HotHouse makes brands work for people online

A comprehensive research report has identified 10 major trends affecting the future of the World Wide Web, as Simon van Wyk reports.

Believe it or not, it’s only been 10 years since the World Wide Web truly became a commercial proposition. To celebrate this milestone, the Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future recently released the largest longitudinal study ever produced on the Internet. Ten Years, Ten Trends has identified the 10 most significant trends of the last 10 years and the next 10 years. Those trends are:

1. One Digital Divide is closing, but another one is opening up. In the early days of the Internet, it was a rich man’s toy. It took several years before women embraced it and longer again before low and middle-income consumers began using it seriously. But now in countries like Australia, the US and Korea, more than 75% of the population is using the Internet at home, work or school - particularly school, as nearly every school in the country is online.

But the Annenberg researchers identified a new digital divide, between the broadband and dial-up users. That divide is also narrowing, but in the meantime only a small proportion of users can enjoy video and other rich media. This will continue to have a dampening effect on the possibilities marketers can explore online.

2. Media habits have changed and will keep changing.
The biggest impact the Internet has had on media consumption is that the more people use the Internet, the less they watch TV. This will continue to have a bigger and bigger effect on advertisers. The Internet has also hastened the decline in print readership, which was already in decline.

Email has also had a dramatic effect on overall communication use. The Annenberg researchers found that 25% of Americans said they received messages of concern from people outside the US after September 11. They have mused, “Would that personal contact have occurred without email?”

3. The credibility of the Internet is dropping.
As the quote goes, œIt was once said that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. The Internet has now shown that statement to be untrue. There’s a lot of crap out there, and it’s not surprising that ratings of the reliability and accuracy of information on the Web is dropping every year. However, people do trust information on websites they visit regularly, and on pages created by established media and the government.

4. Ecommerce has only just begun.
Security concerns and the tech stock crash dampened the possible growth in online commerce over the past 10 years, but the researchers argue this is a good thing as security is now at a high level and the normal rules of business apply to Internet firms, rather than living in a fantasy world of wildly speculative tech investment and irresponsible business claims. The impact of ecommerce on traditional bricks-and-mortar retailing is predicted to be stronger, not weaker, over the next 10 years.

5. The Internet is no longer “geeky”.
As the study reports, œIt seems laughable in 2004 to think that there was a time only a few years ago when the stereotype of the Internet user was the “geek-nerd” who was thoroughly separate and alienated from mainstream society Internet users (today) are often more socially active than non-users, and are less alienated from others…. Internet users communicate with others more, not less.  As Sean Carton writes in ClickZ: “People expect to be able to contact you and your company when they’re online. Anything seen as a barrier to this runs counter to Web culture.”

6. Privacy and security concerns are changing.
Concerns remain, but the high levels are changing. Far fewer people are œvery or extremely concerned about privacy and security compared to two or three years ago. A new type of privacy concern is emerging: concern over online activity being monitored. eMarketer reports that “Issues with viruses, spam and phishing do nothing to allay these fears.

7. Internet is now number one info source for Internet users.
The report states that The Internet has become the most important source of current information for users the primary place they go for research, general information, hobbies, entertainment listings, travel, health, and investments. The ‘always-on’ function of broadband has accelerated this importance.

When one can turn to the computer in the kitchen to instantly access movie schedules from a bookmarked location, what does that say about the functionality  or even the need for the entertainment sections of the local traditional media?

Sean Carton points out that “the trend points to the importance of URLs as brands: If people can’t get the information they need from you, they’ll go somewhere else that’s easier to remember or find.

8. The benefits and drawbacks of the Internet for children are still coming into focus.
The Internet has transformed the completion of school assignments all over the connected world (If you don’t believe that, you obviously don’t have kids). There is still debate over whether it, in fact, improves grades. Paying attention to the Internet takes more time and attention than monitoring other in-home activities such as TV viewing. The report says “The many Internet dilemmas for parents will continue, and many new ones will no doubt emerge. As I recall, they said the same thing about TV 50 years ago, and we didn’t grow up totally corrupted did we?

