Section Six Section Six
Since the popularization of the World Wide Web, Internet users have become very keen on HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the script-like language used to create WWW documents. Howard Harawitz realized that this was an opportunity to develop software which would help people create HTML documents at home as easily as using a WordPerfect macro. The software he developed is called HTML Assistant, and has been available since April of 1994.
HTML Assistant is like a small word processor which has been designed to insert HTML codes into text files.Since there are many codes needed for designing WWW documents, having software which automatically handles all of them makes document creation a simple matter. Since its development, HTML Assistant has been mentioned in The Internet Business Journal, PC Computing, ComputerLife, PC Week, PC Magazine and Esquire. The origin of the company is almost a cliche.
"I started with a computer in an office in my basement and, thanks to the global Internet, I am now running a business that can support several people and which has great growth potential," says Howard. "We are working on other products and I am in the process of looking for partners and investors."
Howard's day job was teaching Computer Technology at a community college, and he had a considerable amount of experience as a Windows programming consultant. When he sat down to write some of his own WWW documents, he was surprised to discover that there were no decent HTML editors for Windows.
"I suppose that this is because most programmers on the Internet have been working with UNIX, and from what I've seen, most of them consider Windows the logical equivalent to junk-food," recalls Howard.
So Howard began to developed HTML Assistant (which he says he did as much to avoid his relatives at Christmas as anything else). Although it did not begin as a money-making project, Howard knew that he had the world's most efficient distribution system at his fingertips: the Internet. By archiving the software on a number of sites around the Net and posting press releases about its availability, it was only a matter of time before people started to take notice. And when somebody finds a useful product on the Internet, they tend to tell everybody else.
"We distributed a shareware version of HTML Assistant which people could freely download and make use of. When it became popular, I realized that I could make money at it, so I started advertising a commercial version, called HTML Assistant Pro, which has features not available in the shareware version. By purchasing this version, users would have an automatic page creator, the ability to remove HTML markings from the text, more conversion options and access to upgrades," said Howard.
"Sales of the commercial product have grown very rapidly since December of 1994. Our customers include major corporations, governments, universities and research institutes all over the world."
Howard was reluctant to discuss actual revenue figures, but he did say this:
"Suffice it to say that several families could live comfortably on the income we anticipate (mostly from exports) this year."
Brooklyn North Software Works
by Roswell James, proprietor
"In August of 1993 I set up an electronic bookstore on my Internet provider's gopher, which would allow users to get to the bookstore from anywhere on the Internet and browse or order books directly. We also started a mailing list which we control at our store to send out monthly announcements about new releases and "Specials of The Month"."We were initially disappointed with the sales from this. We experienced a very high demand for more information about our service than the books we were selling. We saw a very small increase in business. Then, starting in January of 1994, we suddenly experienced a big change. For the following nine months, even during our slowest part of the year (the summer), we have seen the sales double. I have looked carefully at the change and can say that most of the increase has come from doing business on the Internet.
"As an Internet user I have received a number of unsolicited e-mail advertisements and have not liked getting them. This helped us design our use of the Internet. We took the approach that we had to be a 'passive' advertiser wherein the customer only hears from us if they so request. We used our e-mail signature to alert people to the fact that we had a mailing list, and then waited for the customer to subscribe. This has worked well. Within the first five months of offering this service we averaged between two and five new subscriptions a day. In that time we had only three requests to unsubscribe. When we send out our monthly advertising to our subscriber list we make it very clear that the receiver can unsubscribe at any time.
"This trend has also continued up to today. It is now getting so big that we are starting to look at new ways of managing the database of names. We are thinking about switching our mailing list to something like a listserv that is automated and will enable customers to start a discussion with us and our other customers on computer-book issues. As to customers who have dropped our service, we have contacted them to find out why. The answers were almost all the same. They were dropping their Internet account or moving and were changing their e-mail address.
"We also took the approach that we are on the Internet for the long haul. Thus we have not really expected a quick increase in sales right away. We are always looking at new ways to reach customers, but we are not interested on stepping on a lot of toes to gain them; we would rather let word of our service travel by email mouth. The results are starting to prove our approach is right.
Roswell Computer Books
Question: How does a graduate student in oceanography make a buck on the Internet?
Answer: He turns himself into a World Wide Web home page developer.
This is the story of Mark Allen, a graduate student of oceanography at the University of British Columbia. During 1994 Mark saw what was happening with the Internet and the interest companies were starting to take in the World Wide Web. These companies did not need to be convinced that being on the Web was going to be good for business but they lacked the knowledge required to do it themselves.
Mark was responsible for maintaining the Web pages for the department of oceanography so he already had the experience in building them. Making a business out of it was just a matter of attracting some customers.
