"We can't afford to assume that the new media will be unimportant"

Martin Sorrell 16

THE INTERNET

The Internet was developed by the American scientists as a way to transmit scientific, text-based information within computers. Developed in the 1970's, it has rapidly worked its way into our everyday lives. The ideal of a paperless office seems viable with the technology available today, and it seems that a paperless home will not be too far behind.

The Internet consists of the World Wide Web, FTP, and e-mail but it is the WWW with which most people are familiar. The WWW is a non-linear medium. It uses software called hypertext / hypermedia which allows the user to choose their own path through pages and information linking topic to topic and cross-referencing. To this extent it is a truly interactive media. It gives the user some influence over access to the information and a degree of control over the outcomes of using the system.17

The Internet is part of a growing "new media". Also described as "multimedia" or "telematic media", it is revolutionising the traditions of communication. For the first time the supply and choice are no longer predominantly in the hands of a supplier of communication, technological advances overcome problems of cost, distance and capacity, and there is a flexibility of form, content and use.18 Most importantly, however, is the interactivity of the medium. Television and cable television had come close to providing such interactivity but nothing has ever before given this amount of control to the user. They can select answer back, exchange and be linked to other servers and users directly.

It is a hybrid media, borrowing elements from existing media. It is a radio where one person can reach millions; it is a phone whereby one can reach anyone else instantly and privately; it is a postal service delivering private and junk mail; it is a newspaper service reporting fresh information, plus features, advertising and a public forum. It has television¹s ability to add moving pictures and sound to words, it is a library, research facility and much, much more. Lastly but most pertinently, it is like the magazine industry, in that it can reach millions of readers self-selected in highly focused groups.19

E-COMMERCE

Since the emergence of the WWW and the growth of the computer industry within the domestic market, companies have been scrambling to build a presence of some sort on the web. The initial scramble resembled a gold rush which was mainly motivated by the fear of missing an opportunity or of damaging their image by not doing so. However now it is beginning to be recognised as a relatively easy way to reach millions of customers, both existing and potential. Companies are taking advantage of new ways to become more customised, more responsive to the individual. Interactivity is the key difference in "new media". Interactivity can be defined as the effect two things have on each other. For companies that use broadcast advertisements which elicit a response such as a toll-free call, which in turn is stored in a computer database and which triggers a personalised direct mailing, they have already understood and acted upon the advantages interactivity holds for their business.20 However, the web promises a much more high tech interactivity. For a company thinking about setting up a presence on the web, and most companies will at some stage, the term "interactive" points to two features of communication. Firstly, the ability to address an individual and secondly, the ability to gather and remember the response of that individual. These two features make a third possible, the ability to address the individual once more in a way that takes into account his or her unique response. The WWW promises to be as persuasive as one on one dialogue with a salesperson, yet boasts a better memory and no distaste for repetitive tasks which a human would have.21 The advantages of interactivity lies in its ability to put a more human face on marketplace exchanges without losing the scale economies of mass marketing. As George Fisher, CEO of Eastman Kodak Company said at a recent American Association of Advertising Agencies conference,

"We, quite frankly, can't say it pays for itself in leads and additional business....(but) on-line activity gives us a way to meet customer needs and desires (that is) unparalleled since the days of the door-to-door salesman." 22

Most of the corporate presence on the web is for companies outside the web and technology industry. They wish to promote themselves on a new medium. However, the emergence of the WWW has opened up doors for companies within the Internet and global technology industry. There are many companies which have successfully started a business solely on, or based around, the Internet. Although not all are realising financial success yet, the companies themselves are worth huge amounts of money and have even bigger earning potential for the future. Retailing is the obvious success story with books, music and cars the top sellers over the web. Other successes include travel, financial services, sex and advertising. Different advantages of the WWW suit each of these individually, for instance the accuracy and immediacy is ideal for travel and financial services while anonymity and privacy are the obvious advantages for the sex and porn industry on-line.

MOVING TO THE WEB

Both of these type of industries are evident within the magazine industry. There are magazines which have existed in print, and which like the corporate industry want to build an on-line presence. There are also the magazines who like the on-line industry, bypass the print medium and set up shop in cyberspace. Digital media is both their origin and destination; they do not owe anything to print and are not bound by any magazines currently in print.

