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By Jack Lyness
Senior Vice President, e-agency, Inc.
OAKLAND, Calif. –
2004 might be the year when we see the Internet disappear.
OK - not literally. But in terms of our perceptions, the Internet in all its various incarnations will soon become as ubiquitous in our modern, everyday life as, say, electric power, running water or written words. The Internet is fast becoming part of every tool and toy we use, to the point that eventually, we won't think about it. Simply put, the Internet is not just about "computers" any more.
Ubiquity - "n. the state of being, or seeming to be, everywhere at the same time" - as relates to Internet-connected services and devices, is at the heart of many of the changes that the staff of Oakland Web developer e-agency has predicted for the coming year. For the second year, the e-agency professionals recently took a little time off from their regular tasks of building and programming Web sites, writing press releases, designing advertisements and plotting business communications strategies to think about 2004. What's new and important, or will be by the end of the year, in e-agency's world of increasingly integrated and interactive business communications?
The predictions
The big impacts in 2004 will come from five big ideas.
1) Everything wireless - from phones to laptops, cameras to coffee shops - will be major agents in the inevitable march of ubiquity.
2) The Presidential election campaigns will make this the year that politics on the Web goes mainstream, becoming part of the way political campaigns function, and the way we vote.
3) Search-related Web marketing was hot last year, because it was a bargain for advertisers. Now, as it becomes less of a novelty, search-related advertising will become a tool that consumers will be glad to use, right through the point that we forget to notice it anymore. (And although the prices are now relatively higher, it's still a bargain.)
4) Spam probably won't die this year, but it won't be because too few weapons of mass destruction are thrown at it. The State of California led the way with a new anti-spam law last fall, the U.S. Congress recently followed, and everyone from Microsoft to AOL (to e-agency!) is looking for ways to rid our inboxes of a torrent of offensive, unwanted and even fraudulent e-mail. There will be some limited successes. But spam control may open the door to government attempts to regulate Internet operations in other areas.
5) It's the economy....! Cash is beginning to flow again, and more than ever before will flow through the Web. Smart companies will invest early in upgrading their Web presence - both their public sites and their operations-oriented intranets and extranets. The smart ones will also elevate Web spending to a regular and accountable spot in their annual budget and demand realistic predictable returns on their investments.
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If last year's e-agency predictions are any measure, more than two thirds of these new predictions should come true. Four out of six issued last December hit the mark squarely, with two more achieving slightly less than predicted results.
The first of last year's picks - that the term "dot com" would die - turned out to be right on. When was the last time you heard "dot com" in ordinary conversation?
We predicted there would be more anti-spam and anti-pop-up ad format tools in use, but that neither nuisance would go away. True again. And continued….
We predicted search-engine ads would be the hottest and most effective bargain on the Web - as indeed they were. Still more to come.
The word "ubiquity" came up last year, too, in predictions that people would turn to the Web to rent movies, print and share photographs, buy theater tickets and more. (Which of those haven't you done by now?)
Arguable results were recorded for the predictions that the content-management program Macromedia Contribute would take off (Contribute sold 135,000 licenses in its first year and gathered good reviews, but it didn't become a household word as we thought it might) and that open-source programming, particularly Linux-flavored operating systems, would become more common. (It's also true, with notable enterprise adoptions by IBM, HP and others, although desktop use has still not ballooned to a particularly remarkable degree.)
Wireless everything
This year's premiere prognostication - Ubiquity - stands a better chance than any of last year's, and wireless devices will be at the front.
Bought a new cell phone lately? Cell phones have been around for quite awhile, but the newest ones will let you check your e-mail, browse the Web, search your address book, download a catalog or a new game with over-the-air programming, take a picture, even make a movie, and send it to a friend. This could be the year the video phone becomes a consumer item.
Laptop computers come with wireless access as a standard feature, and McDonalds and Starbucks (two brands that virtually defined commercial ubiquity) are imitating Internet cafes, enabling stores with wireless access. All new GM cars are available with OnStar over-the-air roadside assistance and emergency services as an option.
