THE INTERNET AS CATALYST FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT

(The following essay by Michael Strangelove is from the book, HOW 
TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET (Chapter 22, pp. 205-211).

See reviews at http://www.phoenix.ca/sie/

Chapter 22 -- The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift

Page 205
Doubling in size every year, the Internet has dropped out of the sky like 
a bomb and exploded onto the scene of popular culture. Mass media 
has not shown such a prolonged and intense fascination with a new 
technology since the introduction of the personal computer over a 
decade ago. This is the first technology of its kind to achieve global 
scope.

The first thing the business community desperately needs to know 
about the Net is not how to use it, but how to comprehend it. What, 
indeed, is the Internet? Any effective advertising and marketing will be 
built on the basis of a correct understanding of the Net and its 
implications. The Internet is a technology, a culture, and a tool. Each of 
these aspects needs to be understood to properly comprehend the 
Internet and its role in the development of cyberspace.

The Technology of the Internet

The Internet is a distributed and open systems technology. 'Distributed' 
meaning that it has no central location and 'open' referring to the fact 
that the operating codes are not proprietary or secret. Everyone can 
contribute to the design and development of the overall system. 

One of the great historical ironies is that the Internet arose out of a Dr. 
Strangelovean plan to create a communications system that could 
survive a nuclear holocaust. What was to have been a communications 
system for the surviving elite of a military-industrial complex has 
mutated into a subversive neo-democratic (more precisely, anarchistic) 
cyberculture. The unique technological character of the Internet has 
endowed it with a fundamentally subversive nature. Over the past 
twenty five years of its growth, the Internet has demonstrated that it is 
not subject to privatization, centralization or control. This situates it in 
direct opposition to the historical dynamics of capitalism and 
commercialization. The unique technological architecture of the Net 
has generated an equally unique cultural force that defies present 
economic relationships.

page 206
The Genetics of Internet Culture

A genetic relationship exists between the Internet's core technology and 
its core cultural characteristics. Every introduction of a new technology 
into society carries with it a latent systemic impact which is similar in 
fashion to the way our genes predetermine much about us. When 
sufficiently pervasive, any radically different technology, such as the 
Internet, will have an equally radical effect on the social, economic, 
and political structures of the surrounding cultures. As cultures 
integrate the Internet into their social structures they will gradually 
adopt the systemic characteristics of the Net. The following 
contemplates some of the potential systemic changes the Internet will 
bring to the social structures which interact with cyberspace.

A New Paradigm of Production and Distribution

The main historical contribution of capitalism is not economic but 
social. Its ability to define the individual worker's experience of time 
and place to a minute degree, simply by dictating where people will be 
and when they will be there to a degree never before experienced in 
human culture. Capitalism is unique in history by virtue of its ability to 
require hundreds of millions of people to accommodate the spatial and 
temporal demands of manufacturer-based private enterprise.

With the appearance of the factory in the industrial age the 
centralization of the means of production gradually developed. This 
process had the effect of moving millions from the countryside into the 
cities and changing the measure of time from seasons to seconds. 
Manufacturer-based capitalism placed the means of production (the 
factories) and the means of distribution (ships, planes, trains, 
automobiles ...) firmly in the hands of the elite. This same elite then 
used the state to ensure that all natural resources were removed from 
the public sphere and placed under the "management" of private 
industries.

Yet as we hurtle toward the third millennium, the emerging economic 
paradigm of the wired, digital, Information Age is beginning to 
undermine the structural relationships of manufacturer-based 
capitalism. As a result of the Information Age, economies are moving 
away from dependency on centralized manufacturing to distributed 
information creation, processing, and dissemination. 

The Information Age has begun in earnest now that the primary 
commodity in Western Capitalism is information. This economic 
transformation is occurring simultaneously with a structural shift in the 
nature of information. In the old economy, information was paper-
based, centralized, and isolated. In this new economy, information is 
digital-based, wired (networked) and decentralized (distributed).

Now here is the crux of the matter. The fading economic paradigm is 
rooted in the elite ownership of both the means of production and the 
means of distribution. In stark contrast to this, the emerging economic 
paradigm of the wired, digital Information Age removes the central 
means of production from the elite and places 
Page 207
it squarely in the hands of the intellect worker. In the Information Age, 
the primary means of production is no longer the "factory" but the 
independent, creative mind and a $1,000 computer (an information 
storage and  processing system). But how is the intellect worker going 
to get his or her knowledge products to the marketplace without falling 
under the control of one, or many, brokers?

The Information Superhighway Economy

The solution to the intellect worker's dilemma of getting products to 
market is not going to be found in the coming Information 
Superhighway. The Information Superhighway will be built, owned 
and controlled by a consortium of telecommunications and 
entertainment corporate giants. Access to this private infrastructure will 
be as controlled, bureaucratic, and as expensive as is access to today's 
mass television audiences. Regardless of the assurances of political and 
industry leaders to the contrary, the Information Superhighway will not 
afford equal access to content-providers. It will merely serve to 
reinforce existing economic patterns and monopolies. We can be 
certain of this in much the same way that we can be certain that the 
technological basis of the coming Information Superhighway will be a 
proprietary architecture. These factors ensure that the 
InfoSuperhighway is structurally incapable of enabling an economic 
paradigm shift.

The Internet Economy

If the Information Age did not also develop a substantially new means 
of distribution, then the intellect worker would still be indentured to 
those who control distribution channels. As long as there is a broker 
placed between the worker's knowledge, products, and the marketplace, 
the intellect worker's profits are marginal. But this is not the case due to 
the recent rise of digital, global networks. In a wired world, the intellect 
worker can attain the status of an independent distributor of knowledge 
products in an information-based economy.

Unlike the Information Superhighway, the Internet democratizes access 
to global markets. It levels the playing field of international markets. In 
the emerging wired, digital information paradigm, the means of 
distribution to thirty million Internet consumers today, and half a 
billion at the dawn of the third millennium, is accessible to all at an 
insignificant cost through the Net. 

The Net would have no significance in the old economic paradigm 
because it would be ineffective for distributing products and services. 
But in the emerging information economy it reverses temporal, spatial, 
production, and distribution dynamics of elitist and monopolistic 
systems. At the turn of the third millennium, Capitalism will have lost 
its main social controlling force. 

The intellect worker is no longer subject to the demands of time and 
place of the factory owner. The intellect worker is also no longer 
subject to monopolies of production and distribution. This is the 
beginning of a mass exodus from the corporate world as entrepreneurs 
engage the power of cyberspace.

Page 208
A New Form of Mass Communication System

The open and distributed technology of the Internet has created, quite 
by accident, an entirely new form of human communication - mass 
participation in bi-directional, uncensored mass communication. We 
often hear of people talking about the new culture of the Internet. A 
new culture has arisen because communication is the foundation on 
which a culture is constructed. Introduce a new form of communication 
and you create a new cultural paradigm. 

The Internet is a new form of mass communication. Mass 
communication, while itself a relatively new phenomenon, has always 
involved controlled broadcasts to passive audiences. The mass 
audience has never had any significant input, or control, over the 
content of mass communication.

With the Internet these characteristics of mass communication have 
forever changed. On the Net we find massive numbers of people 
broadcasting information to massive numbers of people. Whereas the 
introduction of the Gutenberg Press made mass communication 
possible for the very, very few who would ever own a printing press, 
the Internet has turned every owner of a computer, a modem, and a 
telephone line into a publisher, a radio station, and soon enough, a TV 
studio. This is the second Gutenberg revolution. This is the new 
economy of information.

The Democratization of Communication

The main social and economic processes we are witnessing in 
cyberspace is the democratization of mass communication.  Not only is 
communication bi-directional, with audience and content provider 
(multicaster) acting as one, but it is uncensored.

On the Net anyone has the freedom to say anything they want, within 
the very broad confines of libel laws, self-censorship, and liberal 
community norms. The only insurmountable restriction on freedom of 
speech in cyberspace is that conversation must remain within the 
prescribed topic of any given online conference. Anyone can say 
anything they want but they must say it in the designated forum for the 
subject. These mitigating forces do not lessen the significance of the 
Internet as the first forum for uncensored mass communication and its 
role as the final preserve of freedom of speech.

Throughout history, mass communication has always been tightly 
controlled by members of the ruling elite. In antiquity, crowds were 
perceived as a threat by the ruling elite and quickly (and usually 
violently) dispersed. In modernity, all forms of mass communication 
have been subject to either direct government ownership, indirect 
control, manipulation, and/or censorship through regulatory bodies 
such as the CRTC and the FCC, and further indirect control as the 
result of the mass media's corporate sponsorship. 

Mass communication is one of the most powerful forces yet invented. 
This is why its control has always been the privilege of the elite 
classes. We see this relationship develop with the invention of the 
Gutenberg Press. As soon as the Tudor kings 
Page 209
recognized the latent power of the press they immediately began to 
institutionalize censorship and control over early mass printing. 

As a public resource, the Net's technology has enabled it to escape the 
capitalistic dynamics of privatization and as a mass medium, it has also 
escaped the censorship of the present mass media "kings". Today on 
the Internet anyone can legally access information banned in many 
countries, including Canada and the US. Whether it is the Terrorist 
Handbook, information subject to court-ordered publication bans, 
censored articles, or details on growing or making illegal drugs, one 
will find it on the Net. No one can stop anyone from accessing, 
retrieving, and reading it.

On the Internet today you can retrieve information that is daily 
impounded by your country's official censors and border guards. With 
less than a $1000 in hardware and software you can start an Internet-
based radio station that would not be subject to the regulations of the 
CRTC or the FCC. The new paradigm of cyberspace shatters all the old 
categories of our antiquated and decaying institutions. The Net defies 
traditional bureaucratic structures and hierarchical power relationships. 
Cyberspace is proving to be a natural resource that is not subject to the 
"management" of the government or the corporate elite.

