Transcript Infoseek Ultra

Everything you ever wanted to
know about the Internet…
…but were afraid to ask
Steve Kirsch
Chairman
Infoseek
How would like to learn
everything you need to know to
succeed on the Internet in less
than 45 minutes?
Agenda
How to search the Internet
 Internet statistics
 How to create a site
 How to get traffic
 How to avoid losing money
 Other traps along the way
 Java

How to search

Type words likely to be found only in the
document you seek
steve kirsch infoseek

Identify phrases, capitalization
“Steve Kirsch” Infoseek

Optionally: Identify required terms
+“Steve Kirsch” Infoseek

Optionally: Identify rejected terms
+“Steve Kirsch” Infoseek -python
Another example

You are looking for the Obon Festival in
Palo Alto
+“Obon Festival”
+“Palo Alto”
How to find Barney pages
suitable for your kids
+Barney
+dinosaur
-bash -kill -maim
-destroy -hate
Internet statistics
A few that you’ve never seen before
From my brother-in-law golf pro
26 year old man is always on the golf
course
 “What do you do for a living?”
 “I sell porn on the Internet. I net about $600
a day.”

User statistics from IntelliQuest
>50M people, 16 or older use Internet
 Up 46% from last yr
 17% (8.6M adults) claim to be online
purchasers, with monthly median spending
of $50 (up 300% from a year ago)
 Users satisfaction is low; mostly due to
speed
 Increasing online time by watching less TV

Internet site growth
What this means
100000000
10000000
1000000
100000
10000
# sites 1000
100
10
1
Growth cannot
continue at this
pace
 There simply
aren’t enough
people to design
all the
sites/pages!

1994
1997
2000
Log/Log law
Page views
Site popularity
# page
views
(Log)
# views
(Log)
# of pages
(Log)
# of sites
(Log)
What this means…
Most design focus should be spent on the
few pages that generate the most traffic
 By year 2000, less than 2,000 sites will
have enough traffic be able to generate
more than $1M/year in advertising revenue!

List of all Internet companies
making profits on the Internet
Netscape
 Yahoo (barely)
 Porn sites

What this means...

It is harder than it looks
Rule #1: Use the Internet to
enhance an existing business

#1 BEST WAY to use the Internet
effectively is to:
 create
a web site
 advertise the Web address as part of your
traditional marketing activities

Use the Internet to help:
 provide
customers with information
 facilitate the ordering of your products
Rule #2: Don’t violate rule #1
If you violate rule #1, you are on your own
 Virtually all companies which violate rule
#1 will lose money

Getting started
Rule #3: Ask your friends what
works
Be wary of claims by manufacturers,
magazine articles, and “best of show”
awards
 The best reference are your peers who
actually use the products
 The free Web Server in Microsoft Windows
NT is adequate for most sites

Creating a web site
Microsoft Front Page is my favorite tool
 NetObjects Fusion is also good, especially
for highly structured sites, but harder to use

Rule #4: There are inexpensive
and easy ways to get started
Microsoft FrontPage and Fusion: $149
 Graphic design: < $500/template
 Best way is to host at an ISP:

 Setup:
$150
 On-going: $100/month or less

On-going maintenance costs can be very
low if content does not change frequently
Traffic analysis

WebTrends is an excellent tool for traffic
analysis
 Low
cost: $299
 Easy to customize reports
Be sure to download the Plug-in for
extended logging (Netscape and Microsoft
servers)
 www.webtrends.com

Search software

The best is from Infoseek:
software.infoseek.com

Used by Sun Microsystems worldwide for their
Intranet and Internet



> 2,000 web servers
> 1M documents
Runs on NT and Solaris
Commerce software… beware!
“Commerce” is not well defined
 From a buyer standpoint, ordering products
over the net still leaves lots of room for
improvement:

 speed
 reliability
 ease
of use
Commerce

We are currently using ICOMS
www.icoms.com
In 1 day you are up and running
 Software works for Microsoft Web Server
(IIS) and Microsoft Front Page

Commerce costs (for ICOMS)
One-time set-up fee of $2,500, plus ...
 Transaction fee is 2% of the value of the
goods or services sold, with a minimum of
$0.25 per transaction and a maximum of $4
per transaction
 The monthly minimum for transaction fees
is $450
 One-year contract; billed quarterly