But if you want to know what we'll be doing with wireless devices in the near future, look to Europe or Japan. They're ahead of us. Don't bother with change (or cash) for a soft drink machine, for example - it will read your account identity remotely from your phone or a credit card while it's still in your wallet - and at your command, deliver a soda to you while quietly debiting your account.
Those talking billboards that you saw in several science fiction movies last year that recognize you as you walk past and pitch an ad at you based on your personal shopping patterns weren't based in fiction at all - they're coming. (Maybe not that many this year.)
(Want to invest in ubiquity? Think batteries.)
Politics online
Howard Dean is already blowing the field of Democratic presidential challengers away, even before the first primary contest is held. Even if his campaign eventually flames out, Dean has sent a wake-up call to political consultants across America about the power of a well-crafted political Web site to 1) raise campaign cash and 2) broaden and empower a campaign community. The consultants who run most larger campaigns have been particularly slow in warming up to the power of the Web. But that is changing.
Many people - those who don't yet get it - see the political Web site as little more than an electronic brochure, a means for distributing campaign materials without paying a printer. The Web can indeed deliver more of a candidate's positions to potential voters inexpensively, and in forms that voters themselves can control, letting them focus on the issues they personally care about most and ignore the ones that can bore them into … not voting. The Web can be a great resource for a voter seeking to inform him- or herself.
But more important from a campaign perspective, a good Web site creates a virtual campaign headquarters, with the ability to network volunteers without meetings, deliver materials without trucks, and direct initiatives over broad areas without the limitations of geography. E-mail, once we work through the same kinds of problems that plague commercial spam today, should prove to be an incredibly powerful campaign tool, as it already has in other parts of the world.
California went through its first broad-based experience with electronic touch-screen voting in its October gubernatorial recall election. While there were glitches that will continue to reverberate through changes and refinements, the step that was taken forward will not be taken back again. The touch screens worked well.
Computers and the Internet are making voting and campaigning smarter and easier. Search-related marketing
As we predicted last year, search-related marketing was the hottest ad value on the Internet in 2003. For as little as five cents per click, online businesses could inexpensively place their site in front of Web users who were actively searching for the very products or services they offer.
Pricing by both Overture and Google is based on the auction model, so as long as there is little competition for the keywords you want, prices can be very low. And in any case, you set your own budget. As the practice has become more common and competition has increased, the successful bid prices in most common categories have risen. Still, when you factor in the value of conversion of clicks to customers, the cost of those clicks is still very affordable in most cases.
What will make search marketing much more attractive in the coming year is the increasing sophistication of the ad packages available, with no feature more attractive to many small businesses than localization. Historically, advertising on almost any medium on the Web has meant advertising to the world. If yours is a less-than-global enterprise, much of you advertising value has been strained. (E-agency, just for one example, does business with clients from China to Norway and in more than 23 U.S. states. But we define our optimum service territory as the San Francisco Bay Area, and would prefer to channel our marketing efforts - particularly for our more consulting-style services, here.)
Using localized search-related marketing, a Web site owner will be able to type in a keyword, along with city, state, street address or ZIP code, to receive sponsored and general search results for businesses located in their neighborhood. Paid inclusion – a practice of Overture and its affiliates, but thus far eschewed by Google as deceptive because it does not label search results as advertising – is a growing trend that bears watching. In general, We believe consumers will continue to become more comfortable with responding to marked paid search listings, especially as they become more effective for their needs.
But don't forget the importance of also optimizing your site so that it comes up high in appropriate lists, even without a paid boost. The credibility of a top-performing search listing will always be somewhat greater than that of paid listings. And importantly, the kinds of fine tuning you do to your site to get it to perform well in listings is likely to make it function more efficiently for your prospects who come to the site, no matter whether in response to a search or in response to other site marketing you may do.