The Liberation of Content

It is here that we see how the nature of the Internet and the nature of 
advertising (as it is traditionally practised) are at odds with each other. 
The Internet liberates the audience from the control of corporate and 
state content providers. In cyberspace, the most basic relationship 
between programming, content, and advertising is absent. Thus far, the 
Internet is the first form of mass communication to arise without the 
sponsorship of advertisers. In cyberspace, content is uncontrolled and 
reigns supreme. The challenge facing the business community is to 
adapt to this new medium and the emerging paradigm.

Advertising, however, will continue to exist in cyberspace but it will 
lack the ability to exercise the control over content to which it has 
grown accustomed to in other environments. Most of the present 
difficulties being faced by advertisers on the Internet can be attributed 
to the industry's painfully slow realization that it is the virtual 
community, and not the business world or the state, that has the final 
say over content in a bi-directional, uncensored environment. 

The Real Nature of Advertising

Power, advertising, and the Internet are all inescapably related. 
Traditional advertising is not merely a matter of paying to disseminate 
a message. Often overlooked is the issue of what messages advertising 
serves to exclude from media. Advertising is a multi-billion dollar 
industry that underwrites all major forms of mass communication. This 
endows advertising with substantial power. Without question, the 
financial dependency created by the relationship between advertising 
and mass media functions as a control over the overall content of the 
media it has supported. 

Page 210
The ad industry continues to deny that it influences content, and most 
editors and publishers naturally deny editorial interference from 
sponsors. Listening to the industry constantly deny this incestuous 
relationship is reminiscent of listening to tobacco industry executives 
repeatedly trying to convince a congressional hearing that cigarettes are 
not harmful. Yet the past thirty years of communication studies have 
produced a small mountain of evidence which demonstrate that the 
mass media is constantly subject to the influence and bias of its 
primary commercial sponsors. These myths have been necessary to 
gain trust and to maintain the appearance of legitimacy. 

Profiting from Anarchy

The advertising industry is on the verge of being shattered into a 
thousand fragments due to the knowledge explosion and the 
proliferation of new technologies. Grand theories no longer hold sway 
over the entire industry. Central theories, techniques, or laws can no 
longer be relied upon for commercial success. All the familiar 
categories of Madison Avenue have been destroyed by the postmodern 
marketplace.

Regardless of the anarchistic environment of cyberspace, the news is 
not all bad for traditional businesses. As a tool, the Internet does 
present unparalleled opportunities for effective advertising. The Net 
delivers an audience for vertical marketing of highly customized 
products to micro communities in a cost efficient manner not 
previously available to the manufacturer, retailer, or service provider. 
One of the effects of the integration of the Internet into the business 
community will be the rapid growth of low-volume products efficiently 
marketed to small global consumer groups.

Take the narrow-casting feature of the magazine industry, which is 
characterized by its ability to deliver an affinity group, and fragment it 
to the point of infinity; one now has a metaphor for the future of the 
Internet: the cost effective delivery of niche markets to the business 
community.

The Internet is the single most significant new tool for business, 
particularly for small to medium-sized enterprises. What makes the 
Internet such a powerful tool for the world of the small business and 
the entrepreneur is that it provides both with the ability to communicate 
with a global audience that already numbers in the tens of millions. 

Prior to the integration of the Internet into the cosmology of the 
collective consciousness, most small businesses only had access to 
local markets. Advertising costs of previous mass media functioned to 
clearly delimit possible growth of most local businesses. 

The Internet's historically unique ability to facilitate inexpensive global 
communication is destined to have a widespread impact on the shape of 
national and international economies. Take the elitist nature of the past 
thirty years of multinational corporate economics and extend its power 
to every small business and you have the democratization of the global 
marketplace through cyberspace. This is the meaning of the Internet as 
an economic paradigm shift.

Page 211
No company has yet mastered the Internet as an advertising and 
marketing tool. Expect this to change as today's paradigm begins to 
shift into the digital, wired Information Age.

Michael Strangelove

CHART (reformat into two columns)
Comparison of Paradigms 

(Column One)

Decaying Paradigm
manufacturer-based economy

Means of Production
centralized & privatized
(the factory)

Means of Distribution
physical transportation systems

Time & Place
regimented and monitored

Mass Communication
uni-directional & privatized
controlled-content broadcasting
passive audience
elite as censor
advertiser sponsored

Power
entrenched in the marketplace
hierarchical

Advertising
manipulation through 
controlled content

(Column Two)

Emerging Paradigm
wired, digital
information-based economy

Means of Production
decentralized & public
(mind plus networked-computer)

Means of Distribution
digital dissemination through 
open and distributed networks
(the Internet)

Time & Place
not relevant

Mass Communication
omni-directional & public
uncensored multicasting
interactive audience
community as censor
user sponsored

Power
distributed among community
consensual

Advertising
meeting information 
needs of the consumer

_________________________________
END OF ESSAY
_________________________________

Copyright Notice:
This essay is copyright (C) 1994 by Strangelove Internet Enterprises. 
This text may be reproduced in electronic media so long as it remains 
completely intact and includes this notice. Hardcopy reproduction 
requires the written permission of the author Michael Strangelove. 


For a complete table of contents and ordering information on the book, 
HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET, please contact 
Strangelove Press at 
Tel: 613-565-0982
Fax: 613-569-4433
Mstrange@fonorola.net

Also available by 
gopher fonorola.net

HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET
ISSN 1201-0758
Michael Strangelove
with Aneurin Bosley, Editor in Chief,
The Internet Business Journal
October 1994
211 pages + i-xi
$49.50 (US and CND)
Overseas orders add $10 US for postage.
Prepaid orders only -- cheques only
Payable to:
Strangelove Press
208 Somerset Street East, Suite A
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6V2 CANADA

TABLE OF CONTENTS IN BRIEF

Chapter
1               Introduction
2               Internet Demographics
3               Frequently Asked Questions about Internet Advertising
4               Marketing Through Online Conferences
5               Internet Advertising Tools
6               Mosaic: The Killer Internet Marketing Application
7               Selling Through Internet Classified Ads
8               Reaching a Local Market on the International Net
9               Creating an Online Marketing Plan
10              The Costs of Internet Advertising
11              The Dangers of Internet Advertising
12              Unsolicited E-Mail
13              Competitive Intelligence in Cyberspace
14              Selling Sex in Cyberspace
15              Demonstrating Products Online
16              Marketers on Internet Marketing
17              Forums for Online Marketers
18              Internet Shoppers Speak Out
19              Directory of Internet Advertising and Marketing Agencies
20              Products on the Net: A Visual Survey
21              Directory of Internet Consultants and Trainers
22              The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift
___________________________________________________

FREE DOCUMENTS:

The Essential Internet: The Birth of Virtual Culture and
Global Community (From Online Access, by Michael Strangelove)
-- File ESSENTIAL

Index of IBJ Volume 1:1-12 -- File INDEX

Advertising on the Internet FAQ -- File AD-FAQ

Directory of Internet Trainers and Consultants -- File TRAINERS

The Directory of Internet Marketing and Advertising Agencies -- File MARKET

The Geography of Cyberspace -- File GEO
(An essay by Michael Strangelove that appeared in the European cyberspace
magazine WAVE, Sept 1994)

Using the Internet for Marketing: A Publisher's Secrets  -- File PUBLISHER
(An article by Michael Strangelove published in the JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY
PUBLISHING, Volume 25, Number 4, July 1994)

To receive these helpful documents, simply send your request to
mstrange@fonorola.net and request the file name.

These files are also available via Gopher to fonorola.net
VIP -- Gopher to gopher.fonorola.net for the official IBJ Gopher archive.

END OF FILE

THE INTERNET AS CATALYST FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT

(The following essay by Michael Strangelove is from the book, HOW 
TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET (Chapter 22, pp. 205-211).

See reviews at http://www.phoenix.ca/sie/

Chapter 22 -- The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift

Page 205
Doubling in size every year, the Internet has dropped out of the sky like 
a bomb and exploded onto the scene of popular culture. Mass media 
has not shown such a prolonged and intense fascination with a new 
technology since the introduction of the personal computer over a 
decade ago. This is the first technology of its kind to achieve global 
scope.

The first thing the business community desperately needs to know 
about the Net is not how to use it, but how to comprehend it. What, 
indeed, is the Internet? Any effective advertising and marketing will be 
built on the basis of a correct understanding of the Net and its 
implications. The Internet is a technology, a culture, and a tool. Each of 
these aspects needs to be understood to properly comprehend the 
Internet and its role in the development of cyberspace.

The Technology of the Internet

The Internet is a distributed and open systems technology. 'Distributed' 
meaning that it has no central location and 'open' referring to the fact 
that the operating codes are not proprietary or secret. Everyone can 
contribute to the design and development of the overall system. 

One of the great historical ironies is that the Internet arose out of a Dr. 
Strangelovean plan to create a communications system that could 
survive a nuclear holocaust. What was to have been a communications 
system for the surviving elite of a military-industrial complex has 
mutated into a subversive neo-democratic (more precisely, anarchistic) 
cyberculture. The unique technological character of the Internet has 
endowed it with a fundamentally subversive nature. Over the past 
twenty five years of its growth, the Internet has demonstrated that it is 
not subject to privatization, centralization or control. This situates it in 
direct opposition to the historical dynamics of capitalism and 
commercialization. The unique technological architecture of the Net 
has generated an equally unique cultural force that defies present 
economic relationships.

page 206
The Genetics of Internet Culture

A genetic relationship exists between the Internet's core technology and 
its core cultural characteristics. Every introduction of a new technology 
into society carries with it a latent systemic impact which is similar in 
fashion to the way our genes predetermine much about us. When 
sufficiently pervasive, any radically different technology, such as the 
Internet, will have an equally radical effect on the social, economic, 
and political structures of the surrounding cultures. As cultures 
integrate the Internet into their social structures they will gradually 
adopt the systemic characteristics of the Net. The following 
contemplates some of the potential systemic changes the Internet will 
bring to the social structures which interact with cyberspace.

A New Paradigm of Production and Distribution

The main historical contribution of capitalism is not economic but 
social. Its ability to define the individual worker's experience of time 
and place to a minute degree, simply by dictating where people will be 
and when they will be there to a degree never before experienced in 
human culture. Capitalism is unique in history by virtue of its ability to 
require hundreds of millions of people to accommodate the spatial and 
temporal demands of manufacturer-based private enterprise.

