(c) Copyright 1996, Wrightsoft Corporation All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in any form prohibited without explicit written permission of Wrightsoft Corporation.
By Bill Wright and Rob Koren
By now, we've all seen the Internet on the cover of national news magazines, right up there with the world leaders. Have you noticed those funny " www.whizbang.com" addresses that have begun to appear on print ads in magazines, and on TV for you to email in your ideas?
If you follow the stock market, you must have seen the violent explosion of Internet flavored stocks. Last summer, Netscape, the hydrogen bomb of all initial public offerings, was introduced at 27, and recently blasted up to way beyond 100. Does this 400 percent increase in less than six months mean these guys have invented anti-gravity?
Clearly a lot of publishers and Wall Streeters think that the Internet is going to be some sort of major increase in something important. But What? What exactly, can it do for you right now? And what will it do for you in the next 6 months? And when should you join in?
Can you remember back to the year before you had to have a fax machine? (If you still don't have one, this article is not for you.) In that year, it seemed that you really didn't need one. And then all of a sudden, bam, you had to have one. All at once, it seemed everybody wanted to send you a fax, and the faxes weren't jokes, they were drawings, duct layouts, quotations, all real business items that were critical to get as fast as you could.
Well, 1996 is the year before the Internet becomes as commonplace as the fax. All around us, businesses are jumping in with excitement because they see great potential for business advantage right away. If the current rate of growth for World Wide Web sites (sidebar 1) continues, by the end of 1996, the number of Web sites will be over 200,000. This means that over 200,000 businesses and organizations will have a World Wide Web presence on the Internet by the end of 1996.
The question that has to go through your mind is "Is there any real value here for Contractors now?" You might also ask if you spend money right now, how much will you spend, and what potential returns are there? What can the Internet do for you? We want to answer those questions for you.
First, it smoothly extends the reach of your PC to the entire planet. The Internet can go wherever phone lines or cable TV can reach. In simple terms, this means the Internet can go anywhere on this planet. You can now attach to the Internet via local phone lines in every major and most minor cities in the US, Canada, and Europe. In the rest of the world, Internet access is already available in major cities.
Because the Internet is designed so that it appears to be one great big network, you have the same ease of access to any site on the planet as you have to one next door. (The one next door will respond a little more quickly.) Once you request a connection to an Internet address, that's it. No customs, no postmasters, no tariffs, no operators, no fooling around. It's as if the entire planet is next door.
Another advantage of the Internet is that it's fast. It's fast enough to send a letter from St Louis to Malaysia in under one minute. Since the Internet is really a collection of smaller networks hooked together by computers that use fiendishly clever means of making sure that your message gets to the other end in the shortest time, there are no operators to slow things down. Whenever you want to exchange information, zap - it's done now.
The result of these advantages is that you can now have nearly instant access to Planet Earth with your PC. And Planet Earth can have access to you very easily. Now that everyone can easily contact and communicate with everyone, the question is, what are we going to send to each other that's so great? The answers are electronic mail, Web pages, advertising, sales orders, and data.
Together, the Internet and its features make an entirely new kind of animal. The combination of worldwide presence and instantaneous communication creates a new level of business to business connection that is going to totally change the way we do business, our ability to understand each other and to compete with each other.
The Internet was pretty dull until 1993, when the first World Wide Web (WWW or Web) pages were introduced. Because Web pages are so easy to access and use, the growth of the Web has been stunning. Beginning with only 130 web sites in June of 1993, two years later there were 23,500 Web sites, and the projected number for December of 1995 is 45,000 (reference Mathew Gray of net.Genesis), with a growth rate that doubles every 5 months. This means that by the end of 1996, there will be more than 200,000 Web sites.
Currently (sidebar 2), using a special, easy to get, inexpensive program called a Web browser, you can use your PC to "surf" the Internet, and to see pages at any of the 45,000 Web sites. They are all open to the public, and all you need to do is just point and click. As you can see from the attached Web pages, each page can look like a magazine page, with pictures, drawings, and good looking text.
In other words, most of the material you read, such as catalogs, data sheets, flyers, technical manuals, installation manuals, etc. can be presented on the Web for easy, fast access. And in many cases, this is already happening. Since putting information on the Web is inexpensive, it's also a great way for manufacturers to make their information be available to you, and to be up to date. Currently, computer hardware and software manufacturers are the first to put detailed product on-line via the Web, but manufacturers and distributors in our HVAC market are sure to follow very soon.
The Web goes beyond just displaying material. Imagine that while you are reading a magazine ad, you could push a button and order the item you see advertised. You can do this on the Web, right now at many sites. Which means that the Web takes us beyond advertising to a new kind of advertising that can take your order, interview you, and amuse you as well as just show you.