9. Email: the great communicator and the great irritator.
Email is still the single most important reason people go online, but it is both a great convenience and a great irritation. Spam, information overload, viruses, the time it takes to stay on top of your inbox, are all dragging down the power of this communication tool. Users are œtired of email defining their lives. The study found that experienced users are replying to their emails more slowly than new users, showing that a common etiquette for email use is slowly developing.

10. Broadband will change everything again.
The Annenberg researchers found that Just as the arrival of the Internet created a flood of social change, the proliferation of broadband technology as a method of accessing the Internet is beginning to cause its own revolution. Broadband is changing entirely our relationship with the Internet at home how often we go online, how long we stay online, and what we do online. Simply, modem use is disruptive; broadband use is integrative.

As the report concludes: The impact of the Internet cannot be overestimated. A technology that practically did no exist a few years ago is now a standard feature in nearly two-thirds of homes. The companies that market products without a prominently featured Web site are the tiny exception to the digital rule.

“It may well be that the most important questions of all about the Internet are those that have yet to be revealed about technological and social issues yet unknown.” As eMarketer reports, “If you think the influence of the Internet is over, you’re wrong…. The changes are going to keep coming, faster and faster.”

Simon van Wyk is managing director of marketing technology company HotHouse Interactive, which like the World Wide Web recently celebrated its 10th birthday.

Mark Ashley-Wilson, Executive Producer at HotHouse Interactive.

As wireless slowly enters our lives it’s nice to know that ADSL, broadband and cable are not (yet) redundant.

Your purchase of a broadband product is a crucial choice in keeping up to date with the latest sites and more importantly with the technology that the latest sites and companies are delivering to your desktop every day. But can you sit on your couch, bed or veranda and browse the SMH without your partner tripping over wires? What about your local park, beach or favourite hidden corner? We are not talking Wi-Fi, but pure wireless broadband. Welcome to your next purchase Wi-Fi’s problem is that it requires users to alter their behaviour. Mobile workers cannot necessarily go to their favourite or nearest to log on, they must go to a specific location. Field service agents are more likely to want to access their intranet from their vehicle or their client’s premises” not from a McDonalds restaurant. Alternately, mobile phone networks offer data speeds that are too slow to be acceptable for many tasks. Unwired Australia launched in Sydney this week and claims to be the world’s largest wireless broadband provider. It’s simple plug-n-play makes perfect sense for renters who can’t get broadband because of building restrictions, for sales people who do off-site presentations, for the person who simply wants to work on the laptop in the sun in the back yard. Imagine the weekend house hunters sitting outside an open for inspection and taking a virtual walkthrough of the next house they want to see. The power is now firmly at the fingertips of the consumer.

Wireless broadband offers the same fast speeds as those offered by Cable or ADSL broadband technologies. However, the similarities stop there. Customers connect to high speed internet wirelessly over the air, rather than through a phone line or cable. This means that you get all the benefits of traditional broadband, plus the portability and freedom that only wireless broadband can offer.

Wireless is better than wired
It’s quicker to deploy, costs less to maintain, has less to go wrong and is far more flexible. Wherever there’s a choice between the two technologies, wireless wins.

This is definitely the future of broadband, and how you integrate your life with the internet. It’s now truly unescapable and advertisers will need to adjust their strategies to capture the attention of these roving surfers. Advertisers will need to fully take advantage of the medium’s characteristics: multimediality, immediacy, interactivity. Video can play a crucial role in enhancing the creativity level and also the quality of online ads. The point is we still need to connect with consumers from the very beginning of the relationship. But, at the same time, we need to “respect” our target, being polite with our advertising messages, asking for a sort of permission when presenting ads in unusual or intrusive formats.

