Poor Richard 35
#035/17-Sep-99
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/
36,000 Subscribers in More Than 100 Countries!
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------------------------------------------------------------IN THIS ISSUE
- Beginner's Column: Photos For Your Web Site
- Helping Web Designers Integrate E-commerce Stores
- The Lockergnome Promotion and Information Glut
- More Easy Ways to Create Forms
- Advertising Vs. Publicity
- Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
- Book Reviewers Wanted
- Reading Back Issues
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Beginner's Column: Photos For Your Web Site
I went looking for digital cameras recently, so we could take snaps of products for Web sites created by my e-commerce company, BizBlast.com. I did a little research, but I came away rather confused. There are so many things to consider when buying a digital camera, that I wasn't quite sure where to start. As I probably wouldn't be using the camera too much, I passed the buck and let my business partner, Mike Ceranski, figure out what to pick. Mike wrote a little review of the camera he bought, but before I passed on the project to him I did come up with a couple of tips that you might find useful.
- A great place to compare cameras is Active Buyer's Guide: http://www.activebuyersguide.com/ They have an amazing system in which you enter various choices and in response it tries to find a suitable camera for you. Of course you have to know what choices to make, but there's information to help you figure out your options.
- If you're thinking of doing snaps of products, make sure the camera you buy can do "macro" shots -- that is, that it can take photos of items when it's quite close to them. Not all cameras can do this, and it's a feature I hadn't considered until Mike pointed it out to me.
The following, then, is a quick review of the camera that Mike finally settled on.
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Mike Ceranski
Review of Olympus D-340R Digital Camera
I recently decided to bite the bullet and invest some time and energy in choosing a digital camera that fit my needs. I wanted a camera that was affordable (less than $400) yet offered megapixel resolution above 640x480 pixels, had a macro lens for close ups, offered flash override (for night-time shooting), and was small enough to go anywhere.
I went looking for reviews and found PC Magazine had a great review on megapixel cameras. The June 4th, 1999 article went on to choose the Toshiba PDR-M1as Editor's Choice. It looked like just what I wanted, so off I went a-hunting on the Web for it. Much to my consternation, every time I found it listed in a store it was "discontinued." I have no idea why Toshiba discontinued it, but 4 different web stores all said they did. I know from personal experience just how wonderful a PC Magazine Editors Choice award is for product sales, so I'll bet someone at Toshiba's in trouble!
Fortunately, while seeking the Toshiba, I ran across a short article and feature list for the Olympus D-340R digital camera. This camera had what I wanted: small size, macro lens, flash override and control, megapixel CCD (1280x960 pixels), and best of all, it was affordably priced. I hunted about on the Web and the best in-stock price I found was State Street Direct ( http://www.ssdonline.com/ ) for $306.00 including shipping. (By the way, State Street Direct are giving away 6-month subscriptions to Digital Camera Magazine.) I bought it instead from a brick & mortar store where it was on sale for $323 including taxes since I needed it a hurry.
I've used the camera mostly for product shots, though I've done some scenery, people, and night time shots with it too. I am very happy with this camera. It has a lot of features I didn't know about when I bought it but have since discovered: red-eye flash reduction, color LCD, PC or Mac compatible, manual exposure control +/- 1 fstop) and much more. It also came with some very easy to use software that makes downloading and editing pictures a snap.
If you are looking for a digital camera that can do a wide range of tasks, I have no qualms saying you should consider the Olympus D-340R. It's a friendly little camera that can do a big job for any but the most demanding professional.
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****sponsor****************************************************Helping Web Designers Integrate E-commerce Stores
Okay, long ago I told you that my e-commerce company was releasing some beta "wizard" software that would make it very easy to set up stores online. And we never did. The software is still very close to release, but for a variety of reasons we had to stop work on the wizards for the moment. I hope they'll be running in a few weeks, though.
In the meantime we're about to release our server software for use by designers who want to integrate stores into their Web sites. You can see several of these stores at http://BizBlast.com/ -- in the right column on that page you'll see links to four real-live stores (not demos) showing the server software at work.
All these stores use the same design, but designers can modify the design to work in many different ways -- while the current stores use a 3-frame system, for instance, designers can build a 2-frame or non-frame system if they wish. It's very easy to integrate these stores into a Web site by just dropping special tags into Web pages -- there's no programming required. And designers have total control over the pages; they can design them in any manner they like, so they fit into the rest of the Web site perfectly. (A lot of designers are working with template-store systems with limited design choices, so the store doesn't quite match the Web site.)
If any designers out there are interested in learning more, e-mail me at Designers@BizBlast.com
The Lockergnome Promotion and Information Glut
In the last issue I mentioned how my conversion rate during the Lockergnome promotion was much lower than I'd been used to. (In other words, a smaller percentage of people signing up to win a book also signed up to receive a subscription to this newsletter.)
