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Web present or web presence? Lyndon Cerejo THE INTERNET is a relatively new medium, unlike any other medium. It's a very unique combination of the print, audio, and video media-a fusion of the more traditional newspaper, billboard, magazine, radio, telephone, and video. Companies worldwide are struggling with how best to harness the power it offers. Experimenting with websites is one way they are trying to achieve this. Initially, the business approach to the Internet was to use it largely as an electronic billboard-a simple and easy way to reach out to people around the world with information about their line of business. Over the past few years, however, companies have started understanding it and discovering its actual potential: not only as a source of information, but as a business tool. Countless organisations are exploring how they can best use the Internet, in particular the World Wide Web (WWW), for business applications. A carefully planned Internet presence is the equivalent of opening a new branch that anyone in the world-potential business partners or potential customers-can have access to in a matter of minutes. For many businesses, creating an online presence is becoming as necessary as having a telephone. Not having it translates to a loss of customers, dealers, partners, revenue. The sad part is, there are a few myths doing the rounds that often lead to disappointment with this online medium. Myth: ``Everyone has a website. We need one fast too, so let's put up our company brochures.'' A company rushing online just for the sake of being there may end up with a site similar to a billboard on an isolated path that no one travels by, and no one notices. It takes just a few minutes at a site to realise the mindset of the company-whether it is serious about its Web presence, or whether it is just dabbling for the sake of it. Jumping onto the Internet is a full-fledged marketing exercise in itself. One important fact that companies usually don't realise is that putting up a website is the virtual equivalent of starting a new office simultaneously all over the world, and needs to be treated as such. The impression created in the minds of potential customers and partners will depend on the face presented by a website to the world. And yet, this fact is most often overlooked. Myth: ``If I put up a website today, the money's gonna start flooding in from tomorrow.'' Sorry, that's not the way the virtual world works. Even well planned, sales-oriented websites have a gestation period. And mostly, the money earned online has to be ploughed back to improve the site and attract more online business. A vital point most managers often ignore is that though a company's online presence may not be bringing in revenue, it is saving money for the company by cutting costs in communication, printing, or generating sales leads. Consider the case of Eastman Kodak Co., the giant New York-based photo concern. Talking about whether its website made money or not, general manager for Internet marketing, Suzanne Welch, said, ``Yes. In 1996, customers made 1,75,000 downloads of software drivers for Kodak's digital equipment from Kodak's Web site, saving the company more than $4 million. We don't need to maintain an 800 number for questions, we don't need employees to take shipment orders, we don't need to pay to send the software out overnight.'' A study by Computerworld proves her point, showing that the number one reason businesses set up websites is to achieve cost savings, followed closely by customer service. Myth: ``A website is a website is a website. So let's get our chappies in the DTP department or the technical team to make ours.'' If the powers-that-be are not thoroughly convinced of the utility of having a website, they try every trick in the book to cut costs. The results are visible as you surf the Net. The simplest way is to go the in-house route: the prime candidates being the DTP/technical department. If the DTP department were responsible, you'd find the webpages loaded with huge graphics and logos, and sometimes the text too is scanned to achieve layouts not reproducible using plain HTML. If a technical team puts up the website, rest assured that you'll find cute little javascript alerts, irritating ticker tapes and huge java applets that could have been totally avoided. Either ways, no attempt is made to conceptualise, structure or create unique content. Forget about branding, clean design and layout, functionality, simplicity, structure and user-friendliness, the end-user is often forgotten/ignored in an attempt to showcase the design team's knowledge. Some of the most frustrating surfing experiences are when webpage designers decide that they have to show off their knowledge of HTML by using every HTML tag available. Enter pages with eight-to-10 frames, blinking text, and background sound that loops on and on. Myth: ``There, we have our website up and running. Now for some well-deserved rest till the next new medium comes along.'' Do that and chances are that the number of people visiting your homepage will not cross two digits. In many cases, once the initial thrill of the new website wears off, it becomes just what it was never intended to be: a cobwebbed site. Just like the magazines in my doctor's visiting room-I've seen those same issues for the past so many years that I don't even make the effort to reach out for them. Static web pages without updates, changes, modifications? There are other fires to be extinguished, other jobs more important. Myth : ``Now that my company has an online presence, we are marketing online too.'' A corporate website created by amateurs that is not updated regularly ends up having to compete with personal webpages that are sometimes more attractive in content and presentation. And companies then complain that the Net isn't working for them! The Net won't automatically work for them. Online marketing is one of the latest buzzwords flying around without really being understood. It sounds sophisticated, makes one feel nice when announcing they are practising it. But just because a company has a website up and running does not mean it has started marketing on the Internet. In fact, this is appropriately called passive Internet marketing-where the activities are not visible to the target audience. (The author is an Internet Consultant )

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