Richer online advertising

New research by DoubleClick suggests that rich media usage continues to grow quarter by quarter, while larger ads have surpassed the smaller options in popularity. Large formats are getting more and more popular: for example, the leaderboard, a wide unit (728 x 90) that often appears at the top of web pages, is now the fastest growing size at 562% growth from Q2 2002. Half-page ads (550 x 480) had the second highest response rate at 90%. So the question you need to pose to your agency is “ How are you targeting my customers now the rules have changed? Wireless broadband is the future of the internet. Start getting your online strategies in place now because those roving surfers are already out there.

The recent surge in broadband use in Australia has created a new set of possibilities for marketers. Some will seize the opportunity and use it to develop the medium, while others will waste it, predicts Simon van Wyk.

How quickly our expectations change. I’ve been digging back into past predictions about broadband use in Australia, and found that four years ago ABN AMRO predicted that home broadband connections, then accounting for less than 5% of Internet connections, would soon reach the tipping point and “explode” to reach 625,000 Australian homes by 2005.

By July this year, Australia reached 1 million broadband connections. However, analysts say we still haven’t reached the tipping point, where uptake takes off and spreads like a virus rapidly through a community. Furthermore, groups like KPMG’s technology research group are calling Australians laggards compared to broadband adoption trends overseas.

Mind you, if we haven’t reached the tipping point yet, we must be getting pretty close. There were barely 700,000 broadband connections at the end of 2003, which means better than 40% growth in seven months and nearly 100% over the previous 12 months largely due to Telstra’s introductory plan rates which start at $29.95 per month.

Embracing business

Telstra now has an estimated 75% share of the broadband market (when you include other ISPs it supplies lines to), with Optus accounting for 20 percent. They are soon going to be challenged by innovative competitors such as Unwired, which is rolling out wireless broadband in Sydney and has a license that will allow it to eventually cover up to 95% of the Australian population.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics pegs the number of Internet-enabled homes at nearly six million, so there is still a lot of room for growth in home use. Businesses, on the other hand, have fully embraced broadband technology.

A report on the e-business market put out by Telstra’s online search arm, Sensis estimated that 43% of small and medium businesses in Australia are accessing the Internet via broadband, while Pacific Internet’s Broadband Barometer puts the figure at 52%, up from 23% a year ago.

The Broadband Barometer declared that “There remain no killer applications for broadband,” with the most widely used technologies among broadband small businesses being firewalls (81%), network security (75%) and LANs (67%). Broadband penetration is significantly higher in metropolitan areas (62%) than rural (24%).

Mature or lagging?

Ericsson Australia recently released findings from a survey of nearly 2,000 tech-savvy city-dwellers with a strong desire for broadband. The survey revealed that compared to most other countries, Australia is a technologically mature market, with high penetration rates for mobile phones, Internet at home, computer at home, digital cameras and electronic organisers. Ericsson estimates Internet penetration in Australia at 75% in 2004, up from 66% in 2002.

This contrasts another Australian report released at almost the same time by KPMG, which stated that “If broadband is not moved to the high ground of national priorities, we are virtually guaranteed to remain a laggard. The long-term economic consequences of such an outcome could be very severe.”

Their justification for such strong statements is quite eloquent, so I’ll quote a large slab of it here: “Why does this matter? It is not primarily about cool stuff - even though downloading a CD-quality song in a few seconds for less than a dollar is pretty cool. Rather, it is about the national consequences if, over the next few years, people still waste time and money jumping on planes when they could videoconference but for adequate bandwidth, or die needlessly when telemedicine could have saved them, or still take orders manually in the field only to re-key them back at the office.

“If, compared with our international peers, Australia has lower productivity, a massive imbalance of intellectual property trade with the rest of the world and loss of digital content creators i.e., talent emigration and loss of remote higher education to foreign institutions; then there will be very real, negative consequences for the economy.”

On the upside, if we get it right, the benefits are enormous. The Federal Government’s Broadband Advisory Group reported last year that “next generation broadband” - the next stage in broadband development, starting to take place overseas, offering much greater bandwidth that current DSL technology - could produce economic benefits of $12-30 billion a year to Australia.

