News & Media

I decided to go on a virtual field trip through the corporate sites of the biggest companies in New Zealand. I’m amazed I stayed awake. You’d think by now corporates would have realised their online visitors don’t want to read marketing-speak, testaments to the brand, letters from the chief executive or assorted press releases.

If you’re operating a website or conducting internet-based business, what you don’t know may hurt you. Dangers abound: your contractors could infringe on others’ copyrights and trademarks; others could infringe on yours; you could be held liable for mistakes or omissions on your website; your legal contracts with your online customers could be deemed unenforceable; and your visitors’ behaviour on your site could land you with a libel or slander lawsuit.

Google, with over two billion documents in its search database, is the most popular search engine on the planet. Here’s how to get the most out of it.

Ever wondered how late entrant Google overtook its entrenched competitors to become the most popular search engine on the planet? Or how a small upstart called Hotmail became the leader in web-based email and was then purchased by Microsoft for a cool $US400 million?

Why are the vast majority of websites generic and static, when the web is an interactive medium? A website isn’t just a collection of pages; it’s something you do, not view. It’s time website managers dusted off their log files, databases and other untapped goldmines of demographics, psychographics and clicko-graphics (how your visitors traverse your website), and tailored their sites to each visitor’s needs.

Remember 20th century e-commerce? Perhaps you’d rather forget. The days when people threw money at any e-business idea that sounded vaguely plausible are long gone, but they shouldn’t be forgotten. Some of those famously ill-fated ideas had merit, but the execution let them down.