Internet strategies: from Web site to industry, from country to continent

Citation

Schwartz, D. (1999), "Internet strategies: from Web site to industry, from country to continent", Internet Research, Vol. 9 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/intr.1999.17209daa.001

Internet strategies: from Web site to industry, from country to continent

Internet strategies: from Web site to industry, from country to continent

How do you evaluate your Web site strategy, assuming of course that you have a strategy to begin with? It's not a simple question and there is no easy answer. Simeon's paper takes a big step towards a formal method for Web site strategy evaluation in proposing the AIPD methodology, focusing on attracting, informing, positioning, and delivering as the four tenets of Web site evaluation. But Simeon does not stop at proposing an abstract methodology - he effectively applies it in a detailed comparative analysis of American and Japanese banking activity on the Internet.

Brindley's study on Internet gambling activity is one of the first serious academic attempts to understand the synergistic effects of the Internet and gambling industry. Gambling is a service eminently suitable for repositioning for digital delivery. The new social frontier, as discussed by Johnson and Johal in last issue's article "The Internet as a virtual cultural region", is fostering new leisure patterns and new potential drains on our disposable income. Should Las Vegas feel threatened? Probably not until the net-casinos start streaming live performances by Sinatra - but that might not be too far behind.

Our focus is often on how the Internet is used, who is using it, how they are using it - the flow being primarily from the user to the system. Grimaldi and Goette, in their paper "The Internet and the independence of individuals with disabilities", turn things around. Rather than looking at what type of access and services the Internet can provide for disabled persons, their study measures the levels of perceived independence, that disabled persons reach as a result of Internet use. This indirect social effect of Internet usage is often overlooked.

This issue of Internet Research also presents two papers that focus on national and regional initiatives. Hassler presents aspects of the Austrian banking industry's digital signature initiative and Afullo describes the far-reaching telecommunications initiative of Botswana and the whole South African Development Community. While one country struggles with a digital authentication and security strategy that stands to change the face of Austrian business, the other struggles with basic infrastructure issues that stand to change the very nature of life in large regions of Africa.

Strategies are funny things - they let us distance ourselves from the constraints of reality by allowing us to envision what we would really like to happen, if only? Of course the success of a strategy is measured not by how creative and promising it is, but by how much of it actually stands a chance of filtering down to our day-to-day operations, allowing us to reach our lofty goals. Whether your strategic focus is at the corporate, Web site, national, or multinational level, you will find some insights in this issue of Internet Research.

David Schwartz