"The thing is, if business can be done over the phone or by fax, the WWW is the best way to reach a large market place without having to fork over large sums of money to have advertisements in the major papers," said Mark.
Mark has seized upon one of the great features of the Internet, namely that it stands to benefit small businesses most of all because of the way it allows them to access markets that would have been impossible by the traditional methods.
"The work I am doing so far is for small companies who have seen the light and want to advertise to a large audience cheaply.""The Internet is still new technology and a lot of people are just trying to figure out how to use it," Mark comments. But he also points to statistics about the Internet, in particular the World Wide Web. "There are almost one thousand businesses on the Web at the moment, and that number will be over two thousand by the summer (1995)."
"The Internet has made it possible for me to start a company, advertise my services and solicit new clients with amazing efficiency."
Mark is one of those Internet entrepreneurs who has realized that some technical savvy and creativity can go a long way.
"Developing a good site takes a lot of time, but once it's in place it has the possibility of generating a vast quantity of revenue. That is why the service my company provides is so valuable."
As with many Internet entrepreneurs, Mark is reluctant to talk about actual revenue figures.
"We have had a lot of interest in our services. People really like the idea of hiring a company to take care of their Internet presence, mainly because people are very cautious about it. That makes for good business opportunities for us."
Templeton Information Systems
Vancouver, BC
KPMG is the largest accounting/consulting firm in Canada and launched itself onto the Internet during the middle of February, 1995. This company represents a new way of thinking about networking technologies, namely that they can be useful for other things than simply trying to make a quick buck.
"Many of our clients come from the medium-sized business sector, and these are some of the people we want to reach with our World Wide Web presence," said Randall Craig, a representative at KPMG. "Our goal is to reinforce the image of KPMG as progressive, providing useful information to businesses anywhere."
This approach reflects the changing view of business which is being brought about by the Internet, where the most valuable thing you can do is simply be there, are be useful. And KPMG is certainly useful. Among the menu items listed at their Web site, users will find '1995 Canadian Federal and Provincial Budgets,' 'Canadian Tax Tip of the Day,' 'Business Advisory Review' (a newsletter for entrepreneurs and owner-managers), and more. Not surprisingly, the most popular item at the site is the 'Canadian Tax Tip of the Day.'
"We are currently getting thousands of distinct logins to our site every month, many of which go straight to the tax tip," said Randall. "It has been a big hit amongst Internet users."
These thousands of hits every week pales in comparison, however, to the number of hits KPMG got around Federal budget time.
"On February 27th we put the federal budget on our site, and during the thirty-six hours around that time we tracked forty-five thousand hits."
By providing useful services to the Internet, KPMG is beginning to realize its goal of reinforcing a progressive image.
"Our competitors typically put flat brochures and publicity materials on a Web site, but once you've read a brochure once you do not need to read it again. We keep information sources updated constantly so that Internet users always have something new to find at our site," said Randall.
The lack of aggressive promotional material certainly stands out at KPMG's site, which reinforces the idea that the true value of a commercial Internet presence need not have anything whatsoever to do with point of sale.
KPMG
DISCscribe is a company based in Fredericton, which specializes in digital communications. It operates World Wide Web and Gopher servers and produces electronic documents, both online and offline, which may contain text, digital images, audio, music, video and animation which run on the Internet, PC's Macintosh or Unix computers. DISCscribe offers various Internet, documentation, multi-media, consulting and training services.
Not only does DISCscribe offer services over the Internet; much of the work is done by employees from at least three different provinces.
"Thanks to the Internet, everybody works from home -- in three different provinces," said George Butters. "Last August (1994) we were a one-person shop, but now we have a full time cybrarian, translator, illustrator/html writer, general manager/html author, programmer and a couple of part-time and contract people."
The Internet is ideal for the kind of work which DISCscribe specializes in because almost all of it can be delivered electronically. In the information age, this fact describes a great deal of the work that many companies do, and the Internet makes is possible for these companies to deliver electronic products efficiently.
George is quick to discourage the idea that the Internet is a big gravy train:
"This doesn't mean that there's gold in them thar hills. It means we work eighteen hour days seven days a week, but as of last night (March 25th, 1995) we had more than six hundred companies listed on our server. Last summer (1994) it was more like six."
This increase in business is clear from the sources of revenue which DISCscribe has.
"I can tell you this," said George. "The percentage of our revenues derived from the Internet-related activities has gone from about five percent last summer (1994), to about sixty-five percent right now (March, 1995)."
There can be little doubt that the Internet is maturing to the point where it can sustain a serious portion of a company's revenue source.
