May 27, 1996
Working on the Web
By Bob O'Donnell
Working on a start-up in an industry that's still defining itself makes for an
interesting job. Not only do you need to constantly assess what it is you're doing and how
you've defined your product, but you also need to look at how the industry around you is
changing and determine how you fit in.
This type of constant re-evaluation is a fact of life in the electronic publishing
business, where there is very little constant but change. Whether it's minor layout
changes or large-scale organizational shifts that affect by whom or how a site's content
is created, Web-based publishing is a constantly moving target.
Part of this is because -- despite what you may hear or read elsewhere -- very few (if
any) people have really figured out how to do on-line publishing as a profitable business.
In fact, last week, the first of what will undoubtedly be several on-line magazines closed
its doors and a few others quietly scaled back their operations. Now, there's no question
that on-line publishing can (and will) become an important, profitable business, but many
are finding that getting to that point is a lot harder and taking a lot longer than they
originally thought. Here at InfoWorld Electric, we expected a fairly long, arduous road
and planned accordingly.
Another offshoot of this constantly changing environment is that lots of people are
expending a lot of energy coming up with some rather "creative" business ideas.
Because there are no existing rules as to what does and doesn't work in cyberspace, all
kinds of schemes are being hatched to eke a few dollars out of the Internet commerce
craze. I'm amazed by how many offers we receive here to partner with other companies or
other sites that essentially want us to give away our content --our crown jewels -- in
exchange for a vague notion of increased traffic to our site. In fact, one company even
wanted us to pay them to place our articles on their site! To be fair, we have negotiated
and are considering some well-thought-out, mutually beneficial relationships with other
Web sites, but there's a surprising number of ill-conceived, short-sighted scams being
purveyed throughout the 'net.
One obvious partnership we've developed at InfoWorld Electric is with our brethren on
the print side of InfoWorld. Although they have been peppering pointers to our
site throughout the news stories, columns, product comparisons, and reviews they generate
every week, we haven't had a chance to tell the Electric story to all of InfoWorld's
310,000 readers -- that is, until now. Starting this week, the semi-regular new Current
Events section will give InfoWorld print readers a taste of what we're offering
here on Electric. Current Events describes the overall purpose of different areas of the
site and gives specific information on the content you'll find in some of those sections.
Even if you're a regular visitor to Electric, I think you'll find it interesting.
If, after reading Current Events, you still have questions, I hope you'll find that our
new FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page answers them for you. We compiled the most
commonly asked questions we receive from our readers, answered them, and linked the
resulting document to our Reader
Services page.
So if you ever wondered how to change your print subscription on-line, or want to know
more about our registration process, you'll find the answers here. We will update our FAQ
as we make changes to the site (this is the Web, after all), so you can refer to it on a
regular basis.
If you have a good business idea, or just want to talk about the site, please send me a
note at bob_o'donnell@infoworld.com.
©
Copyright 1996, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
subsidiary of IDG Communications, Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld,
155 Bovet Road, San Mateo, CA 94402. Further reproduction is prohibited.
