While the west coast of the US is known for developing Internet-related technology, the east coast is making its name designing the content that appears on Web pages.
The belief is that consumers will be drawn to use the Internet more if Web sites are easy on the eye and easy to use. Common sense, you might think, but according to panellists at a recent New York New Media Association meeting, some major US corporations don't make life easy for their online visitors.
Two sites in particular were singled out as being too difficult to use CocaCola (www.CocaCola.com) and Pepsi (www.PepsiWorld.com).
When talking about the Internet, there's definitely a correlation between simplicity and ease of use, said Mr Eric Goldberg, president of Crossover Technologies, who was moderator for the night. Consumers are fractious, they don't like to be mentally active, they're fickle and care more about the experience rather than the technology, he said. While technology has changed, people have not. They still want immediate gratification, a brand they can identify with and ease of use. Therefore, he explained, Web designers need to give consumers what they want and what they can use.
Mr Ted Leonsis, president of AOL Studios, an America Online Company, said that social adoption of the Internet was happening faster than any media that had come before because consumers have dollars and time. A year ago, a consumer spent less than 17 minutes per day online with AOL. Now the average consumer spends one hour a day on the Internet via AOL. Multiply this by the 12 million households with AOL accounts and this gives an indication of the size of the market for advertisers.
Most of these Internet connections, said Mr Leonsis, are happening in prime time (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) which means consumers are taking time away from television.
"Consumers are smart and expect that we'll give them a faster, cheaper, better service," he said. This means that companies, like AOL, can garner more in advertising revenues by selling banners on their Web sites. AOL, in fact, is said to have the potential to take in $1 billion (£704 million) in ad revenue, up from $8 million three years ago, a fact not lost on Wall Street where AOL stock is doing well.
"Being online is becoming more of a life style," said Ms Patricia Vance, senior vice-president and general manager of ABC.com. "It's truly a revolution. It's a mass market and becoming a mass medium for advertisers," she said. Some 40 per cent of US households have a PC; 40 million are online; and 80 per cent of ABC television's viewers have Internet access, she said.
Ms Vance also stressed the importance of content. When ABC put up a site for the Oscar film nominations, it generated more than 850,000 visitors a day. "Sites reflect demographically what the mass-market product represents," she said. "It needs to be easy to use, a graphically pleasing experience and appeal to the casual user."
The single most visited entertainment site on the Web is Sony.com. Mr Mark Benerofe, senior vice-president at Sony Online Entertainment, said a decade ago performance was the number one key to success and it still is. Sony.com is an off-shoot of a company with a global reputation in the music industry. Yet design of the site goes through two design centres in order to come up with clickable, refreshable, extendable, intelligent, navigational tools, said Mr Benerofe. The onus is on designers to get the Internet as functional and as easy to use as the telephone. One agency whose mission is to make the Internet simpler to use is Creative Good. Mr Mark Hurst, president, said many sites should not equate a recognisable brand name to traffic. A company could spend $20 million developing a site to promote its brand name. But if it doesn't offer what customers want, they will leave with a bad branding experience.
"Most consumers are online less than a year. They bought their PCs when the prices dropped. They have slow modems and small monitors. Is it any wonder that they respond to ease of use?" Mr Hurst asked.