DISCscribe
Among the companies setting themselves up on the Internet is an Ottawa radio station, 106.9 The Bear. 106.9 offers some alternative programming which is not available on other stations, such as a program called 'Sunday Night Sex with Sue', a call-in program for people to discuss sex-related issues.
106.9's World Wide Web site contains various types of information including menu items for 'Bear Night Prowler Guide' (a guide to live music and events in the Ottawa area), 'Music News' (news and rumours in the music world), and more.
Marisa Golini (news director) pushed for the establishment of an Internet presence at 106.9, a task which was easier than you might think.
"I was fortunate because all the members of the upper management were already sold on technology," said Marisa. "At our station it is the upper managers that surf the Net and the disk jockeys who are more or less in the dark about the Internet."
106.9 was installed on the Internet by a local Ottawa provider which, like many others, was keen on filling its site with businesses and services.
"We were the first commercial radio station in Canada to be on the Internet, which I found surprising because there are so many things a radio station can do with such a connection."
In general, Marisa felt that an Internet presence for a radio station should be used to extend the services of the station, not just promote them.
"We want to use the World Wide Web site to offer things to our listeners that we cannot give them over the air. The most important of these is communicating with listeners to let them know that we are here and listening to their comments and questions."
Marisa said that the station gets at least ten email messages every day from the Web site.
"I make it a priority to answer all the messages as soon as they come in," she said. "People have been very impressed with our prompt responses."
106.9 launched their Web site in early January (1995) and was quickly noticed.
"Our provider told us that in the month of February we got more than four hundred visitors a week," said Marisa. "We started to get responses almost immediately and discovered what our listeners wanted to see. Since then we have created links to all kinds of alternative Internet information sources, such as the X-Files, David Letterman and other sites which have good band and music information. Providing information like this is one of the things we can do with a Web site that just cannot be done over the radio," Marisa points out.
"We felt that Ottawa was an ideal place to have a radio Web site, because it is a very high-tech city."So far this reasoning has proved correct. Traffic at 106.9's Web site is steadily increasing, and listeners have been very happy with all the information they can get from it.
The Intenet has also proved to be a very useful research tool for the folks in the newsroom.
"We have a small newsroom yet I feel I can access information on just about any topic witht the click of a mouse. Having Net access is like having a team of reporters," commented Marisa.
106.9 plans to establish an email address for Sue McGarvie, host of 'Sunday Night Sex with Sue', 106.9's most popular program.
"This is just another way to communicate with people and allow them to communicate with us," said Marisa.
In the information age, it is not just another way, but an essential way.
106.9 FM The Bear
Finland
Arctia is the largest hotel chain in Finland with forty-eight hotels in all. Since January of this year, Internet users have been able to surf hotel information and book rooms electronically. (The only downside is that reserving rooms requires Internet users to print out a form and fax it to the hotel. This will soon be replaced by an end-to-end electronic reservation system.)
Finding the Arctia site required only a quick sojourn through the Travel section of the Yahoo site. I discovered that there were certain incentives to reserving rooms through the Internet.
"Our WWW home page offers information of our hotels and services in Finland and we offer special Internet rates reserved only for Web surfers. Furthermore we are going to provide Finland-related tourism data and imagery and links to the visitors of our pages."
Jarno Tarkoma (jta@mofile.fi) said that publicity about their hotels on the Internet was very good, but that it was still too early to tell what exactly the returns will be from the Internet launch He added that Arctia firmly believes that there is a promising future for hotel reservations on the Internet.
"We believe that Internet will be a great channel for hotel room reservations. We expect to get sales through Internet and our goal is to add WWW pages for all of our 48 hotels. The Internet will be a lucrative marketing channel for our room capacity in the future. Today the marketing costs of the international reservations are high and we hope that the Internet will lower these costs substantially. In short we believe that Internet will be an economically viable way to reserve a hotel room."
The travel industry has been slower to respond to the Internet that one might expect. Of all industries, no other depends so heavily upon solicitng business from many corners of the globe. No other industry stands to gain so much in marketing efficiency by a global communications system which is populated mainly by upper-middle class, well educated users.
The Arctia Web pages were very nicely designed, although the digitized photographs took a fair bit of time to load. The hotels themselves looked beautiful and gave me a good idea of what I should expect were I planning a trip to Finland.
Arctia Hotel Partners
Some of the finest kitchen cookware is made in PEI and is now available over the Internet. Paderno Cookware started flirting with the idea of establishing an Internet presence in the summer of 1994, when they were using an email address of one of the employees (Scott). They found this useful for contact purposes, both for customers to be able to contact them, and for Paderno to be able to contact potential customers.