Magazines, both printed and digital, are thought to be particularly suited to the web because, like television, they are content providers who have an existing presence elsewhere. They are also cited, along with search engines and directories, as being the "most likely to succeed" by Erik Lundberg, Director of Sales and Literature Marketing at Total Entertainment.23 However, while successful in content and design, many are not financially successful. Less than 20% of publishing companies surveyed by the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), are realising financial profits from their on-line activities.24

So why do magazines decide to bring their publications onto the web? What does it contribute?

--Interactivity is the obvious advantage, both the publisher with the reader and readers with each other. As the editor of a well-known on-line music magazine says, "it fosters a sense of community and gives the reader a sense that someone is "home".25 Dan Rolleri, Editor and Publisher of Speak agrees saying that the immediacy with the viewers allows the magazine to communicate more regularly with their readers.26

--The lack of time constraints and the immediate nature of electronic publishing is important. Publishers can print breaking news far quicker on-line than in print. In this way, it becomes more like newspaper publishing to the point that most magazine sites have "Today" sections which are updated daily regardless of the schedule of the printed magazine. Music magazines use this to their full advantage by updating chart news, release dates etc while sports magazines can publish live sports scores and results almost immediately after they happen.

Time is also on the web's side in that it enables a publisher to keep archives on-line indefinitely. Whereas a printed magazine has a "shelf-life", and is not available easily after this defined period of time, publishers can store articles for immediate download on-line. This is a huge advantage for users when researching on the web.

--Expandability is another advantage of the web. It¹s possible to publish online articles or features for which there is no room in the printed magazine. Rolleri has high ambitions for his site, of "running longer version of features or even continuing features on the site, including additional information about articles specifically and the magazine in general, as well as additional photographs, illustrations, etc."27

However, the same cannot be said for all digital media. CDRoms are not upgradeable or expandable once distributed or published. The CDRom accompanying this thesis cannot be upgraded. It will stay in this form with the same content indefinitely. In contrast to the constantly updated WWW, CDRom is just "a local storage device, no sense of community", according to Theo Paraskevopoulos of FHM and Q On-Line. For this reason they are perfectly suited to the magazine industry; a way of distributing digital media in the short term.28

--Another advantage of online publishing, but more so for the publisher than the user, is the ability to access demographic information. Vital to the success of any magazine, is information about the reader - who they are, what they read, like and want. This information is priceless. However paper surveys are time consuming, expensive, and difficult to process. That is if the reader bothers to fill them out at all. Lehrman says they can find out much more about their readers by asking them to participate in on-line surveys, which are more effective and easier to process than paper surveys. Speak also saw the benefits of this and enticed their readers in Issue no. 6 to go to their website and fill out the on-line survey. (see figure 17) Asking questions about both content and design of the printed magazine, Rolleri admits he would not do it again on-line. Because of the nature of the site, the printed magazine, the questions and the fact it was on the web meant that "a sizable percentage of the respondents were designers" who were critical of the design and layouts rather than the content. 29

--Finally the actual format of a magazine lends itself particularly well to the web. The linear navigation of a book is a complete contrast to the hypertext system upon which the web is based, but a magazine lies somewhere in between these two. A magazine is laid out in a linear fashion, with a cover, contents page, short items, a feature well, and possibly more short features, but it can be read in any order. Like the web, we can jump from page to page, feature to feature. This type of print navigation is ideally suited for transition to the web.

16. Martin Sorell & Eric Salama, The Future of Interactive Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Nov- Dec 1996

17. Tony Feldman, Introduction to Digital Media, Routledge, New York, 1997, Pg. 13

18. McQuail, op.cit., Pg. 21

19. ibid

20. Deighton, The Future of Interactive Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Nov-Dec, 1994

21. Sorrell & Salama, op.cit.

22. ibid

23. Liz Faber, Browser-the Internet design project, Laurence King Publishers, UK,1997, introduction.

24. Ernst & Young, Nua Internet Surveys (www.nua.ie), 26/3/1997, visited - 19/1/99

25. Andrea Kavanagh, in conversation with Paul Lehrman, 22/11/98, Appendix 1

26. Andrea Kavanagh, In conversation with Dan Rolleri, 2/12/98, Appendix 2

27. ibid

28. Andrea Kavanagh in conversation with Theo Paraskevopoulos, 23/11/98, Appendix 3

29. Appendix 2, op. cit.