With the appearance of the factory in the industrial age the 
centralization of the means of production gradually developed. This 
process had the effect of moving millions from the countryside into the 
cities and changing the measure of time from seasons to seconds. 
Manufacturer-based capitalism placed the means of production (the 
factories) and the means of distribution (ships, planes, trains, 
automobiles ...) firmly in the hands of the elite. This same elite then 
used the state to ensure that all natural resources were removed from 
the public sphere and placed under the "management" of private 
industries.

Yet as we hurtle toward the third millennium, the emerging economic 
paradigm of the wired, digital, Information Age is beginning to 
undermine the structural relationships of manufacturer-based 
capitalism. As a result of the Information Age, economies are moving 
away from dependency on centralized manufacturing to distributed 
information creation, processing, and dissemination. 

The Information Age has begun in earnest now that the primary 
commodity in Western Capitalism is information. This economic 
transformation is occurring simultaneously with a structural shift in the 
nature of information. In the old economy, information was paper-
based, centralized, and isolated. In this new economy, information is 
digital-based, wired (networked) and decentralized (distributed).

Now here is the crux of the matter. The fading economic paradigm is 
rooted in the elite ownership of both the means of production and the 
means of distribution. In stark contrast to this, the emerging economic 
paradigm of the wired, digital Information Age removes the central 
means of production from the elite and places 
Page 207
it squarely in the hands of the intellect worker. In the Information Age, 
the primary means of production is no longer the "factory" but the 
independent, creative mind and a $1,000 computer (an information 
storage and  processing system). But how is the intellect worker going 
to get his or her knowledge products to the marketplace without falling 
under the control of one, or many, brokers?

The Information Superhighway Economy

The solution to the intellect worker's dilemma of getting products to 
market is not going to be found in the coming Information 
Superhighway. The Information Superhighway will be built, owned 
and controlled by a consortium of telecommunications and 
entertainment corporate giants. Access to this private infrastructure will 
be as controlled, bureaucratic, and as expensive as is access to today's 
mass television audiences. Regardless of the assurances of political and 
industry leaders to the contrary, the Information Superhighway will not 
afford equal access to content-providers. It will merely serve to 
reinforce existing economic patterns and monopolies. We can be 
certain of this in much the same way that we can be certain that the 
technological basis of the coming Information Superhighway will be a 
proprietary architecture. These factors ensure that the 
InfoSuperhighway is structurally incapable of enabling an economic 
paradigm shift.

The Internet Economy

If the Information Age did not also develop a substantially new means 
of distribution, then the intellect worker would still be indentured to 
those who control distribution channels. As long as there is a broker 
placed between the worker's knowledge, products, and the marketplace, 
the intellect worker's profits are marginal. But this is not the case due to 
the recent rise of digital, global networks. In a wired world, the intellect 
worker can attain the status of an independent distributor of knowledge 
products in an information-based economy.

Unlike the Information Superhighway, the Internet democratizes access 
to global markets. It levels the playing field of international markets. In 
the emerging wired, digital information paradigm, the means of 
distribution to thirty million Internet consumers today, and half a 
billion at the dawn of the third millennium, is accessible to all at an 
insignificant cost through the Net. 

The Net would have no significance in the old economic paradigm 
because it would be ineffective for distributing products and services. 
But in the emerging information economy it reverses temporal, spatial, 
production, and distribution dynamics of elitist and monopolistic 
systems. At the turn of the third millennium, Capitalism will have lost 
its main social controlling force. 

The intellect worker is no longer subject to the demands of time and 
place of the factory owner. The intellect worker is also no longer 
subject to monopolies of production and distribution. This is the 
beginning of a mass exodus from the corporate world as entrepreneurs 
engage the power of cyberspace.

Page 208
A New Form of Mass Communication System

The open and distributed technology of the Internet has created, quite 
by accident, an entirely new form of human communication - mass 
participation in bi-directional, uncensored mass communication. We 
often hear of people talking about the new culture of the Internet. A 
new culture has arisen because communication is the foundation on 
which a culture is constructed. Introduce a new form of communication 
and you create a new cultural paradigm. 

The Internet is a new form of mass communication. Mass 
communication, while itself a relatively new phenomenon, has always 
involved controlled broadcasts to passive audiences. The mass 
audience has never had any significant input, or control, over the 
content of mass communication.

With the Internet these characteristics of mass communication have 
forever changed. On the Net we find massive numbers of people 
broadcasting information to massive numbers of people. Whereas the 
introduction of the Gutenberg Press made mass communication 
possible for the very, very few who would ever own a printing press, 
the Internet has turned every owner of a computer, a modem, and a 
telephone line into a publisher, a radio station, and soon enough, a TV 
studio. This is the second Gutenberg revolution. This is the new 
economy of information.

The Democratization of Communication

The main social and economic processes we are witnessing in 
cyberspace is the democratization of mass communication.  Not only is 
communication bi-directional, with audience and content provider 
(multicaster) acting as one, but it is uncensored.

On the Net anyone has the freedom to say anything they want, within 
the very broad confines of libel laws, self-censorship, and liberal 
community norms. The only insurmountable restriction on freedom of 
speech in cyberspace is that conversation must remain within the 
prescribed topic of any given online conference. Anyone can say 
anything they want but they must say it in the designated forum for the 
subject. These mitigating forces do not lessen the significance of the 
Internet as the first forum for uncensored mass communication and its 
role as the final preserve of freedom of speech.

Throughout history, mass communication has always been tightly 
controlled by members of the ruling elite. In antiquity, crowds were 
perceived as a threat by the ruling elite and quickly (and usually 
violently) dispersed. In modernity, all forms of mass communication 
have been subject to either direct government ownership, indirect 
control, manipulation, and/or censorship through regulatory bodies 
such as the CRTC and the FCC, and further indirect control as the 
result of the mass media's corporate sponsorship. 

Mass communication is one of the most powerful forces yet invented. 
This is why its control has always been the privilege of the elite 
classes. We see this relationship develop with the invention of the 
Gutenberg Press. As soon as the Tudor kings 
Page 209
recognized the latent power of the press they immediately began to 
institutionalize censorship and control over early mass printing. 

As a public resource, the Net's technology has enabled it to escape the 
capitalistic dynamics of privatization and as a mass medium, it has also 
escaped the censorship of the present mass media "kings". Today on 
the Internet anyone can legally access information banned in many 
countries, including Canada and the US. Whether it is the Terrorist 
Handbook, information subject to court-ordered publication bans, 
censored articles, or details on growing or making illegal drugs, one 
will find it on the Net. No one can stop anyone from accessing, 
retrieving, and reading it.

On the Internet today you can retrieve information that is daily 
impounded by your country's official censors and border guards. With 
less than a $1000 in hardware and software you can start an Internet-
based radio station that would not be subject to the regulations of the 
CRTC or the FCC. The new paradigm of cyberspace shatters all the old 
categories of our antiquated and decaying institutions. The Net defies 
traditional bureaucratic structures and hierarchical power relationships. 
Cyberspace is proving to be a natural resource that is not subject to the 
"management" of the government or the corporate elite.

The Liberation of Content

It is here that we see how the nature of the Internet and the nature of 
advertising (as it is traditionally practised) are at odds with each other. 
The Internet liberates the audience from the control of corporate and 
state content providers. In cyberspace, the most basic relationship 
between programming, content, and advertising is absent. Thus far, the 
Internet is the first form of mass communication to arise without the 
sponsorship of advertisers. In cyberspace, content is uncontrolled and 
reigns supreme. The challenge facing the business community is to 
adapt to this new medium and the emerging paradigm.

Advertising, however, will continue to exist in cyberspace but it will 
lack the ability to exercise the control over content to which it has 
grown accustomed to in other environments. Most of the present 
difficulties being faced by advertisers on the Internet can be attributed 
to the industry's painfully slow realization that it is the virtual 
community, and not the business world or the state, that has the final 
say over content in a bi-directional, uncensored environment. 

The Real Nature of Advertising

Power, advertising, and the Internet are all inescapably related. 
Traditional advertising is not merely a matter of paying to disseminate 
a message. Often overlooked is the issue of what messages advertising 
serves to exclude from media. Advertising is a multi-billion dollar 
industry that underwrites all major forms of mass communication. This 
endows advertising with substantial power. Without question, the 
financial dependency created by the relationship between advertising 
and mass media functions as a control over the overall content of the 
media it has supported. 

Page 210
The ad industry continues to deny that it influences content, and most 
editors and publishers naturally deny editorial interference from 
sponsors. Listening to the industry constantly deny this incestuous 
relationship is reminiscent of listening to tobacco industry executives 
repeatedly trying to convince a congressional hearing that cigarettes are 
not harmful. Yet the past thirty years of communication studies have 
produced a small mountain of evidence which demonstrate that the 
mass media is constantly subject to the influence and bias of its 
primary commercial sponsors. These myths have been necessary to 
gain trust and to maintain the appearance of legitimacy. 

Profiting from Anarchy

The advertising industry is on the verge of being shattered into a 
thousand fragments due to the knowledge explosion and the 
proliferation of new technologies. Grand theories no longer hold sway 
over the entire industry. Central theories, techniques, or laws can no 
longer be relied upon for commercial success. All the familiar 
categories of Madison Avenue have been destroyed by the postmodern 
marketplace.

Regardless of the anarchistic environment of cyberspace, the news is 
not all bad for traditional businesses. As a tool, the Internet does 
present unparalleled opportunities for effective advertising. The Net 
delivers an audience for vertical marketing of highly customized 
products to micro communities in a cost efficient manner not 
previously available to the manufacturer, retailer, or service provider. 
One of the effects of the integration of the Internet into the business 
community will be the rapid growth of low-volume products efficiently 
marketed to small global consumer groups.

Take the narrow-casting feature of the magazine industry, which is 
characterized by its ability to deliver an affinity group, and fragment it 
to the point of infinity; one now has a metaphor for the future of the 
Internet: the cost effective delivery of niche markets to the business 
community.

