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How Java, VRML, and Shockwave Should Separate Entertainment from Commerce, But Are Being Used Just For the Sake of Being "Kewl"

Microsoft has begun hiring Apple interface designers; Steve Capps helped build the Macintosh computer, and Walter Smith worked with the Newton (yes, it was a dud first time around, but is gaining respectability as an Internet device.) Why is Bill Gates hiring these people, and why are the jumping ship to what was once a hated enemy? In The Wall Street Journal (June 25, 1996, p. B8), Steve Capps said Bill Gates "told me that computers are going to become more complex, but we've got to make them look simpler." Keep that in mind the next time you wonder if all those expensive complications like Java, VRML, and Shockwave should be at the forefront of your site. Are they tools or are they self-serving? The answer could make or break your site.

Pick up a newspaper right now and pretend there is a spinning globe in the upper left hand corner. It keeps circling and circling, capturing your attention because it is the only thing moving. You try to read articles, but that damn globe keeps interrupting you. Want to read an advertisement? Can't do it, the globe wants your attention; it is moving and making it hard to focus. A spinning globe animation is out of place in this environment.

Picture yourself going to a store to buy a product you need, but instead of inventory and salespeople, you are treated to that same spinning picture of a globe in the middle of the store. There isn't much else to do and you certainly don't want to shop, because you keep staring at the globe spinning until you're mesmerized and forget just what you came there for.

Merge these two strange pictures and you have the current state of the Web. Web sites have become so fascinated with the early tricks that they try to show off to their peers the fact that they can handle Shockwave, Java, or VRML. The problem is, the newcomers online (the majority) aren't their peers and are used to much better special effects in movies and television.

Even worse, they can't figure out why you would want them to stare at a spinning globe created with Shockwave or Java, or try to convince them that some 3D image of a room is virtual reality and cool. They just want to shop, you confuse them with entertainment, and they leave. The spinning globe distracts them from focusing on your Web site because it is all show (and not even a good one.)

A Separation Between Entertainment and Commerce

Many Webheads argue that you have to be cool to appeal to the audience; that's nice if you think the entire audience thinks like you do, have the latest equipment and a great T1 line hooked up to their office so everything runs fast, and possess enough patience and time to stare at spinning globes. Java, VRML, and Shockwave will have a place in this online world, but they have much more to do with television than with business, with watching than with exploring.

The audience for such sites don't come to interact, to click and control the experience, they come to watch. With the merger of telephone, television, and the computer, the fact is many visitors will likely opt for such scenarios. But many does not mean all; time after time surveys find that 30-50% of the people polled come to find information, research, and shop for products and services.

Tricks and special effects are special only when they happen once in a while, when they surprise instead of bore the visitor by happening over and over again. I don't discourage anyone from using these tricks, as long as they understand that this is all about entertainment and a costly approach. Most of these sites will go out of business because they spend so much time on the special effects, they forget to lead the visitor through a process of information and/or sales. Guidance is needed along with entertainment.

Java can be used for much more than entertainment; some of the most fascinating developments of online applications, integration of databases, and delivery of information will utilize Java. But most people use it as another slide show. If you want to make an entertainment-centered site, do it, but don't mix entertainment with a business trying to get people to read their customer service or sales materials.

The spinning globe syndrome is an annoying sign that we are all in the early days. Perhaps a month ago it was cool, but now it's a clichÚ. The question of when and how to mix entertainment and commerce is an interesting one that we will explore in upcoming articles. Be careful not to rely on the predictions of what will be; whenever cable modems or compressed phone lines or digital transmissions become a reality, we can all take advantage. But the likelihood of anything more than 14.4 or 28.8 standard hookups via plain old telephone lines in the next two years is slim. I hope that I'm proven wrong, but technology has always put the campaign of a promising future far ahead of the actual roll out of the product or service.

Next Month:
Direct Response Versus Image: Understanding The Real Power of The Web

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