The links are not in control

All Web based portals and vortals, in their own way, attract people who seek knowledge, guidance, entertainment, products or services. They direct people; sometimes giving advice, sometimes pointing to advantages or price differences. They may also carry advertisements in the form of banners that can transport people off on an impulsive whim. Advertising can also be imbedded into the copy of text in the form of links that take the reader to a particular place of interest. Seen in this way, portals and vortals can be seen as systems of links that direct people around a system of interaction and trade.

With this view, it is easy to think that the sites providing the links are in control of the system, but, it is a fallacy. The sites that control the system are those that provide real substance and value – but, this is not immediately obvious. Figure 5.2 shows the various ways in which customers might be routed to a Web site.

Figure 5.2 indicates that the most efficient routing of customers to a Web site is through providing good value and good service. As obvious as this might seem, it is largely ignored at start up because it relies upon the Web site having already been created and a business already running. It is this question of the starting process that throws many people because it is a chicken and egg situation. You can get people to come to the site if others recommend it, but, how do you get those initial people to visit the site in the first place?

Most people new to e-business will attach great importance to search engines, directories, advertising, marketing and banner ads. They will want to use on-site marketing ploys, flashy appearances, entertaining displays and novelty. However, a little careful thought will soon tell you that such methods are actually counter productive. On the Internet, people do not want to be convinced to become customers: they will arrive with the hope of being customers and expect efficient service, not a sales patter. Selling is treated with suspicion and puts customers off.

There is no substitute for providing real value, efficiency and reliability. If a site provides these there is no need to advertise or hard sell because the Internet is a communication environment and word quickly spreads. This is particularly true in a portal or vortal environment because of the proximity of competition and the ease with which comparisons can be made.

In a world where search engines, guides and advisors are vying with each other for authority, credibility and recognition, a good site will not have to make itself known to them. A superior search engine or authoritative guide will find it for themselves. Remember, they are all seeking to be authoritative sources and they will not want to be seen missing out on an important site within their area of specialty.

At the time I finished writing the last chapter, I had to go to New York to speak at the BOT2000 seminar. Most of the speakers were involved in one way or another with gathering information from and about Web sites. Every one of these speakers was far more concerned with the quality of the information they were gathering than the volume. Simply trying to indiscriminately catalogue all information, regardless of its value was seen as an unintelligent approach for search engines and directories to take.

At the end of the seminar, all the speakers were each asked in turn to give their view as to the future for search engines, bots and intelligent agents. The consensus seemed to be that future development would be in the direction of increasing specialisation and more accurate ways of seeking out quality, value and excellence.

One of the speakers described an intelligent agent that his company was developing that would be used to check out current prices and availability of specific consumer products being offered on the Internet. It didn't wait for companies to submit the details of their Web sites, the agent acted as a spider, constantly crawling around the Web, searching millions of Web pages a day and looking for key words.

This activity produced an unedited list of references, but, then these findings were sorted and classified to produce short lists whose final inclusion in the search engine's recommendations were decided by humans. In this way, a portal of quality was being created that preferentially selected only the best and the most efficient traders in the various categories. It is in light of such intelligent portal and vortal creating systems that any e-business has to be designed.

It is obviously an advantage to be within the route map of a suitable portal or vortal because this is where the traffic will be. But, what has to be appreciated is that these portals and vortals are highly competitive environments. It's no good setting up business in one of them with simply a good idea. All the others traders will only say, "Good idea, thank you very much", and use or improve on that idea themselves. The stark reality is that you must be in a position to maintain a competitive position with any business idea you come up with.

This shifts the emphasis away from the idea itself and onto the problem of being able to put the idea into effect in a highly competitive environment. To be able to do this, it is necessary to be able to make full and optimum use of communication technology. In effect, this means there is a need to create a super identity on the Web in the same way that it is necessary to create a super individual in the environment of the Internet.

To create such a super identity, the green frog will have to acquire superior knowledge in the ways of the Internet and the technologies involved in Web site creation. It is at this stage that the eyes of most bricks and mortar business people begin to glaze over. They are faced with an incomprehensible confusion of technology.

Rather than plunge into this seething mass of unfamiliar techniques and concepts, most brick and mortar businesses will hand over this responsibility to somebody else, someone they think might be able to understand this highly technical world better than them. Unfortunately, they usually have no way of knowing who are the experts and who are the charlatans. This leaves them vulnerable to a huge wastage of investment capital and the establishment of inferior trading positions. This is the first problem an e-business strategist has to solve.