be watching a commercial for a car on TV but if I have questions I have to wait for answers," says Dan Janal of Janal Communications. "I can't ask the commercial where's my nearest dealer? How much does it cost? What's the miles per gallon or anything else. I'd have to call the dealer the next morning. By the time the next morning rolls around, how many more commercials have I been exposed to? I don't even remember that car commercial."

On well designed business Web sites, users will be able to find all the answers they need to make a purchase decision. If a user can't find the answer on the business site, they can easily and immediately send an email message to a company representative and get a message back in a very short amount of time.

For example, Reuters News (http://www.reuters.com) updates their news features every few minutes for their millions of readers. Online catalogs are another example of how businesses can achieve efficiencies by storing data once and updating changes in real time at regular intervals.

Another business benefit of real time immediacy impacts internal corporate communications. For intra-company communications, the Internet can provide highly secure, password protected ways to keep employees updated on the latest product and policy information, completely replacing haphazard distribution of memos. Across all time zones, employees can access up to the minute, uniform information about product features and availability without the expense of long distance phone calls.

American Airlines takes advantage of real-time immediacy and virtually infinite space on the Internet: "What we've done in the past is we've downloaded all these graphics files and things from the host onto notebooks for sales reps to use in presentations," says Philip Holden at American Airlines. "Now we're going to house all that stuff on the Internet and let them grab those things as they need them, and that way if we have to update something we update it once instead of five hundred times."

Today, by developing business features around the real-time capabilities of the Internet companies can maximize the business benefits of their Web site. A key is using the power of the Internet to provide immediate access to all the information resources buyers and employees need to take immediate actions in real time.

Virtually Infinite Space!

Imagine that you are a catalog seller and you normally print a 48 page catalog that comes out four times a year.  You can only put a hundred to two hundred of your top selling products in that catalog. And you only have about a paragraph of space to talk about each product. You send it out and you hope that you make enough money that it makes it worthwhile.

The Internet is the world's cheapest printing press. There is virtually no cost for printing on the Internet. If you have a thousand products in your catalog, you can put all thousand products on the Internet. You can put as many pictures as you like on the Internet. You can have full descriptions about the products, not just one little paragraph.

Once you have a business Web site up on the Internet, space in which to publish information resources is virtually free. Page after page of information can be posted on your Web site with virtually no limit, other than the amount of storage space you have connected to your host server. That's because space on the Internet is virtually infinite.

By comparison, space in a conventional media is quite limited and can cost a lot. Without spending a fortune, it's impossible to tell customers everything they may want to know about products, services, company etc... There's just too much to say. Instead, marketers must select the most essential pieces of information and attempt to convey it in limited space. Even then, it may or may not be the information any particular customer needs to make a choice. But there's just so much information you can pack into a print ad or a 30 second radio or TV spot.

In conventional media, marketers are limited to attracting customers and providing a relatively simple message. Likewise, with direct mail, printing, paper and postage expenses add up fast. Sellers can now tell customers everything about all their products for a fraction of the cost of other media. Likewise, customers can choose which pieces of the product most interests them. Companies only have to ensure that everything is there ready to be easily accessed by interested customers.

The promise of cheap digital delivery of text, graphics, animation, video and audio is a major factor pushing development of the Internet in general and electronic commerce in particular. For the first time in the history of media, virtually infinite amounts of information can be made available and delivered to users at a minuscule cost per user compared to both broadcast and print media. In fact, information can be provided to 1 million users on the WWW at a cost which is less than five-thousandths of one percent of the cost of delivering the same information via a newspaper, according to estimates by economist Arnold Kling. Combine this with the added values of user interactivity, flexibility of use, easy maintenance and relatively low cost hardware installations and clearly, the WWW becomes a highly attractive, cost-reducing alternative to more traditional ways of reaching customers.

Multimedia Delivery.

"The Web provides a place where you can get all the information you need except for actually physically walking up and touching the automobile," says Pete Snell of CKS, describing a Web development project for a major automobile manufacturer. For an example, see the Mercedes Benz site.

With advanced multimedia technologies, "You can virtually sit inside the car and see what it looks like from inside," Snell says. "You're actually seeing what the dashboard looks like." Audio on the Web also lets buyers hear the door shut and an electric window opening as a sales representative describes custom features. On the Web, multimedia lets buyers see the product and make a deal all online. "Multimedia" can be thought of as communications which integrate a variety of distinct media types into a single, hybrid, multi-media presentation. Today, text, graphics, photos, audio, animation, video, broadcasts and even 3-D "virtual reality" spaces can be offered on the Web. For business, dynamic multimedia on the Web enables and enhances business communications capabilities in unprecedented ways.

Multimedia on the Web enhances and expands the power of computer users everywhere to more intuitively know and understand the incredible diversity of the world we live, work, learn and play in. For business, multimedia on the Web brings opportunities to communicate with buyers with an unprecedented power and immediacy. Product information, customer service, technical support, training and many other aspects of business communication can be enabled and enhanced with dynamic multimedia on the Web. And in fact that is exactly what is beginning to happen.

For example, customers could use a 3D environment to experience products before they buy. Interior decorators might offer a 3D virtual reality showroom where customers could enter the dimensions of their living room and then see how various pieces of furniture would look and fit from several different perspectives.

"Web technology with a combination of text, graphics, audio, and video allows us to bring travel to life in a way we couldn't do before," says Terry Jones, president of SABRE Interactive, producers of Travelocity. "So with hypertext we can let the consumer wander and get as much information - let's say about the fare or destination they want. We can show them still images, we can play music, we can show them videos, and we can let them be very comfortable about their destination in a way we couldn't do before and in a way that we think over time will substantially reduce the cost of marketing. There is a huge waste in the travel market. I used to be a travel agent. I ran a travel agency with seven people. We used to get a mailbag a day full of brochures. We had to sort them and put them away and then could never find them when the person came in. Talk about non-one-to-one marketing! So here the consumer has the drive wheel and they can really search out what they are interested in."

Our subsidiary, WalkThroughOnline.com uses multimedia to let prospects "walk through" homes for sale, restaurants, and places to stay, such as hotels and inns. Take a look at the sample tour, complete with audio narration. You'll need RealPlayer on your system, but it is probably already installed.

Interactivity.

The most exciting thing about the web is its ability to let your prospects and customers communicate with your business, any time.  The use of forms for selecting and ordering products and services, as well as the ability to communicate using e-mail directly from your site provide the opportunities to build a strong relationship with the people you want to do business with.

Database-Driven Communication.

The most sophisticated sites tie in data bases containing huge files of products or other information, all easily accessed by the web site visitors.  Even less sophisticated sites can have the ability for the visitor to search the entire site for content, entering a word or phrase and then having all instances of the desired information displayed for the user's choice.  Information such as store locations, employee phone numbers, and customer accounts can thereby be made readily accessible to the users.

This aspect of the web has vastly improved customer service by providing fast, easy access to the information the customer needs.

Summary.

Now you have the background and you know a little more about the technology that is changing the way the world does business.  If this innovation is to continue at its current pace, surely you and your business future will be significantly affected.  But some cautions.  Don't expect miracles!  It takes time for a new concept to fully take hold.  What is interesting about the internet is it is taking hold fastest with the customers of the very near future ... the world's young people.  They have jumped in with the enthusiasm and curiosity of their generation, and soon they will expect businesses to make themselves available through this exciting technology.  You'll need to be ready to serve them, so don't procrastinate.