Which brings us to the first two immediate uses of the Web, advertising and sales. You can advertise right now. It's easy and inexpensive for your company to advertise on the Web. You can have your own home page, your own self promotion, your own presentations, and these can be present on the Web for peanuts. For less than the price of a monthly classified ad, your company can be visible. For a small investment, when a homeowner does a search of HVAC dealers in your region, they'll find you. You will be there. You can display whatever you would put in your brochure. Advertising is easy on the Web.
Your home page is not only advertising, it's also your chance to tell your story. You can include your own picture so that customers can relate to you. You can include your policies and service offerings, with testimonials from satisfied customers .
Selling on the Web comes from the ability to include an interactive on-screen form in your Web site that prospects can use by checking a box that asks you to get in touch with them. Or if you offer to send more information, they can request that you email them. Or better yet, your home page can offer them the ability to place an order on-line with you. For example, say you have decide to have that pre-season special on A/C service. You can post it on your home page, and use either email or an order form for customers to use. As the sample Web page shows, you can promote your special.
Once the customer decides they want you to do the special, they just fill in the form, and then press the Order button. The order then shows up in your email, and you can then schedule it, and email them back for a confirmation. This is not pie in the sky. This is the current technology, and not very fancy at that.
For an example of an HVAC contractor home page, see the Florida Heating and Air Conditioning's page. This new site is set up to advertise 1996 spring specials, and the site is able to take customer orders over the Internet. FHAC president Elliott Sokolow pointed out "We think that the high end residential customer and businessman will be surfing the net, and we want his business. Those are the people we want as sales leads. We're investing a little in the future."
Why bother to advertise? Who's on the Internet, anyway? Are they your target customers? In a recent online survey of 65,000 users of Yahoo, one of the most popular search sites on the Web, the typical user was revealed as an upscale professional. In the back of your mind, you might be thinking that the Web is really just a bunch of students and hackers, but Yahoo's survey showed only 23% students, and 61% are either managerial or technical professionals. The profile that emerges from their survey is a male professional, in the peak buying years (88% between ages 18 and 54), and who is well educated (64% have a bachelor's or higher degree).
If you'd like to be visible when the upscale professional goes searching on the Web for HVAC services, then a Web page is right for you. It's pretty obvious that major league Wall Street money is betting that the advertising and sales aspect of the Web are taking off now.
One of the immediate benefits that you'll receive on the Internet is that you'll be able to send and receive email. or electronic mail, which is like a fax without the paper. Both fax and email messages are sent over the telephone lines from one machine to another. But in the case of the Internet, the machines are computers, instead of fax machines.
Using a computer for mail has all sorts of advantages. You can store your mail messages in the computer and recall it anytime you want to refer to old correspondence and print it out whenever you want to. You can keep an electronic directory of your mail recipients (distributors, banks, manufacturers, customers, etc.), and effortlessly address your electronic envelopes and letters. You can copy a letter, send mail it to an entire list of people, or reply to incoming email with just a flick of your wrist, from the same computer screen you figure your heating and cooling loads on.
Email is nearly instantaneous. If you send one of the authors an email letter, it will be in our inbox within minutes of the time you send it. The old fashioned way, via paper and Post Office, is now called snail mail, and rightly so. Where a round trip message used to take days, now it can literally take only a few minutes for a quick question and answer to go back and forth. With email, you can ask another person on the net a question, and get the answer back in a few minutes. Overnight now seems slow.
FHAC's customer interest messages are sent directly their email in-box. "The web is another way for customers to contact us, and we can immediately respond with information if they need it", Sokolow points out.
Advertising, sales, customer feedback, and email are what you can immediately do with the Internet, and yet, the future will bring even greater benefits. As more and more businesses go online, the use of the Internet for transmission of product data sheets and performance information will become routine. Although the growth of Internet use has been phenomenal, before the year 2000, we will have gotten to a level of general usage that we will regularly obtain banking services, parts ordering, brochures, and company information from the Internet.
A number of industries have already come to critical mass. For example, computer hardware and software manufacturers are already on the Web, and are nearly totally represented. Data sheets, performance, samples of software for most computer related products can be downloaded easily. Many other areas, such as job recruiting, real estate advertising, financial and investing, are now on their second wave of new web pages, and by the end of 1996, businesses in these areas will find Internet presence to be a necessary part of business.
As we see it, the question is not whether you'll become involved in the Internet, the question is when. When new technology comes in, it's never easy to decide when to jump in.. The one thing you know for sure is that if you're not on the Web, you can't get a job through the Web. Since it's pretty inexpensive to be present on the Web, it's likely that the first job you get through the Internet will pay for the entire year's Web site costs.