The Internet is the single most significant new tool for business, 
particularly for small to medium-sized enterprises. What makes the 
Internet such a powerful tool for the world of the small business and 
the entrepreneur is that it provides both with the ability to communicate 
with a global audience that already numbers in the tens of millions. 

Prior to the integration of the Internet into the cosmology of the 
collective consciousness, most small businesses only had access to 
local markets. Advertising costs of previous mass media functioned to 
clearly delimit possible growth of most local businesses. 

The Internet's historically unique ability to facilitate inexpensive global 
communication is destined to have a widespread impact on the shape of 
national and international economies. Take the elitist nature of the past 
thirty years of multinational corporate economics and extend its power 
to every small business and you have the democratization of the global 
marketplace through cyberspace. This is the meaning of the Internet as 
an economic paradigm shift.

Page 211
No company has yet mastered the Internet as an advertising and 
marketing tool. Expect this to change as today's paradigm begins to 
shift into the digital, wired Information Age.

Michael Strangelove

CHART (reformat into two columns)
Comparison of Paradigms 

(Column One)

Decaying Paradigm
manufacturer-based economy

Means of Production
centralized & privatized
(the factory)

Means of Distribution
physical transportation systems

Time & Place
regimented and monitored

Mass Communication
uni-directional & privatized
controlled-content broadcasting
passive audience
elite as censor
advertiser sponsored

Power
entrenched in the marketplace
hierarchical

Advertising
manipulation through 
controlled content

(Column Two)

Emerging Paradigm
wired, digital
information-based economy

Means of Production
decentralized & public
(mind plus networked-computer)

Means of Distribution
digital dissemination through 
open and distributed networks
(the Internet)

Time & Place
not relevant

Mass Communication
omni-directional & public
uncensored multicasting
interactive audience
community as censor
user sponsored

Power
distributed among community
consensual

Advertising
meeting information 
needs of the consumer

_________________________________
END OF ESSAY
_________________________________

Copyright Notice:
This essay is copyright (C) 1994 by Strangelove Internet Enterprises. 
This text may be reproduced in electronic media so long as it remains 
completely intact and includes this notice. Hardcopy reproduction 
requires the written permission of the author Michael Strangelove. 


For a complete table of contents and ordering information on the book, 
HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET, please contact 
Strangelove Press at 
Tel: 613-565-0982
Fax: 613-569-4433
Mstrange@fonorola.net

Also available by 
gopher fonorola.net

HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET
ISSN 1201-0758
Michael Strangelove
with Aneurin Bosley, Editor in Chief,
The Internet Business Journal
October 1994
211 pages + i-xi
$49.50 (US and CND)
Overseas orders add $10 US for postage.
Prepaid orders only -- cheques only
Payable to:
Strangelove Press
208 Somerset Street East, Suite A
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6V2 CANADA

TABLE OF CONTENTS IN BRIEF

Chapter
1               Introduction
2               Internet Demographics
3               Frequently Asked Questions about Internet Advertising
4               Marketing Through Online Conferences
5               Internet Advertising Tools
6               Mosaic: The Killer Internet Marketing Application
7               Selling Through Internet Classified Ads
8               Reaching a Local Market on the International Net
9               Creating an Online Marketing Plan
10              The Costs of Internet Advertising
11              The Dangers of Internet Advertising
12              Unsolicited E-Mail
13              Competitive Intelligence in Cyberspace
14              Selling Sex in Cyberspace
15              Demonstrating Products Online
16              Marketers on Internet Marketing
17              Forums for Online Marketers
18              Internet Shoppers Speak Out
19              Directory of Internet Advertising and Marketing Agencies
20              Products on the Net: A Visual Survey
21              Directory of Internet Consultants and Trainers
22              The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift
___________________________________________________

FREE DOCUMENTS:

The Essential Internet: The Birth of Virtual Culture and
Global Community (From Online Access, by Michael Strangelove)
-- File ESSENTIAL

Index of IBJ Volume 1:1-12 -- File INDEX

Advertising on the Internet FAQ -- File AD-FAQ

Directory of Internet Trainers and Consultants -- File TRAINERS

The Directory of Internet Marketing and Advertising Agencies -- File MARKET

The Geography of Cyberspace -- File GEO
(An essay by Michael Strangelove that appeared in the European cyberspace
magazine WAVE, Sept 1994)

Using the Internet for Marketing: A Publisher's Secrets  -- File PUBLISHER
(An article by Michael Strangelove published in the JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY
PUBLISHING, Volume 25, Number 4, July 1994)

To receive these helpful documents, simply send your request to
mstrange@fonorola.net and request the file name.

These files are also available via Gopher to fonorola.net
VIP -- Gopher to gopher.fonorola.net for the official IBJ Gopher archive.

END OF FILE

THE INTERNET AS CATALYST FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT

(The following essay by Michael Strangelove is from the book, HOW 
TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET (Chapter 22, pp. 205-211).

See reviews at http://www.phoenix.ca/sie/

Chapter 22 -- The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift

Page 205
Doubling in size every year, the Internet has dropped out of the sky like 
a bomb and exploded onto the scene of popular culture. Mass media 
has not shown such a prolonged and intense fascination with a new 
technology since the introduction of the personal computer over a 
decade ago. This is the first technology of its kind to achieve global 
scope.

The first thing the business community desperately needs to know 
about the Net is not how to use it, but how to comprehend it. What, 
indeed, is the Internet? Any effective advertising and marketing will be 
built on the basis of a correct understanding of the Net and its 
implications. The Internet is a technology, a culture, and a tool. Each of 
these aspects needs to be understood to properly comprehend the 
Internet and its role in the development of cyberspace.

The Technology of the Internet

The Internet is a distributed and open systems technology. 'Distributed' 
meaning that it has no central location and 'open' referring to the fact 
that the operating codes are not proprietary or secret. Everyone can 
contribute to the design and development of the overall system. 

One of the great historical ironies is that the Internet arose out of a Dr. 
Strangelovean plan to create a communications system that could 
survive a nuclear holocaust. What was to have been a communications 
system for the surviving elite of a military-industrial complex has 
mutated into a subversive neo-democratic (more precisely, anarchistic) 
cyberculture. The unique technological character of the Internet has 
endowed it with a fundamentally subversive nature. Over the past 
twenty five years of its growth, the Internet has demonstrated that it is 
not subject to privatization, centralization or control. This situates it in 
direct opposition to the historical dynamics of capitalism and 
commercialization. The unique technological architecture of the Net 
has generated an equally unique cultural force that defies present 
economic relationships.

page 206
The Genetics of Internet Culture

A genetic relationship exists between the Internet's core technology and 
its core cultural characteristics. Every introduction of a new technology 
into society carries with it a latent systemic impact which is similar in 
fashion to the way our genes predetermine much about us. When 
sufficiently pervasive, any radically different technology, such as the 
Internet, will have an equally radical effect on the social, economic, 
and political structures of the surrounding cultures. As cultures 
integrate the Internet into their social structures they will gradually 
adopt the systemic characteristics of the Net. The following 
contemplates some of the potential systemic changes the Internet will 
bring to the social structures which interact with cyberspace.

A New Paradigm of Production and Distribution

The main historical contribution of capitalism is not economic but 
social. Its ability to define the individual worker's experience of time 
and place to a minute degree, simply by dictating where people will be 
and when they will be there to a degree never before experienced in 
human culture. Capitalism is unique in history by virtue of its ability to 
require hundreds of millions of people to accommodate the spatial and 
temporal demands of manufacturer-based private enterprise.

With the appearance of the factory in the industrial age the 
centralization of the means of production gradually developed. This 
process had the effect of moving millions from the countryside into the 
cities and changing the measure of time from seasons to seconds. 
Manufacturer-based capitalism placed the means of production (the 
factories) and the means of distribution (ships, planes, trains, 
automobiles ...) firmly in the hands of the elite. This same elite then 
used the state to ensure that all natural resources were removed from 
the public sphere and placed under the "management" of private 
industries.

Yet as we hurtle toward the third millennium, the emerging economic 
paradigm of the wired, digital, Information Age is beginning to 
undermine the structural relationships of manufacturer-based 
capitalism. As a result of the Information Age, economies are moving 
away from dependency on centralized manufacturing to distributed 
information creation, processing, and dissemination. 

The Information Age has begun in earnest now that the primary 
commodity in Western Capitalism is information. This economic 
transformation is occurring simultaneously with a structural shift in the 
nature of information. In the old economy, information was paper-
based, centralized, and isolated. In this new economy, information is 
digital-based, wired (networked) and decentralized (distributed).

Now here is the crux of the matter. The fading economic paradigm is 
rooted in the elite ownership of both the means of production and the 
means of distribution. In stark contrast to this, the emerging economic 
paradigm of the wired, digital Information Age removes the central 
means of production from the elite and places 
Page 207
it squarely in the hands of the intellect worker. In the Information Age, 
the primary means of production is no longer the "factory" but the 
independent, creative mind and a $1,000 computer (an information 
storage and  processing system). But how is the intellect worker going 
to get his or her knowledge products to the marketplace without falling 
under the control of one, or many, brokers?

The Information Superhighway Economy

The solution to the intellect worker's dilemma of getting products to 
market is not going to be found in the coming Information 
Superhighway. The Information Superhighway will be built, owned 
and controlled by a consortium of telecommunications and 
entertainment corporate giants. Access to this private infrastructure will 
be as controlled, bureaucratic, and as expensive as is access to today's 
mass television audiences. Regardless of the assurances of political and 
industry leaders to the contrary, the Information Superhighway will not 
afford equal access to content-providers. It will merely serve to 
reinforce existing economic patterns and monopolies. We can be 
certain of this in much the same way that we can be certain that the 
technological basis of the coming Information Superhighway will be a 
proprietary architecture. These factors ensure that the 
InfoSuperhighway is structurally incapable of enabling an economic 
paradigm shift.

