Influence of the web
Here's a question for those of you who work for a company whose main business isn't directly involved with the internet. How much of a deal would it be if your main company site went down?
Say your site had an unexpected spike of traffic or the main web server crashed. Would this be show-stopping news, that is, would your company classify it as an emergency? Or to state things in a simpler fashion, would it be worse for the website to have gone down or your companies telephone network?
First place to turn to
If you were looking for news on a movie, then the net would be a great place to go to and look for information. If you were looking for advice on which digital camera to buy, the web is another great resource.
But say you were thinking of purchasing a car. Would you instinctively turn to the web for information? What about if a television was the item on your shopping list? Where would you go for authoritative advice? A home entertainment magazine or an online reference. More importantly, would you be *positively* influenced by what you read on the web?
Self importance
The fact is, despite how much influence we'd like to claim, for most people, the web is an amusing diversion rather than the primary channel of communication. Sometimes, as bloggers, whilst we acknowledge that the web has ushered in a wind of change into many aspect of our lives, we overlook that in others, there hasn't been more than a gentle breeze.
For large purchases, the sort of stuff in which you should probably research and which, due to a comparative lack of knowledge, marketing influence should provide large relative gains, the web doesn't really have much of a commanding presence.
And despite what we'd like to think, a website for many companies is something which you need to have only because everyone else has one. It's hard to imagine Ford worrying too much about how much business they'd be losing if their site goes down for half a day. It's even harder to imagine their CEO worrying that they're losing sales because of lack of site traffic.
We've come a long way from even just a few years ago but we have a longer way to go before we can actively compare ourselves with television, radio and print media.
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Been meaning to comment about this, because it did get me thinking about this. You’re right to a certain degree. However for manufacturers I think while it might not actually matter in the grand scheme of things, I can assure you that it will make a difference in the short term.
If say Sony didn’t have a website, then you’d probably go somewhere else where you can get excited about other people’s products.
I think that it is incredibly important, and is becoming more so every day. It would be nice to have some sort of statistics for it though.
You mention that you dont think the web is a good place to look for information for large purchases?
Where would you look for information? Car magazines? trade publications? You can find all the same information right there on the web.
I would definately think they’d be worrying. I was recently looking at new and used cars, planning a purchase. I did all the research online. Company websites, carpoint.com, edmunds.com… where else then the internet would I be able to find info like that? Write to the company for a brochure? Go into a dealership and be harrased by the sales people who probably dont know 2cents worth about the car they are trying to sell?
I worked for a company that created software (windows platform, non internet dependant) and I was the web master. If the site was down, I KNEW about it right away.
Now, I’ve been working on the internet since 95… so I have a few years of internet surfing under my belt… But when I hear about my mother in law or so other family member telling me about sites that they find useful and are probably not mainstream, then I know that the internet is useful.