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I’ve been following the Internet e-commerce boom with a great deal of interest. I don’t know why, really. I have no stock options, am deeply in debt, yet still view the Internet as another:
(a) Source of bizarre material
(b) Yellow Pages
(c) Retail alternative
(d) Way to view jerky, poorly animated cartoons
(e) Means by which I can hear music for which I would never pay real money
(f) Way to play miniaturized versions of games I stopped playing 15 years ago
(g) And so on
(h) Way to get mail
(i) Porno venue
(j) Shallow ocean of infinite spit
(k) Way to keep track of the latest
(l) Thing to tick me off
(m) Information source
(n) Stupid way to kill time
(o) Pathway to the future!
(p) Source of confusion
(q) ***#!@ innovation
(r) Way to witness ***#!@ innovation
(s) Way to experience failed technologies firsthand
(t) Way to chat with strangers
(u) Waste of money
(v) Way to make money
(w) Excuse to reboot
(x) Experiment
(y) Alternate reality
(z) Expression of love.
The media buzz, combined with my own personal experience and mixed feelings, have kept me unnaturally excited, rather like a 12-year-old boy in 1961 sneaking a peek at Playboy for the first time. Is this a whole new paradigm, or just the same old crap in a new semi-slick package? But let’s not go there.
So then: Where can we go?
The crystal ball is clouded. What we have are a bunch of mysterious dotcom startups, the precise nature of which is unclear. So unclear in fact, that the dotcoms themselves have inundated the television airwaves with obscure, vulgar, and/or just plain weird commercials. The one with the kid and his green pal who represents his money? The one with the pizza deliverer and the naked blonde at the door? Huh?
Because the dotcoms have so much money to spend, they’ve driven ad rates up, and other potential advertisers out of the market. But what are they selling?
You can’t really tell from the ads. Dotcoms are stuck in a bizarre showbiz position: they’ve got the name of the show, and who the stars are, but they haven’t really got the script and music. Investors are lining up. Advertisers are willing to take the money, but there’s really nothing to sell.
What’s for sale? What do you do?
Well, we increase functionality. OK. We, uh, help you decide which Web sites to visit in your personal goal to increase functionality. We help you lead a more healthy lifestyle by keeping you glued to the terminal in your quest. We help you spend your money. We’ll spend your money for you, based on information you give us for free.
What the hell is all this? How much longer can it go on? I’m an Internet user, and these television spots annoy and confuse me. Imagine how annoyed and confused you would feel if you didn’t own a computer! “The hell with that,” you might think, “I’m sticking with basic cable.”
Salon (the online magazine) ran a series of articles in November 1999 about the process by which Hewlett-Packard invented a name for the spin-off of its instrumentation and measurement division into a separate company. At least a million dollars were spent to come up with a name for the new company: Agilent.
In-house, the name caught fire. Outside the house, HP went down in flames. What does “Agilent” mean? For that matter, what do Scient, Viant, Lucent, and so on mean? What do they do?
Here’s a recent headline from the San Francisco Chronicle: “Redback spends $4.7 billion for Siara Inc., a firm with no revenues, customers, or products.” Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?
My advice? If you want credibility from the general public:
• Get rid of the “dotcom” element. Dotcom is a given, isn’t it? Why sell something that’s already been paid for? It’s kind of like pitching your area code after the city’s been immolated.
• Avoid all company names that end with “-ent,” “-ant,” or “-a.”
• Sell something tangible that people want to buy. McDonald’s makes hamburgers. Coke makes Coke. CBS makes television programs. Just what the heck is it that you do? Two words or less, please. (The words “functionality,” “band,” and “click” cannot be included—that’s the law. Also, do not prefix your business with an “e.” That’s been played, really, hasn’t it?)
Ian Shoales makes fun of stuff. He lives in San Francisco. Please help him. Find him at mrsuave@earthlink.net.
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