The Internet Economy

If the Information Age did not also develop a substantially new means 
of distribution, then the intellect worker would still be indentured to 
those who control distribution channels. As long as there is a broker 
placed between the worker's knowledge, products, and the marketplace, 
the intellect worker's profits are marginal. But this is not the case due to 
the recent rise of digital, global networks. In a wired world, the intellect 
worker can attain the status of an independent distributor of knowledge 
products in an information-based economy.

Unlike the Information Superhighway, the Internet democratizes access 
to global markets. It levels the playing field of international markets. In 
the emerging wired, digital information paradigm, the means of 
distribution to thirty million Internet consumers today, and half a 
billion at the dawn of the third millennium, is accessible to all at an 
insignificant cost through the Net. 

The Net would have no significance in the old economic paradigm 
because it would be ineffective for distributing products and services. 
But in the emerging information economy it reverses temporal, spatial, 
production, and distribution dynamics of elitist and monopolistic 
systems. At the turn of the third millennium, Capitalism will have lost 
its main social controlling force. 

The intellect worker is no longer subject to the demands of time and 
place of the factory owner. The intellect worker is also no longer 
subject to monopolies of production and distribution. This is the 
beginning of a mass exodus from the corporate world as entrepreneurs 
engage the power of cyberspace.

Page 208
A New Form of Mass Communication System

The open and distributed technology of the Internet has created, quite 
by accident, an entirely new form of human communication - mass 
participation in bi-directional, uncensored mass communication. We 
often hear of people talking about the new culture of the Internet. A 
new culture has arisen because communication is the foundation on 
which a culture is constructed. Introduce a new form of communication 
and you create a new cultural paradigm. 

The Internet is a new form of mass communication. Mass 
communication, while itself a relatively new phenomenon, has always 
involved controlled broadcasts to passive audiences. The mass 
audience has never had any significant input, or control, over the 
content of mass communication.

With the Internet these characteristics of mass communication have 
forever changed. On the Net we find massive numbers of people 
broadcasting information to massive numbers of people. Whereas the 
introduction of the Gutenberg Press made mass communication 
possible for the very, very few who would ever own a printing press, 
the Internet has turned every owner of a computer, a modem, and a 
telephone line into a publisher, a radio station, and soon enough, a TV 
studio. This is the second Gutenberg revolution. This is the new 
economy of information.

The Democratization of Communication

The main social and economic processes we are witnessing in 
cyberspace is the democratization of mass communication.  Not only is 
communication bi-directional, with audience and content provider 
(multicaster) acting as one, but it is uncensored.

On the Net anyone has the freedom to say anything they want, within 
the very broad confines of libel laws, self-censorship, and liberal 
community norms. The only insurmountable restriction on freedom of 
speech in cyberspace is that conversation must remain within the 
prescribed topic of any given online conference. Anyone can say 
anything they want but they must say it in the designated forum for the 
subject. These mitigating forces do not lessen the significance of the 
Internet as the first forum for uncensored mass communication and its 
role as the final preserve of freedom of speech.

Throughout history, mass communication has always been tightly 
controlled by members of the ruling elite. In antiquity, crowds were 
perceived as a threat by the ruling elite and quickly (and usually 
violently) dispersed. In modernity, all forms of mass communication 
have been subject to either direct government ownership, indirect 
control, manipulation, and/or censorship through regulatory bodies 
such as the CRTC and the FCC, and further indirect control as the 
result of the mass media's corporate sponsorship. 

Mass communication is one of the most powerful forces yet invented. 
This is why its control has always been the privilege of the elite 
classes. We see this relationship develop with the invention of the 
Gutenberg Press. As soon as the Tudor kings 
Page 209
recognized the latent power of the press they immediately began to 
institutionalize censorship and control over early mass printing. 

As a public resource, the Net's technology has enabled it to escape the 
capitalistic dynamics of privatization and as a mass medium, it has also 
escaped the censorship of the present mass media "kings". Today on 
the Internet anyone can legally access information banned in many 
countries, including Canada and the US. Whether it is the Terrorist 
Handbook, information subject to court-ordered publication bans, 
censored articles, or details on growing or making illegal drugs, one 
will find it on the Net. No one can stop anyone from accessing, 
retrieving, and reading it.

On the Internet today you can retrieve information that is daily 
impounded by your country's official censors and border guards. With 
less than a $1000 in hardware and software you can start an Internet-
based radio station that would not be subject to the regulations of the 
CRTC or the FCC. The new paradigm of cyberspace shatters all the old 
categories of our antiquated and decaying institutions. The Net defies 
traditional bureaucratic structures and hierarchical power relationships. 
Cyberspace is proving to be a natural resource that is not subject to the 
"management" of the government or the corporate elite.

The Liberation of Content

It is here that we see how the nature of the Internet and the nature of 
advertising (as it is traditionally practised) are at odds with each other. 
The Internet liberates the audience from the control of corporate and 
state content providers. In cyberspace, the most basic relationship 
between programming, content, and advertising is absent. Thus far, the 
Internet is the first form of mass communication to arise without the 
sponsorship of advertisers. In cyberspace, content is uncontrolled and 
reigns supreme. The challenge facing the business community is to 
adapt to this new medium and the emerging paradigm.

Advertising, however, will continue to exist in cyberspace but it will 
lack the ability to exercise the control over content to which it has 
grown accustomed to in other environments. Most of the present 
difficulties being faced by advertisers on the Internet can be attributed 
to the industry's painfully slow realization that it is the virtual 
community, and not the business world or the state, that has the final 
say over content in a bi-directional, uncensored environment. 

The Real Nature of Advertising

Power, advertising, and the Internet are all inescapably related. 
Traditional advertising is not merely a matter of paying to disseminate 
a message. Often overlooked is the issue of what messages advertising 
serves to exclude from media. Advertising is a multi-billion dollar 
industry that underwrites all major forms of mass communication. This 
endows advertising with substantial power. Without question, the 
financial dependency created by the relationship between advertising 
and mass media functions as a control over the overall content of the 
media it has supported. 

Page 210
The ad industry continues to deny that it influences content, and most 
editors and publishers naturally deny editorial interference from 
sponsors. Listening to the industry constantly deny this incestuous 
relationship is reminiscent of listening to tobacco industry executives 
repeatedly trying to convince a congressional hearing that cigarettes are 
not harmful. Yet the past thirty years of communication studies have 
produced a small mountain of evidence which demonstrate that the 
mass media is constantly subject to the influence and bias of its 
primary commercial sponsors. These myths have been necessary to 
gain trust and to maintain the appearance of legitimacy. 

Profiting from Anarchy

The advertising industry is on the verge of being shattered into a 
thousand fragments due to the knowledge explosion and the 
proliferation of new technologies. Grand theories no longer hold sway 
over the entire industry. Central theories, techniques, or laws can no 
longer be relied upon for commercial success. All the familiar 
categories of Madison Avenue have been destroyed by the postmodern 
marketplace.

Regardless of the anarchistic environment of cyberspace, the news is 
not all bad for traditional businesses. As a tool, the Internet does 
present unparalleled opportunities for effective advertising. The Net 
delivers an audience for vertical marketing of highly customized 
products to micro communities in a cost efficient manner not 
previously available to the manufacturer, retailer, or service provider. 
One of the effects of the integration of the Internet into the business 
community will be the rapid growth of low-volume products efficiently 
marketed to small global consumer groups.

Take the narrow-casting feature of the magazine industry, which is 
characterized by its ability to deliver an affinity group, and fragment it 
to the point of infinity; one now has a metaphor for the future of the 
Internet: the cost effective delivery of niche markets to the business 
community.

The Internet is the single most significant new tool for business, 
particularly for small to medium-sized enterprises. What makes the 
Internet such a powerful tool for the world of the small business and 
the entrepreneur is that it provides both with the ability to communicate 
with a global audience that already numbers in the tens of millions. 

Prior to the integration of the Internet into the cosmology of the 
collective consciousness, most small businesses only had access to 
local markets. Advertising costs of previous mass media functioned to 
clearly delimit possible growth of most local businesses. 

The Internet's historically unique ability to facilitate inexpensive global 
communication is destined to have a widespread impact on the shape of 
national and international economies. Take the elitist nature of the past 
thirty years of multinational corporate economics and extend its power 
to every small business and you have the democratization of the global 
marketplace through cyberspace. This is the meaning of the Internet as 
an economic paradigm shift.

Page 211
No company has yet mastered the Internet as an advertising and 
marketing tool. Expect this to change as today's paradigm begins to 
shift into the digital, wired Information Age.

Michael Strangelove

CHART (reformat into two columns)
Comparison of Paradigms 

(Column One)

Decaying Paradigm
manufacturer-based economy

Means of Production
centralized & privatized
(the factory)

Means of Distribution
physical transportation systems

Time & Place
regimented and monitored

Mass Communication
uni-directional & privatized
controlled-content broadcasting
passive audience
elite as censor
advertiser sponsored

Power
entrenched in the marketplace
hierarchical

Advertising
manipulation through 
controlled content

(Column Two)

Emerging Paradigm
wired, digital
information-based economy

Means of Production
decentralized & public
(mind plus networked-computer)

Means of Distribution
digital dissemination through 
open and distributed networks
(the Internet)

Time & Place
not relevant

Mass Communication
omni-directional & public
uncensored multicasting
interactive audience
community as censor
user sponsored

Power
distributed among community
consensual

Advertising
meeting information 
needs of the consumer

_________________________________
END OF ESSAY
_________________________________

Copyright Notice:
This essay is copyright (C) 1994 by Strangelove Internet Enterprises. 
This text may be reproduced in electronic media so long as it remains 
completely intact and includes this notice. Hardcopy reproduction 
requires the written permission of the author Michael Strangelove. 