Right now, there are some fairly simple steps you can take to be sure that your company gets the most from the Internet. First, you will want to get access to the Web, and there are several choices about how to do that (sidebar 2). Second,. you should immediately reserve your domain name (sidebar). This inexpensive step will make certain that when you do want to have your own web page, that your name will be what you want it to be. Second, you should consider getting your own web page up and running soon. You can obtain this service through a Web presence provider, and the charges are very reasonable. You can maintain a presence for a small amount, and you can build you Web site up as you go. It's easier to add on as you go, that it is to wait and do it all at once.
After you've done the first step, you'll be able to send and receive email, and you can use your email account immediately, and you can start surfing the Web to understand better the real value for you. Once you have your own Web page, you'll be able to receive customer inquiries and orders. You'll be on the Web, and part of the new world of Internet computing!
Sidebar 1 - World Wide and Growing
The Internet is a planet -size gaggle of networks, all hooked together using high speed data lines. By agreeing to adopt a universal computer "Sanskrit", and by inventing a planet-wide addressing system, the network gurus have done what men have never before done - developed a common, global means of communication that all men (or at least their computers) can share.
The world is divided into Domains, which are groups of networks which can be known by a single name. Each country is a domain, and within each country are sub-domains, and within these are more sub-domains. Each of these names are strung together, separated by periods, to make one long, single name. Within each country, domain names are registered and possessed by organizations, or even individuals. For example, acca.org is ACCA's domain name. ACCA registered this domain name with their Internet provider, who in turn registered it with Internic, the Internet network information center. (Graphic here?)
The World Wide Web (WWW, or Web) is a special means of sending combined text and pictures over the data lines that connect Internet computers. The screen snapshots in this article are all Web snapshots from a Web browser program. Web browsers are programs which assemble the text and pictures into attractive screens called Web pages. The Web part of the name refers to the ability to link to other Web sites. By just clicking on the underlined link on a Web page, you will suddenly be looking at different Web page - the Web page at another Web site. The world is connected by a spiderweb of links between these Web pages.
Sidebar 2 - What You Need.
To get on the Web and surf (jump from Web page to Web page) you need a computer (PC or Mac), a modem, Internet software, and an account with an Internet Access Provider (IAP). Most IAP's will provide low cost or free software that gives you email, a Web browser, and other Internet services.
An IAP may be an on-line service, such as Compuserve, AmericaOnLine, or (list?), or it may only provide Internet access. The big national on-line services provide access to the Internet, although they may provide some limitations in types of access. Many IAP's which only provide direct access to the Internet have sprung up around the country, both as regional and national scale firms.
You will almost certainly obtain an email account with your Internet Access Account. Your account should cost in the range of $10 per month to $50 per month, depending on your provider, and your usage. If you use your account about 1 hour each day, you should budget about $25 per month.
Sidebar 3 - Your Own Web Page
Surfing is separate from having your own web page. You may get a web page for free from some providers, or you may pay in the range of $20 to $50 per month, assuming that your page is not a heavy traffic generator. If a large number (thousands per month) of surfers hit your page, your traffic will be high enough that you'll see extra charges. This is usually a desirable situation - it means your site is popular, and you're getting attention. Which is the whole point, of course.
You don't have to have your own domain name, but it's obviously better to be www.yourname.com than it is to be www.providername.com/~yourname. It's more distinctive, and you look like you're big enough to afford your own place in the sun, not just in the shade of some big brother. So for a one time fee of $25 to $50 for the registration most IAP's or IPP's will apply to Internic and get your name reserved for you. You don't have to actually be on the net, although you should have an account somewhere. If the name you have applied for is not already taken, then Internic will bill you for $100 every two years for the privilege of using the name.
You can set up your page any place on the Web. You can have an on-line account, which is inexpensive and easy to use, and then place your Web page with a specialized new breed ca;;ed Internet Presence Providers. IPP's are organizations that have a permanent Internet connection, and the computer hardware and software servers needed to be a Web host. These IPP's will host your Web page for you for a monthly fee, and most will also set it up for a one time fee, which can range from as low as $50 (very plain but readable) through $250 (several pages, with graphics and multiple links), and on into the thousands (multimedia, beautiful graphics, etc., etc.). If you are computer literate, you can follow directions to set up your own page, and improve it as you go.
Bill Wright (bwright@wrightsoft.com) is the technical computer consultant to Air Conditioning Contractors of America, and the president of Wrightsoft Corporation, the developers of RIGHT-J. Wrightsoft (www.wrightsoft.com) provides the hardware and software to host ACCA's Web page.
Rob Koren (rkoren@acca.org) is the Information Systems Manager at ACCA, and the author of ACCA's Web Site (www.acca.org).