Under our noses: September 29, 1997 issue of New Thinking

September 29, 1997 New Thinking:
Under our noses

Website content management

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September 29, 1997

Under our noses

By Gerry McGovern

Sometimes the most obvious things about the Internet are the least talked about. There is always so much talk about how great things will be when we have lots more bandwidth. Secretly, an awful lot of people who champion the Internet really want it to be this mad big visual thing. And that’s okay because it helps push out the boundaries.

However, it’s important to focus on what the Internet is today. Because wonderful and revolutionary things are happening, despite all the shortage of bandwidth. In fact, shortage of bandwidth is in my opinion a blessing in disguise.

Having too much room is often worse than having too little. Imagine, for example, if software developers had to keep their word processors under 5 megabytes in file size. Perhaps we might get leaner, more efficient programs, rather than these massive giants that eat up so much of our computer’s memory. And, of course, we only use a fraction of what these monsters can do!

Talking of software, it has struck me for a long while that if the Internet is going to work for any industry it is going to be the software industry. And yet many software companies that I have talked to barely recognize this fact. They are unaware that a properly implemented Internet strategy could radically alter their bottom line. That a similarly properly implemented strategy from a competitor could quite quickly obliterate their bottom line.

It may be stating the obvious, but a good Internet site for a software company can have:

Sales Systems
Support Systems
Product Development/Beta Testing
Freeware/Shareware/Software
Push Technology

Selling your software online makes sense. Your target market is online. Packaging and distribution costs are greatly reduced. Support functions such as frequently asked questions, bug fixes, white papers and case-based reasoning support systems can be provided.

With the product life cycle ever shortening, a website can be constantly used to monitor changing user needs (through ongoing surveys, feedback forms, etc.), while beta-testing approaches allow the early versions of the product to be tested thoroughly.

Giving away things for free can make sense. After all, the Microsoft Internet Explorer freeware strategy has got it serious penetration in the browser marketplace. I started off using Eudora Light, which was a kind of a demo of the pro version. Later, I paid up for the full thing. Freeware, shareware and demo strategies might once have been the domain of enthusiasts. With the Internet, they become serious business models.

The original push technology was email. However, behind the recent hype, push technology can be very valuable for software companies. You don’t buy, you rent. When you go online next, your little push engine attached to your software goes to its home site to see if there’s a more recent version released. If so, it starts downloading it, thus ensuring that you always have the latest version.

Wait until electronic cash arrives! Then we’ll see the sale of 5-penny pieces of software. Little building blocks for larger pieces of software. That will really change the face of software production and delivery.

Sometimes, you know, the most radical change and potential is happening right under our noses.

Gerry McGovern

Next issue: Shoppers
Previous issue: True costs of Internet access
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The original push technology was email.