For a complete table of contents and ordering information on the book, 
HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET, please contact 
Strangelove Press at 
Tel: 613-565-0982
Fax: 613-569-4433
Mstrange@fonorola.net

Also available by 
gopher fonorola.net

HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET
ISSN 1201-0758
Michael Strangelove
with Aneurin Bosley, Editor in Chief,
The Internet Business Journal
October 1994
211 pages + i-xi
$49.50 (US and CND)
Overseas orders add $10 US for postage.
Prepaid orders only -- cheques only
Payable to:
Strangelove Press
208 Somerset Street East, Suite A
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6V2 CANADA

TABLE OF CONTENTS IN BRIEF

Chapter
1               Introduction
2               Internet Demographics
3               Frequently Asked Questions about Internet Advertising
4               Marketing Through Online Conferences
5               Internet Advertising Tools
6               Mosaic: The Killer Internet Marketing Application
7               Selling Through Internet Classified Ads
8               Reaching a Local Market on the International Net
9               Creating an Online Marketing Plan
10              The Costs of Internet Advertising
11              The Dangers of Internet Advertising
12              Unsolicited E-Mail
13              Competitive Intelligence in Cyberspace
14              Selling Sex in Cyberspace
15              Demonstrating Products Online
16              Marketers on Internet Marketing
17              Forums for Online Marketers
18              Internet Shoppers Speak Out
19              Directory of Internet Advertising and Marketing Agencies
20              Products on the Net: A Visual Survey
21              Directory of Internet Consultants and Trainers
22              The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift
___________________________________________________

FREE DOCUMENTS:

The Essential Internet: The Birth of Virtual Culture and
Global Community (From Online Access, by Michael Strangelove)
-- File ESSENTIAL

Index of IBJ Volume 1:1-12 -- File INDEX

Advertising on the Internet FAQ -- File AD-FAQ

Directory of Internet Trainers and Consultants -- File TRAINERS

The Directory of Internet Marketing and Advertising Agencies -- File MARKET

The Geography of Cyberspace -- File GEO
(An essay by Michael Strangelove that appeared in the European cyberspace
magazine WAVE, Sept 1994)

Using the Internet for Marketing: A Publisher's Secrets  -- File PUBLISHER
(An article by Michael Strangelove published in the JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY
PUBLISHING, Volume 25, Number 4, July 1994)

To receive these helpful documents, simply send your request to
mstrange@fonorola.net and request the file name.

These files are also available via Gopher to fonorola.net
VIP -- Gopher to gopher.fonorola.net for the official IBJ Gopher archive.


HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET -- Ordering Information

See reviews at http://www.phoenix.ca/sie/

NOTE: This book is not yet available in bookstores. It must be
ordered directly from the publisher. Prepaid orders only, credit
cards are not accepted.

HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET
ISSN 1201-0758
Michael Strangelove
with Aneurin Bosley, Editor in Chief,
The Internet Business Journal
October 1994
211 pages + i-xi
$49.50 (US and CND)
Note: Price INCULDES shipping and handling.
Overseas orders add $10 US for postage.

Payable to:
Strangelove Press
208 Somerset Street East, Suite A
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6V2 CANADA
Tel: 613-565-0982
Fax: 613-569-4433
Mstrange@fonorola.net

If requested, we will confirm by e-mail that your order has
been received and shipped.

Newsgroups:
alt.online-services,biz.comp.services,biz.misc,
alt.internet.services,alt.business.misc,
news.answers,alt.answers
Distribution: World
Subject: Advertising on the Internet FAQ
Organization: Strangelove Internet Enterprises,
Inc.
Followup-To: poster
Reply-To: Mstrange@Fonorola.Net
Summary:
This document contains a selection of Frequently
Asked Questions (and their answers) about
Internet-facilitated advertising. It should be
read by anyone using the Internet for commercial
purposes.

Archive-name: Internet_Advertising-FAQ
Last-Modified: n/a
Version: 1.0
Frequency: monthly

ADVERTISING ON THE INTERNET FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Version 1.0 - 6 March, 1994

*** COPYRIGHT NOTICE
This document is Copyright (C) 1994 by Strangelove
Internet Enterprises, Inc., all rights reserved.
Permission for non-commercial distribution is
hereby granted, provided that this file is
distributed intact, including this copyright
notice and the version information above.
Permission for commercial distribution may be
obtained from the Strangelove Internet
Enterprises, Inc. Please feel free to distribute
this document on commercial networks (AOL,
Compuserve, Delphi, ...) and on bulletin boards.

HOW TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR

Michael Strangelove can be contacted by e-mail to
Mstrange@Fonorola.Net
or by postal mail to
SIE Inc
208 Somerset Street East, Suite A
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA
K1N 6V2
Tel: 613-565-0982
FAX: 613-569-4433

INTRODUCTION

Advertisers spend billions of  dollars every year
to communicate their message to potential
consumers. Now businesses are discovering that
they can advertise to the Internet community at a
fraction of the cost of traditional methods. With
tens of millions of electronic mail users out
there in cyberspace today, Internet advertising is
an intriguing opportunity not to be overlooked.
When 1998 roles around and there are one hundred
million consumers on the Internet, we may see many
ad agencies and advertising-supported magazines go
under as businesses learn to communicate directly
to consumers in cyberspace.

How can a consultant, corporation, or an
entrepreneur effectively use electronic mail to
communicate to Internet user? The following
document is intended to identify and answer
frequently asked questions about Internet-
facilitated marketing. This FAQ is based on the
book, "How to Advertise on the Internet: An
Introduction to Internet-Facilitated Marketing"
(April 1994). If there are question you have about
Internet advertising that are not addressed here,
or if you have comments about how to improve this
document, please feel free to contact me at
Mstrange@Fonorola.Net.

Potential advertisers take note -- do your
homework before blasting onto the Internet. This
virtual community has some very strong feelings
about inappropriate activity, and the penalties
for incorrect advertising methods could be
international hate mail to you, your boss, and
your stock holders.

Nota Bene: It is the intention of the author to
promote the responsible business use of the
Internet. Businesses will be making extensive use
of the Internet for marketing and advertising,
regardless of how Internet members feel about the
non-commercial origins of the Internet. The
Internet is not destined to be a TechnoUtopia, but
simply a microcosm of global society, with all its
warts and flowers. This FAQ is intended as a
proactive measure to ensure that the commercial
Internet user has adequate information about
Internet culture so as to contribute to the
ongoing development of Electric Gaia.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS FAQ:

Is Advertising Allowed on the Internet?
Is Advertising on the Internet New?
Is the Internet a Mass Market?
Is Unsolicited Advertising Permitted?
Can I Send an E-Ad to Every Internet User?

INTERNET ADVERTISING TIPS:

Find Out What is Acceptable
Post Only to Appropriate Forums
Keep it Short
Avoid Sensationalism
Create Your Own Forum
Interact with the Internet Community


IS ADVERTISING ALLOWED ON THE INTERNET?

It is surprising how many people still see the
Internet as a non-commercial, academic, and
technical environment. Over fifty percent of the
Internet is populated by commercial users (that
equals five to ten million commercial users). The
commercial Internet is the fastest growing part of
cyberspace, which is doubling in size every year.
There are more business users of the Internet than
the total number of all the users of all
commercial networks combined.

Over three years ago the US National Science
Foundation lifted restrictions against commercial
use of the Internet's American backbone. Now an
Internet address on business cards is the latest
craze. As the Internet is not owned by any one
company or nation, the only real restrictions
placed upon users are by the consensus of the
virtual community itself. The trick to effective
Internet advertising is taking the time to learn
what is and is not acceptable within any one of
the more than 7,000 online conferences.

The one major exception to this is any Internet
users who have academic accounts provided by their
university or research institute. It is almost
certain that if you have an academic Internet
account, you are forbidden to engage in commercial
activity over your university's Internet
connection. This may also hold true for many
FreeNets -- if you are uncertain about local
authorized use policy, ask your Internet provider
or system postmaster.

It should be noted that Usenet is no less
commercial than the rest of the Internet. Gone
forever are the days when the Internet was a
private club for the techno-elite.

IS ADVERTISING ON THE INTERNET NEW?

Even among many long-time Internet users, there is
a perception that Internet advertising is a new
phenomenon. It is not. In the mid eighties, when
the Internet was largely an academic, scientific,
and technical community, commercial activity was
still allowed if it was in support of research
efforts. This meant that right from the first days
of the Internet, there were software developers,
publishers, consultants, and technicians hawking
their wares to the academic community. Advertising
has been taking place on the Internet since its
beginning. The problem facing the Internet
community is that the bigger the community gets
(and it is going to be mindbogglingly big), the
more it will attract the attention of advertising
agencies.

IS THE INTERNET A MASS MARKET?

For quite some time to come, the Internet will
never represent a mass market such as TV where
content is controlled and packaged to a limited
number of predefined and demographically
homogenous audiences consisting of millions of
views. There are no mass markets on the Internet -
- only micro communities with distinct histories,
rules, and concerns. These communities are
gathered into thousands of discussion forums
ranging from hundreds to thousands of
participants, but there are no groups of
"millions." The challenge of the Internet-
facilitated business is to find a way to reach
these virtual communities on their terms,
respecting their local customs. The Internet is
big, very big, but it is not a mass market that
can be easily reached through mass mailing.

IS UNSOLICITED ADVERTISING PERMITTED?

Unsolicited advertising does indeed take place
every day on the Net, and there even exists one
company that sells access to over one million
Internet addresses for direct e-mail advertising.
Unsolicited advertising is a gray area of Internet
culture, and therefore requires very careful
planning and execution to avoid the wrath of an
extremely vocal community.

Unsolicited advertising has been taking place on
the Internet for quite some time, but must be done
with extreme caution. There is no one to tell you
not to send unsolicited commercial e-mail on the
Internet, but if you send out 10,000 annoying
advertisements, be prepared to receive 10,000
complaints. Also, companies that disregard
Internet users' wishes are likely to find that the
Internet community has a long memory (as any
"oral" culture does) and is quite capable of
engaging in anti-advertising campaigns and
boycotts.

In this new interactive, digital, wired-to-the-
bellybutton world, bulk unsolicited advertising is
unnecessary, bad netiquette, and simply lazy --
particularly when there are so many creative
alternatives. The author has no wish to support
the rise of "door-to-door" salespeople in
cyberspace and therefore is intentionally
censoring contact information from this FAQ on
firms that sell Internet e-mail addresses and
consult in bulk unsolicited e-mail advertising.