Several people pointed out that this may be because many Lockergnome subscribers are already Poor Richard's Web Site News subscribers. Well, that must have played a part, I know we have some overlap. But not much. After all, Lockergnome has almost 165,000 subscribers, and at that point I had around 31,000. Even if _all_ my subscribers were Lockergnome subscribers, that would still only be one in five Lockergnome subscriber. And of course there's no reason to think that most of my subscribers are Lockergnome subscribers ... there has to be another explanation.
One reader told me that he'd noticed the same thing happening at the company he works for. They gather e-mail addresses from product registration cards. Many product-registration cards have a little box you can check to tell the company that you don't want to be e-mailed concerning any "opportunities." This company has noticed that over the last two years the "opt-out" rate has more than doubled. While one in five used to check the box to be excluded, now between 40 and 50 percent do so. I think this is further evidence that the information glut is making people less likely to do anything they know will lead to more e-mail in their inboxes! While two years ago people were happy to see e-mail -- it was quite a novelty for many people -- these days they're more discriminating.
What's that mean for people promoting products online? It's getting harder to get people's attention! On the other hand, there are many more people out there on the Internet, so you have to work with a smaller bite of a much bigger pie.
More Easy Ways to Create Forms
In the last issue I mentioned a number of services that make it very easy to create forms for your Web site. Rather than fooling around with CGIs at your own Web site, you run the form on another service's server. I've found a couple more sites you can check out for these kinds of free utilities to plug in to your sites:
TheFreeSite.com, Java and JavaScript Freebies: http://www.thefreesite.com/freejava.htm
i-DEPTH: http://www.i-depth.com/
Advertising Vs. Publicity
I've recently come to the conclusion that the vast majority of companies doing business on the Internet don't understand the Internet. Even most of the big ones, they guys with millions of dollars to spend.
Here's what's become the "traditional" Internet business model. First, figure out what you want to sell. Second, spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising. Third, go and find more money, because you've run out and your income isn't enough to self fund.
Here's an example. Food.com spent, according to Newsweek, $54 million on banner advertising, at the end of which they had very little business ... so they went back for more investment.
What's so crazy is that few of these companies are using the real potential of the Internet. They're getting lazy, using the old-world model -- spend huge bucks on paid advertising. But the Internet provides an incredible way to connect with people at a very low cost.
As an example, my business partner, Mike Ceranski, recently set up a store using our BizBlast.com software ( you can see it at http://www.SoftNeon.com/ ). He's selling flexible neon tubing that you can use to decorate anything from cars and motorbikes to trees and fences. As soon as he had the site up and running he started looking around for ways to promote it. I gave him a list of newsletter-related Web sites to check out, which he did that evening. He e-mailed a few editors of newsletters that seemed appropriate, and was amazed at the response. He got a great response from editors wanting to review or feature his products, in both online and paper publications. It didn't take much time, and didn't take any money.
And remember, reviews and features are more powerful than advertising, because they're third-party endorsements. Everybody knows adverts are biased, of course, so they listen more closely when the person recommending your product _isn't_ related to your business.
I'm in the process of trying to build an Internet promotions department, for the benefit of Top Floor Publishing and BizBlast.com. I'll start small, just one bright, computer-literate kid, then build from there. I'll give this kid the bible for this kind of online promotions, my own Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions ( http://PoorRichard.com/promo/ ), and a little training, and set him loose. There are just so many ways to promote a business online, at such a minimal cost. Make sure you're registered everywhere you can be, make sure newsletter editors know about your products, offer giveaways and review copies to related Web sites, build a list of journalists, Web sites, and newsletters that are interested in your products and keep them up to date with special offers ... This stuff takes time, but very little money.
The big companies should try something like this. Food.com, for instance, could have taken just 0.7% of everything they spent on banner ads and run a ten-person grass-roots marketing studio for a year, a team that could have created a tremendous buzz online.
Some of the big companies do recognize the power of grass-roots marketing. Amazon.com and CDnow, for instance, realize just how important their affiliate programs are. In particular CDnow really works their program hard, holding contests for affiliates, giving them special deals, and so on. In fact CDnow has a team like the one I've just described. When I last visited them, in the summer of 1998, they had about five people working online, getting the word out about their store.
Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
Top Floor Publishing now has five books in print:
Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/email/
Poor Richard's Web Site
http://PoorRichard.com/
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions
http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet
http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution: Turn Your PC into a CD-Quality Jukebox
http://TopFloor.com/mp3/
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%, 1-Year Guarantee. If you feel the book wasn't worth the money, send it back for a refund!
And remember, these books are discounted at the Web site, and you pay just one shipping cost regardless of how many books you buy!
Book Reviewers Wanted
Do you review books for newspapers, magazines, newsletters (electronic or paper), Web sites, or other media spots? If so, perhaps you'd like to review Top Floor Publishing's latest book, "Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing." Or perhaps you'd like to review one of the other books I mentioned above?
Contact my Marketing Director, Missy Derkacz, at reviews@TopFloor.com. Include your full mailing address, the name of newspaper/magazine/whatever in which the review will appear and the probable date of publication, and the editor's contact information.
Reading Back Issues
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter -- and search the archives -- you can find them at the following location: http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
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