Spam control may open the door to government regulation
E-mail is unquestionably the most popular and powerful application on the Internet today. The cancer of unsolicited e-mails that fill our inboxes, many of them offensive, pornographic, brainless or outright fraudulent, threatens the effectiveness of this critical tool. So many people are disgusted by the vast majority of e-mail that comes to them that they throw much of it away without reading it - including some messages they probably wish they had not. None of the fix-it-quick schemes that have been brought forth to date work, and many cut out e-mail so recklessly as to be counterproductive.
California's Legislature took a significant step forward last fall, passing one of the toughest anti-spam laws in the nation. It would make it a crime to send an unsolicited commercial e-mail either from California or to anyone in California. An individual who successfully pursued a complaint could win $1,000 per message in court, and a convicted Spammer could be liable, in the aggregate, for up to $1 million per message.
As numerous other states either passed or prepared to pass their own anti-Spam rules, Congress stepped up in December and passed the so-called Can Spam law. It puts SPAM generally under the auspices of the Federal Communications Commission, and provides for both fines and/or prison for violators. The FCC has six months to a year to clarify the regulations, and to establish a federal "do-not-e-mail" list similar to the "do-not-call" list created earlier in the year to try to curb unwanted telephone solicitations.
Meanwhile a variety of other technological approaches to the problem, including the use of black lists (that block e-mail from "known spammers" - a problematic and often inaccurate definition) to white lists (that separate mail from exclusively "approved" senders, and lump all the rest in with the spam) and spam filters (that use a variety of arbitrary clues to identify and segregate spam) are being developed and touted.
E-agency, for example, is currently refining its own version of a spam filter, which should be available to e-mail clients this spring.
For all organizations engaged in seeking business through the Internet, it's time to make sure e-mail marketing messages are optimized to be direct, honest and appealing; to make sure lists are kept fresh and that all new additions come from users who have "opted in" to a clear statement about how their e-mail addresses may be used; and that all sites have clearly written privacy policies prominently displayed.
The acceptance of government regulation of e-mail will probably also make it easier for states to begin trying to impose sales and other taxes on e-commerce transactions, and to regulate other Internet-based services such as telephone calls.
Economy is turning green again
Like the spring that always returns, no matter how stark the winter, our economy is picking up again. Smart businesses will celebrate the occasion by investing in their marketing tools early, and none of them is more central to all the rest then the Web site. Many businesses that have delayed upgrading Web sites as a result of economic uncertainty will look cautiously to catch up, seeking help from professionals with proven records of success.
Those who don't risk harming their enterprise. (See an e-agency white paper: "Warning - Your Web Site May Be Killing Your Business.")
Web sites that are still essentially static electronic brochures will begin adding database-driven functionality, taking orders and harvesting prospect contact information online and offering personalized answers to questions. Site owners will also be seeking site control tools that allow them to edit and update content on their own, without technical assistance. More sites will have more dynamically generated content, with information stored in databases delivered to Web visitors upon request.
Those smart site owners who invest in upgrades should also be keeping a closer eye on what their sites cost, what benefits they deliver, and how they are managed on a day-to-day basis. Gone is the day when you could put up a Web site and leave it alone.
Some businesses that recognize the value of substantial site upgrades, but still can't easily afford a large cash outlay, may turn to site leasing to rebuild now and pay over time.
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Based in Oakland for 14 years, e-agency specializes in public relations, strategic marketing consulting, response marketing, advertising, graphic design, and, at the heart of the agency, a complete range of Internet services, including Web site design, e-mail marketing, Web advertising, site marketing, e-commerce development, e-book publishing, secure on-site Web and e-mail hosting, and database programming and management.
Key e-agency clients include Oakland International Airport, Safeway, the Shorenstein Company, the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, North American Lubricants, KaiserAir, the California Water Environment Association, Matthews International Fund, and cities including San Diego, Alameda, Emeryville, Gilroy, and El Cerrito. E-agency hosts more than 250 Web sites and has clients in 23 U.S. states and eight countries.
More information can be found at www.e-agency.com. Logos and portraits of the principals at e-agency, designed specifically for print publication, can be easily downloaded from www.GiveMeMore.com/e-agency.
Media contact:
Jack Lyness
(510) 304-2411
jlyness@e-agency.com
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