CAN I SEND AN E-AD TO EVERY INTERNET USER?

As Editor of THE INTERNET BUSINESS JOURNAL,
Aneurin Bosley is frequently asked if it is
possible to send an electronic mail advertisement
(E-Ad) to every user on the Internet. "I always
find it somewhat disturbing that there are
sone people out there who want to do this.
Fortunately for the Internet, it is not possible
to send an E-Ad to every person on the Internet.
Unfortunately for the Internet, it is probably
only a matter of time before some sick mind
figures out a method of simultaneously annoying
every Internet user." For now at least, there is no
way to post an e-mail message to every Internet
user, nor, in this writers opinion, should such a
tool be developed.


INTERNET ADVERTISING TIPS

FIND OUT WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE

Within some Internet forums, any commercial
activity, no matter how subtle, is unacceptable
and will be met with a strong negative response
(usually called "flaming"). Take the time to
"listen in" to the forum to which you intend to
post. Notice what other people post and what the
group's reaction is to commercial messages.
If a press release or product announcement is met
with intense flaming, then do not risk alienating
this group of Internet users with your commercial
message.

POST ONLY TO APPROPRIATE FORUMS

Begin your market research by identifying the
appropriate online conferences (also called
forums, lists, or newsgroups). If you are a
selling purebred dogs, do not post your message to
the cat lover's list. Some forums have FAQ files
(Frequently Asked Questions). Read these files to
determine the nature of the forum and acceptable
use policies.

KEEP IT SHORT

Avoid posting long e-mail messages. Your product
or service announcements should never exceed two
screens in length (about 50 lines long). Many
individuals on the Internet receive a considerable
amount of e-mail, so your message must be short
and to the point if it is going to be read at all.
You can note in your posting that further details
are available upon request.

AVOID SENSATIONALISM

The Internet community is content oriented,
whereas most advertisers deal in style, metaphor,
image, and hype. Traditional advertising copy will
not go over well at all on the Net. The Internet
community appreciates quality, filtered
information, so find a way to add value to your
message. Coach your message within a commentary on
industry trends, create an electronic newsletter
that provides a range of related information,
enter into dialogue with the forum about
surrounding issues. Remember that nothing is more
obvious in low ASCII than empty hype.

CREATE YOUR OWN FORUM

It is possible to create a Usenet newsgroup for
discussion of your products (Usenet is received by
most Internet users and contains over six thousand
newsgroups). Many companies have already done so,
such as ZEOS, which has a newsgroup called
biz.zeos.general. This is a form of passive
Internet-facilitated marketing. Passive
advertising allows a business to create a forum on
the Internet and invite the rest of the Internet
to join in. By creating your own forum, moderating
the submissions (filtering out irrelevant
postings), and providing high quality information,
not only about your products but about your
particular commercial sector, you will establish a
growing readership in much the same way that
newsstand magazines function.

INTERACT WITH THE INTERNET COMMUNITY

For the immediate future, the costs of Internet-
facilitated advertising will not be associated
with expensive visual productions (at least until
the domination of Mosaic and similar tools), but
with the labor required to dialogue with the
desired market areas found within over seven
thousand discussion forums. This labor factor for
truly responsible, responsive, and effective
Internet advertising will become a critical
consideration as the staggering Internet growth
rate pushes these numbers to tens of thousands of
forums and hundreds of millions of users over the
next decade.

The business world is going to have to learn a new
language when it communicates to the Internet
community -- the language of content-based,
interactive, community-oriented dialogue.
Unidirectional pontificating coming from the lofty
heights of corporate sales and marketing offices
will only alienate the typical Internet user. To
be fully accepted by the majority of Internet
users, a business will need to participate in the
virtual communities they wish to reach. This means
that business must be willing and prepared to
enter into dialogue in an appropriate manner on
the appropriate forums. Unlike any other medium
familiar to advertisers, the Internet is fully bi-
directional -- be prepared to answer for your
product or service if it is less than 100%
satisfactory. The Internet user will not hesitate
to tell you otherwise, as well as tell the rest of
the Internet community!

A WORD OF WARNING

Most advertisers will fail at their initial
attempt at Internet-facilitated advertising. This
is not at all surprising in light of the fact that
most advertising in any medium is woefully
ineffective, mind-bogglingly boring, and
uncreative at best -- deceptive and annoying at
worst.

Why will advertisers fail when they succumb to the
seduction of the virgin fields of the Internet?
Traditional advertising will fail to achieve
results on the Internet because this virtual
community is oriented towards content. In
contrast, advertisers usually focus on image and
style -- broad archetypes delivered to mass
audiences. But the language of the Internet, for
the majority of its population, and for some time
to come, is low ASCII (Aa-Zz, 1-9 text plus a few
miscellaneous characters). More than being a
mainly text-based environment, the Internet is
first and foremost an oral culture, where the
keyboard mediates the spoken word to a complex
matrix of subcultures among users numbering in the
tens of millions. Sensitivity to Internet culture
will define success for any business entering into
this global matrix. Remember that today's Internet
arose out of a non-commercial environment. Be
forewarned -- The Internet is not television, not
the post office, and certainly not yours to do
with it as you please.

IN THE NEXT EDITION:

The next edition of this FAQ will feature
questions and answers about the ultility of Mosaic
as the first "killer app" for
the Internet-facilitated advertiser.

*** FREE DOCUMENTS:

The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift -- File PARADIGM

Index of IBJ Volume 1:1-12 -- File INDEX

Advertising on the Internet FAQ -- File AD-FAQ

Directory of Internet Trainers and Consultants -- File TRAINERS

Internet Marketing and Advertising Agencies -- File MARKET

The Geography of Cyberspace -- File GEO

To receive these helpful documents, simply send your request to
mstrange@fonorola.net and request the file name.

These files are also available via Gopher to fonorola.net
VIP -- Gopher to gopher.fonorola.net for the official IBJ Gopher archive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Strangelove (Mstrange@Fonorola.Net) is
founder and CEO of Strangelove Internet
Enterprises, Inc., publishers of THE INTERNET
BUSINESS JOURNAL, and Internet Advertising Review.
Michael writes a
regular column about the Internet in ONLINE ACCESS
and has coauthored, with Diane Kovacs, The
Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and
Academic Discussion Lists (Association of Research
Libraries, 1993, Third Edition). Michael is also
author of the new book, How to Advertise on the
Internet: An Introduction to Internet-Facilitated
Marketing. Sample copies of THE INTERNET BUSINESS
JOURNAL are available upon request. In his spare
time, Michael is completing a Ph.D at the
University of Ottawa. Stay tuned for the return of
Dr. Strangelove, coming to an Internet near you.
See Strangelove Press on the Web at
http://www.phoenix.ca/sie

Review No.3 now available -- a look at HotWired and
its online advertisers (send request to mstrange@fonorola.net
or surf to http://www.phoenix.ca/sie 


INTERNET ADVERTISING REVIEW No.2
        The Web has Won -- Who will Lose?


THE INTERNET ADVERTISING REVIEW is an occasional 
electronic newsletter, written by Michael Strangelove 
(mstrange@fonorola.net), publisher of THE INTERNET BUSINESS 
JOURNAL and author of HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE 
INTERNET (table of contents available upon request).

'Tis True; There's magic in the web of it ...
        (Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello)

Nature's vast frame, the web of human things ...
        (Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alastor)

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together ...
        (Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well)

Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has 
spun ...
        (Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures)

Let there be no doubt; the Web has won. On the first anniversary of 
the release of the Windows and Macintosh versions of the multimedia 
World-Wide Web (WWW) browser know as NCSA Mosaic, the future 
shape of the Internet is clear. With thousands of businesses 
establishing multimedia WWW home pages, the Internet has clearly 
established itself as *the* commercial network. Proprietary 
commercial networks will survive only through becoming more like 
the Internet.

Within thirty-six months, WWW traffic will exceed ordinary 
telephone traffic. The hypertext, hypermedia character of the Web 
ensures that it is destined to become synonymous with the Internet 
itself. Within the same period, we will see the majority of North 
American Internet users migrating to Mosaic-style browsers
as the dominant means of accessing the Net. 

Forget about expecting a few hundred more WWW/Mosaic store 
fronts by next year -- the growth curve is certain to be much more 
steep. By Christmas 1995 there will be between ten and twenty 
thousand hypermedia retail outlets on the Net. Keep in mind that this 
thing we call the Internet is not merely a new trend. This is a new 
paradigm -- a new form of human communication, behavior, and 
community. 

What we are observing in cyberspace is not merely a new means of 
marketing, but the emergence of a new breed of consumers -- 
consumers who are empowered by participation in bi-directional mass 
media. What will be the systemic impact of this new breed of 
consumers upon the entrenched culture of business? There will be a 
thousand effects but perhaps the most critical one will have to do with 
feedback -- the basis of an organic system capable of adaptation, 
evolution, and long term survival. 

Consider that the dominant modus operandi in the retail industry is 
rooted in the delivery of low quality products with negligible service. 
The past thirty years has seen service and quality incrementally 
sacrificed to the driving principle of maximization of profit. This 
situation has arisen almost entirely due to the ever increasing distance 
that has been established between the consumer and the manufacturer. 
The result is the isolation of the consumer who is left with no 
significant means of feedback (even if you factor in the meaningless 
"how have we served you" cards found by checkout counters). 

Now what will happen over the next five years as the business 
community, which is dependent upon both the disempowered 
consumer *and* the cost savings of shoddy products and service, is 
confronted by consumers who are re-empowered by near instantaneous 
feedback in a wired marketplace? Feedback not only to the corporate 
hierarchy but also to other consumers. Suddenly, the consumer will be 
thrust back into the center of the retail relationship and the elements 
of service and quality will not be merely the subject of academic 
articles, but bottom-line survival. I suspect that for every business that 
is created by the emerging paradigm of the wired Information Age, 
another will fail as a result of its entrenched dependency upon the 
voiceless, isolated consumer.