"Paderno does a lot of brochure mail-outs, so we see this as an opportunity to access a new electronic media which is more efficient that the standard ones," said Scott. "We currently have more than twenty thousand names in our database, which makes for a lot of mailing."
Paderno is not particularly concerned about using the Internet for a point of sale, because that is being done for them already.
"We are the manufacturer so our product is sold through the retailers which we deal with."
And although Paderno had no plans to change this, Scott admitted that selling directly over the Internet has possibilities.
"We get a lot of inquiries on the basis of our World Wide Web presence, some of which result in sales. It was not our intention to set ourselves up as a retail outlet, but it could turn out to be a by-product of our Internet presence.""What we originally had in mind as far as being on the Internet goes was developing a new source for contact information," said Scott. "The Internet is tremendous for collecting names and addresses for a database, and very cost-effective for making use of those names and addresses for marketing purposes."
The lowest common denominator on the Internet is acknowledged to be electronic mail, meaning that even though an Internet user is accessing the Net in primitive ways (at least by today's standards), they still have access to email. And the most important thing a company can do is set up efficient communication channels.
"In addition to a contact method, we have plans to use the Internet to set up online forms for requesting information through the World Wide Web, and for doing some advertising in the appropriate places," said Scott. "We have only recently started to advertise, but the response has been good so far."
Interestingly enough, it was originally the Internet provider which contacted Paderno, not the other way around. Ever since the Web has become very popular, providers have been keen on attracting businesses to their store fronts.
"About six months ago (making it the fall of 1994) the local access provider approached us about putting Paderno on the Internet," recalls Scott. "Our access provider helped us a lot and made the decision very easy."
If companies are not sure how to get set up on the Internet there are many access providers who can facilitate this process, for it is also in the provider's interest to have businesses on their site. After all, that's their business.
Paderno Cookware
As a result of using the Internet to market publications, videos, conferences, speaking engagements, and consulting worldwide, Strangelove Internet Enterprises (SIE, an Ottawa-based company) has, in two short years, grown from a one person sole proprietership to a corporation that now provides employment and career development for eight people. SIE's Internet success is based upon the primary economic dynamic of the new wired economy of the Internet -- affordable global marketing power.
Starting with The Internet Business Journal in 1993, SIE demonstrated how the Internet can take a low capital, local business and transform it into an innovative industry leader with an international reputation. By mastering Internet-friendly marketing techniques, SIE was able to publish a book entitled How to Advertise on the Internet: An Introduction to Internet-Facilitated Marketing and Advertising, written by Michael Strangelove and Aneurin Bosley.
As a further result of this new knowledge, SIE was also able to develop a consulting division, counting among its clients the Deputy Minsiter of the New Brunswick Department of Tourism and Economic Development, as well as Microsoft Canada and the Federal Department of the Environment. The Internet has enabled a company of eight university graduates to create their own careers and lead the way in one of the most significant economic changes this century.
Because of the value of the Internet to business, goverment and individuals, SIE quickly recognized that there was a market for Internet training.
"People are confused about the Internet," said Aneurin Bosley, VP of SIE. "Consider the fact that training courses in WordPerfect and Excel are still popular, and you will realize that very few people have the computer experience to be able to teach themselves. That's where The Internet Training Company (a division of SIE) comes in. We feel that clients are best served by a company whose expertise is not only the technology of the Internet, but also its unique cultural characteristics."
"The Internet Training Company uses the Internet to market its courses as well as research and develop new courses. Of course, the Net also enables our trainers to communicate with other trainers for professional development and competitive intellegence," adds Lindsay Fraser, director of training.
"For us, the Internet has meant the ability to create business opportunities in areas where it would have been impossible a few years ago. For example, the amount of capital required just to market a new limited circulation publication is very large and out of reach for any small- or medium-sized business," says Aneurin. "But on the Internet, you can develop the content, set up distribution channels and maket your product with as little as a $50 per month email account. It's hard work, but at least it is possible."
"We believe that the Internet represents more than just business opportunities; it will genuinely revolutionize business practices."
Strangelove Internet Enterprises Inc.
Maps are a natural for the World-Wide-Web. Brad Green, owner of World of Maps in west-end Ottawa went electronic late last year by posting his catalogue on the World Wide Web. Much to his surprise, he now has customers coming to him from all over the globe. He envisioned an increase in regional and perhaps national sales but certainly not global sales. In fact, total sales have increased in the range of ten percent as a result of his presence on the Internet. He now enjoys a much higher profile than previously possible to a business that relied on walk-in sales. As a bonus, Brad realized significant savings in long-distance phone and fax charges. To capitalize on his new found market, Brad further developed his Home-Page announcing new products and reviews of new maps and atlases.
Have a look at http://www.magi.com/~maps/