Business Sites
1st Steps Cool Marketing Resources and Tools
A diamond in the rough, Internet Business Network has scanned the Web for info on Web-marketing and selling, and critiqued sites for marketing savvy. It comes up short on information design, though: the newsbits, tips, and links are buried in tiny type by date - fairly meaningless for categorization. If you're interested in developing a business Web site, or marketing your stuff online, you'll find a few good ideas and links embedded here. IBN means well - you can track your UPS and FedEx packages - but as it works now, is not a mandatory bookmark.
Content: 5
Aesthetic: 2
TechnoSmart: 1
Author: Karen Wickre
HP Financial Services
Hewlett-Packard is a huge company with many markets, many customers and many clients. The Financial Services page is but one portion of its corporate Web site, and here you'll find an overview of products and "solutions" that H.P. offers to high-end financial, insurance and retail banking clients. These clean, professional-looking (though rather sterile) pages describe H.P.'s expertise and offerings in each area. If you're looking for descriptions and prices of actual products, most of the lingua franca is brochure-speak, although the Technical Library does contain useful product briefs, data sheets and white papers.
Content: 5
Aesthetic: 2
TechnoSmart: 2
Author: Karen Wickre
Inter-Mark
Inter-Mark presents pages of text on its company products: Internet access, Web page creation and maintenance, and online advertising and marketing services. A single internal link shoots you to a customer list, while other links send you to pages the company has built or manages. Richer information would be necessary to encourage customers to actually turn to Inter-Mark for business: What are the tools? How do they work? What specifically has the company done for each client? Without this kind of information, there's little reason to visit Inter-Mark.
Content: 4
Aesthetic: 1
TechnoSmart: 2
Author: Karen Wickre
MarketPlace
If you like business analysis or aren't shy about sending contact info to marketeers, MarketPlace might be for you. It's a front page for a Dun and Bradstreet CD-ROM offering market research by industry, a national directory of service businesses, and other business research tools. You must register (for free) to access the database. Pull up "eating places/restaurants," for example, to get the estimated number in the U.S., annual sales, number employed, and company size, location, and specialty data. The information isn't dated or referenced, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt. current.
Content: 5
Aesthetic: 2
TechnoSmart: 2
Author: Karen Wickre
Netresource.com Home
Remember the joke about consultants? They borrow your watch to tell you what time it is. Netresource is kind of like that - a Web marketing consultant whose site is virtually all links to pages it's created for clients. The only value here is a serviceable article about the pros and cons of marketing on the Internet. You can have a memorable catch-22 experience at the search button, which instructs you to "enter a search pattern," which in turn leads you to the command, "enter a search string." Never did find out what I should search for.
Content: 4
Aesthetic: 2
TechnoSmart: 1
Author: Karen Wickre
Results Unlimited Helps You Do More Business With Less Effort
What were the creators thinking? There's less text here than on a bus ad - and zero value. Apparently, these folks want to sell you marketing consulting and training services, and, of course, videos. The links go to a paragraph or two of teaser copy: "If you'd like to do more business with less effort, you can either sell more or reduce your cost of doing business." And hey - Results Unlimited can work with you on both. Just send e-mail. What's really unlimited here is lameness.
Content: 4
Aesthetic: 1
TechnoSmart: 1
Author: Karen Wickre
The Stock Solution
Surely the Web was made for sites like The Stock Solution, which licenses stock photography for one-time use. It's easy to preview images, search a database of some 200,000 photos, and locate a comprehendible price and order scheme. Because TSS provides digital images, you can request a custom search, which you'll receive via e-mail; much more efficient and cheaper than the research fee most stock houses charge. You can search files alphabetically, or scan sample images from broad categories: nature, people, wildlife, etc.. A special bonus: The page is well-written, and well-executed. Good job, TSS!
Content: 6
Aesthetic: 3
TechnoSmart: 2
Author: Karen Wickre
Welcome to Access Business Online
It's image map city at Access Business Online, which epitomizes entrepreneurialism on the Web at its most overblown. The site promotes business self-help books and videos, canned how-to-ask-for-more-money articles, and a few links outside to daily news sources. There's an ever-present, very busy-looking grid to "guide" you through clips and product pitches. For all the elaborate front-end, it's not a smart guide. Too bad Access Business Online doesn't follow its own quote-to-live-by: "Do one thing. Do it well. Do it better than anyone else. Do it for less."
Content: 4
Aesthetic: 2
TechnoSmart: 2
Author: Karen Wickre
Welcome to FINDEX St Clair Financial Index
FINDEX is a search index of worldwide financial institutions. You can search by category (r.e., banks, trust companies and stock exchanges, etc.), or by geographical location. You can also enter a keyword, and see what comes up. FINDEX is in fact a helpful front door filter for all the individual pages put up by companies already on the Web. Of course, the drawback of a front door is that the quality of company information you receive varies widely. Even so, if you want to research a U.S. financial market, compare services between Canadian banks, or locate an Australian insurer, this is a handy starting place.
Content: 5
Aesthetic: 2
TechnoSmart: 2
Author: Karen Wickre
Words of Mouth
An excellent idea gone awry. Words of Mouth is a Canadian speakers' bureau that fronts the Web sites of a number of business consultants and motivators. The homepage encourages editors seeking pithy quotes and articles to scan links below. Topics include teamwork, change, and risk-taking. So far so good, right? But when you choose a link (actually, the name of speaker), all you get is a marketing brochure and contact information. You *don't* get any words of wisdom that would indicate the value of these sages! Come on, Words of Mouth. If you're touting wise thoughts and stirring ideas, do share.
Content: 4
Aesthetic: 2
TechnoSmart: 1
Author: Karen Wickre