Low end: Viaweb Live Store 3.0
If you are just selling items and already do
phone orders manually
 #1 rated by ZD Internet magazine
 $100/mo for 20 items; $300/mo for 1000
 Create your store in 10 minutes or less
www.viaweb.com
 It automates web site creation and sends
you each user order form by email

Adding video to your site

Broadway from Data Translation.
 Creates
MPEG files from your camcorder
 18 seconds, small image, takes 1Mb
 Under $1,000
www.b-way.com
 Hitachi MPEG video camera
 20
minutes of MPEG video on
a PCMCIA 240Mb hard disk
Web site organization
Top pages requested
Home 62%
 Download Request Form7%
 Product Line 4%
 Ultraseek Server Home 3%
 Site map 3%
 Search 2%
 What’s New 2%
 Download Form (2nd page) 1.2%

Tips in creating your web site

Figure out the path you want users to take
 Example:

Download the sample software
If they aren’t taking it, figure out why
 Example: Asking

for or giving too much data
Figure out how to get their e-mail
 Example:
We e-mail installation key and also
require e-mail to get to the download page

Make it easy to navigate and draw people
into the path you want them to take
How to get traffic
Rule #5: People will not beat a
path to your door
The Internet is not a “Field of Dreams”
 A lot of people think:

“If you build it, they will
come”
This is NOT true
 I know. I’ve been there...

Why people can’t find you
Infinite number of web pages
 150M static pages
 Chances of being found on the net are a lot
less than being found in the phone book
because:

 there
are a million times more web pages
 these pages are not organized
The 4 best ways to get traffic
Submit your site to search engines and
directories (www.submit-it.com)
 Purchase banner ads on search engines and
directories (this is equivalent to advertising
in the telephone yellow pages)
 Include your site’s URL in your advertising
in traditional media
 Purchase ads on other Web sites

How do I get to the top of the
search result listings?
Pray
WWW advertising economics
Your cost: 2 cents per impression ($20
CPM)
 What you care about is how many people
click on your ad:

 Click
through=# clicks / # impressions
Average click through: 4%
 Max click through (untargeted): 25%
 Keyword click through rate: 69% or less

Ad “click through” rates
28% Champ v. Chip
 16% Kitchen fantasies
 14% Need tickets to a sold out event?
 14% Click here if you love beer
 14% Shop naked
 11% Who is this?

How to get high click through
This isn’t print! The goal of a WWW ad is
usually to get the user to click on it, not
necessarily to communicate a message!
 Some ideas:

 sex
 offer
a free vacation
 create a WWW site that is entertaining
 create a mysterious ad
 dangle a provocative question
?
Top 15 queries on the WWW







sex
Playboy
Penthouse
chat
Hustler
nude
porn








erotica
games
pornography
porno
adult
ESPN
pussy
Pamela Anderson
If your ad does not work...
Experiment! Change the message, the
keywords, the products
 Not all products can be economically
promoted over the net

Can you sell music over the net?
13-18 yr old
 Want it immediately
 Don’t have a credit card
 Don’t want to pay shipping
 Don’t have a net connection
 Won’t pay a premium
 Won’t buy a lot
 Live near a record store

No!
How to avoid losing money
The best way to make $1M using
the Internet
Start with $6M
To avoid losing money...
Provide useful information
 Keep it simple
 Examine your log files
 Make it easy for users to give you feedback
 Do NOT try to be the next Yahoo, Infoseek,
…
 A good web site can be developed and
maintained by just one person

Traps
Once you have a web site...
Test it from another site on a regular basis
 Common errors

 Broken
links
 SLOW download times
web server bug or reverse name lookup enabled
 page design
 Internet bandwidth purchased


Allow for user feedback
What you should know about
Java
Beyond the hype...
Java is…
Just another programming language
 Portable
 Over hyped
 On the edge of being ready for prime time

Summary

IF YOU ARE CAREFUL,…
it is both inexpensive and cost effective to
create a presence on the Internet
For a copy of this presentation
http://software.infoseek.com/stk/stk.html