Get creative

So what does this mean to marketers? Well, the rich media revolution has finally arrived. After what seems like decades of catering to the lowest common denominator of a crappy 56K modem and painfully slow page download times (it has, in fact, only been one decade, but that’s 70 years in Internet time), it is finally time to rely on animation, multimedia and video to get your message across.

I predict that we’re on the cusp of a creative Renaissance for Internet marketing. Clever designers and producers will now be able to combine the deep information potential of the Internet with the high-impact techniques that have worked well in traditional offline media.

Sadly, I also predict that many lazy marketers will simply put their TV commercials on the Web, without consideration of the distinguishing features and rich possibilities of the new media.

Which category will you fall into?

Olympus leads the way in the fields of medical imaging and information as well as the consumer-focused, award-winning camera product range.

Having collaborated with HotHouse, the company now delivers an online experience that’s skillfully designed and includes helpful features and timesaving applications.

The website

www.olympus.com.au showcases both Olympus consumer and medical products, services and technology.

The consumer site covers 218 pages and includes 172 products. Each camera includes an overview of the product, details, specifications, box contents, sample pictures, accessories and reviews. All of this information is editable via the CMS.

Digital camera configurator

The site incorporates a ground-breaking printable Digital Camera Configurator that pulls out data from the CMS. It enables users to select and compare a range of Olympus digital cameras by Optical Zoom, Megapixel and Price. So whether users are looking for a perfectly affordable introduction to digital photography, a take anywhere point-and-shoot or something that gives them more creative control they will be able to find one that best meets their needs. Importantly, they can print out the compared specs of the digital cameras selected and take it in-store.

The medical site showcases over 1500 products from Endoscopy and Endo-Surgical instruments to innovative therapeutic devices. With such a vast range of product information it was critical that the CMS would be easy to use and could support multiple levels of product categorisation.

Content Management System

HotHouse specified a CMS solution that is built on Fatwire’s Content Server Enterprise Edition platform (CSEE).

This CMS facilitates two kinds of editing, both inline editing and editing through Fatwire. This means that for most of the information that appears on the front end of the site, editors can just click on a pencil, make their changes and save them within the context of the site.

Gavan McKenna, National Marketing Manager at Olympus Imaging Australia commented: “We now have a premium website that promotes and showcases the breadth and depth of our innovative product range. The content management system is incredibly easy to manage.”

Olympus website: www.olympus.com.au

The Australian Publishers Association (APA) - the trade association representing book publishers in Australia - teamed up with HotHouse to develop a common platform for publishers to deliver information to booksellers online.

The resulting TitlePage establishes a user-friendly price and availability database that enables searching and content management of Australian title information.

TitlePage greatly empowers Australian booksellers and publishers, providing a single common source of price & availability information for Australian published titles, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Enabling more timely and accurate customer service.

TitlePage is supported by a purpose-built database with a user-friendly system for uploading/updating information and provides concise tracking and reporting mechanisms.

Site Features:

• Price and Availability Search: Facilitates bookseller searching of price and availability information on Australian published titles and information on Australian publishers and distributors.
• Content Management: Allows registered Australian book publishers to upload information regarding the price and availability of their book titles.
• Reporting and Tracking: Enables the APA and publishers to track interest in titles, based on bookseller activity through the price and availability database.

Benefits:

• Improved customer service: Reduces the cost and time it takes to service routine enquiries from booksellers and for booksellers to respond to customer queries.
• A single gateway: Enables searching of multiple publishers’ title information from one point of access.
• Seamless accessibility: provides readily available access to information on Publishers and Distributors.

The response to the launch of TitlePage has been overwhelming. Victoria Nash, Project Manager, Australian Publishers Association commented: “One bookseller told me for every 30 minutes he spent on the phone to publishers he was able to do the same job in 1 minute with TitlePage”.

TitlePage website: www.titlepage.com.au