At the start of the next millennium, neither businesses nor 
governments will be the least bit prepared for the onslaught of half a 
billion wired citizens and consumers who will demand the very thing 
thus far withheld from them -- feedback. We saw the anger of the 
disempowered modern consumer expressed in the violent images of 
the movie Falling Down. Entrance into the Internet today will help 
prepare for the re-empowered electronic citizen of tomorrow. Failure 
to take cyberspace seriously as a retail environment will only make a 
victim of you and your business.

Recommended Reading:

The Internet and the Anti-net:
Two Public Internetworks are Better Than One
http://asearch.mccmedia.com/Anti-net.html
By Nick Arnett, (nicka@mccmedia.com), president of Multimedia 
Computing Corporation.

A thought-provoking essay on the parallels between the Internet and 
the structural effects of Johann Gutenberg's printing technology. Read 
Arnett's essay and learn from the greatest teacher -- history.

"Printing technology's immediate and profound effect was the 
destruction of the self-serving, homogenized point of view of a single 
institution ... Today we are at a turning point. We are leaving behind a 
world dominated by easy, audiovisual, sensational, advertising-based 
media, beginning a future in which the mass media's power will be 
diluted by the low cost of distribution of many other points of view."

ALSO

Using Mosaic for Windows
By Stephen Gauer
1994, 104 pages
Electric Avenue Press
electric@wimsey.com

Mosiac Quick Tour for Windows (192 pages)
&
Mosiac Quick Tour for Mac (192 pages)
By Gareth Branwyn
Ventana Press
Tel: 919-942-0220
________________________________________________________
Copyright Notice:
This document is copyright (C) 1994 by Strangelove Internet 
Enterprises. All Rights Reserved. This text may be reproduced in 
electronic media so long as it remains completely intact and includes 
this notice. Hardcopy reproduction requires the written permission of 
the author Michael Strangelove. This document may be HTML tagged 
and placed on any WWW server.

For a complete table of contents and ordering information on the book, 
HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET, e-mail 
Mstrange@fonorola.net. Also available by Gopher to fonorola.net. 
or on the Web at
http://www.phoenix.ca/sie

FREE HELPFUL DOCUMENTS >>>

The Internet as Catalyst for a Paradigm Shift -- File PARADIGM
(Chapter 22 from the book, HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET)

The Essential Internet: The Birth of Virtual Culture and
Global Community (From Online Access, by Michael Strangelove)
-- File ESSENTIAL

Index of IBJ Volume 1:1-12 -- File INDEX

Advertising on the Internet FAQ -- File AD-FAQ

Directory of Internet Trainers and Consultants -- File TRAINERS

The Directory of Internet Marketing and Advertising Agencies -- File MARKET

The Geography of Cyberspace -- File GEO
(An essay by Michael Strangelove that appeared in the European cyberspace
magazine WAVE, Sept 1994)

Using the Internet for Marketing: A Publisher's Secrets  -- File PUBLISHER
(An article by Michael Strangelove published in the JOURNAL OF SCHOLARLY
PUBLISHING, Volume 25, Number 4, July 1994)

To receive these helpful documents, simply send your request to
mstrange@fonorola.net and request the file name.

These files are also available via Gopher to fonorola.net

VIP -- Gopher to gopher.fonorola.net for the official IBJ Gopher archive.

END OF FILE
(NOTE: we are having a contest to pick the Internet Entrepreneur and 
Internet store front of 1994. You could win $500 by sending us your
entry. Contact mstrange@fonorola.net for full contest details).
Contest ends February 20, 1995.

SEE US ON THE WEB AT:  
http://www.phoenix.ca/sie/

Internet Advertising Review #3 -- Online Edition
December 1995

The Internet Advertising Review is a monthly column in THE 
INTERNET BUSINESS JOURNAL. Written by Michael Strangelove, 
author of the new book, HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET, 
this column is designed to provide readers with hard hitting analytical 
reviews of Internet marketing and advertising efforts. The Internet is a 
new and unfamiliar medium to both the business community and the 
advertising industry. As a result, most of the current WWW design 
work and Internet-facilitated marketing efforts are rather poor and ill-
adapted to the unique character of cyberspace. 

This month I review HotWired and its sponsors. HotWired is Wired 
magazine's attempt at an advertising supported WWW magazine. 

The rest of the December issue of THE INTERNET BUSINESS 
JOURNAL provides an extensive overview of the tools and resources 
available on the Internet which you can use to begin creating your own 
WWW documents, publications, and storefronts.

If there is a mall, WWW magazine, marketing area, or online store you 
would to see reviewed, please feel free to contact me.

Michael Strangelove
michael@strangelove.com

Hotwired: 
Hot, But Not Very Well Wired

Wired magazine recently launched a World Wide Web (WWW) online 
version called HotWired (http://www.hotwired.com). I found their 
initial online offering to be hot but not very well wired. 

The main design flaw in HotWired is the overuse of large graphics 
placed at the top of far too many pages. In one instance, an overly large 
graphic was placed on a page that had only three short paragraphs. As a 
result, it took more time for the graphic to retrieve than it did to read the 
page. These large graphics should be drastically reduced in size and 
linked to a full size image which the user may then click on to view if 
interested. 

Other design flaws are the lack of issue and article dates; poor linking 
between sections; and the use of obscure icons. Hypertext is a difficult 
environment that demands extra effort to make it friendly. HotWired 
designers have effectively taken the best feature of WWW publishing -- 
hypertext links -- and weakened its unique character by slowing down 
the linking process through slavery to a high-tech graphical fetish. The 
result is an online publication that is painfully slow to read and interact 
with.

Fortunately, these are errors which can easily be corrected. HTML and 
hypertext design flaws aside, HotWired is certainly among the finest 
examples of World Wide Web publishing today. I particularly enjoyed 
Frank, a wordless serial Jungian adventure/comix by Jim Woodring, 
and the electronic version of the novel, City of Glass. The use of serial 
features is, of course, a solid technique for enticing visitors to return to 
HotWired.

An innovative feature of HotWired is the ability to comment or 
contribute to any feature by sending in plain text or HTML e-mail 
messages which others can then comment on. This design feature is well 
worth imitating as it ensures that your WWW publication is not static. 
The certain end of this omni-directionality is the development of a 
online community of readers who will be attracted to both the content 
and the empowering ability to dialogue with other readers about the 
content. I tried out this feature and sent in a note of congratulations. 
Much to my surprise, the note was not sent on to staff for possible 
"editing" (censoring), but was immediately added to the list of "threads" 
(subject-oriented comments). Well done, HotWired.

While still a little weak on content, I did find some very good 
photography, animation, digital audio, and comix. HotWired needs to 
bring in world-class authors to ensure that it does not degrade into the 
equivalent of Entertainment Tonight in cyberspace. 

Of course, HotWired is about creating an online publication that makes 
a profit through its sponsors. They appear to headed for a profitable 
return. According to a press release filled with the usual hype, Rick 
Boyce, HotWired's advertising director claims that "In the end, we were 
turning away advertisers - we just couldn't create the content fast 
enough." The ads appear in HotWired as small banners at the top of 
various articles and features. Readers access the full advertisement by 
clicking on the banner with their mouse. 

As a place to link your storefront or advertisement to, HotWired is 
bound to prove a success. They have used the full potential of the 
Internet medium to create an interactive, community-based, net-
friendly environment for advertisers. This includes chat rooms 
(uncensored), e-mail contributions (uncensored), special guest 
appearances, personals (free for now, so I tried it out), classified ads 
(free, for now), and lots of opportunities for readers to submit their 
digital creative work. This will be a difficult Internet forum to compete 
against for anyone trying to reach the same demographics (Rolling 
Stone management should be pummeled to death with 14.4K modems 
for failing to see which way the wind is blowing in the Nineties).

We explored the advertisements in HotWired and found that most of the 
design work done for these sites was, like HotWired itself, still early on 
the Internet learning curve but generally headed in the right direction. 
Read on for our analysis of some of the Hotwired sponsors (MCI, Zima, 
Club Med, Volvo, IBM, and Personal Library Software).

END OF THE FREE LUNCH

To read the reviews of HotWired's sponsors, you will need to purchase 
the December issue of THE INTERNET BUSINESS JOURNAL. 
Sample copies are no longer free (this includes absolutely everyone, 
except reporters and people I have slept with). Each issue comes with 
full-refund-if-not-satisfied guarantee and the cost of samples can be 
applied to your subsciption. For complete ordering information, contact 
subscriptions@strangelove.com and request the document IBJ INFO.

Here is a peek at some of my comments:

MCI
http://www.mci.com

"The MCI Internet ad fails to adequately adapt the content and 
presentation of information to the new medium."

Zima
http://www.zima.com/

"It is worth a trip to the Zima WWW ad to see how they have attempted 
to make their ad concept fit with the readership of Wired and 
HotWired."

IBM (Digital Alchemy) 
http://www.hotwired.com/Coin/Spnsrs/IBM/ibm01.html

"This is an excellent example of a WWW magazine that doubles as a 
marketing vehicle."

Club Med
http://www.hotwired.com/Coin/Spnsrs/Clubmed/index.html

"Club Med's site is not much more than an online travel brochure."
_____________________________________
The next issue of THE INTERNET BUSINESS JOURNAL (January, 
1995) is the IBJ Annual Creative Internet Marketing Awards. We will 
also announce the Internet Entrepreneur of the Year Award (you will 
never guess who it is). Contact subscriptions@strangelove.com for 
ordering information.

For a complete table of contents and ordering information on the book, 
HOW TO ADVERTISE ON THE INTERNET, please contact 
Strangelove Press at 
Tel: 613-565-0982
Fax: 613-569-4433
subscriptions@STRANGELOVE.COM


Copyright Notice:
This doucment is copyright (C) 1994/95 by Strangelove Internet 
Enterprises, Inc. This text may be reproduced in electronic media so 
long as it remains completely intact and includes this notice. Hardcopy 
reproduction requires the written permission of the author Michael 
Strangelove. 


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This issue features a review of HotWired and its sponsors in the regular 
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