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By
Nona Parsons
ZyQuest
I don't
know about you, but I have had my fill of dot-com and e-business
commercials. It seems every other commercial these days
is for some kind of dot com company. The worst part for
me is that after watching the commercial I can't figure
out what the company does or even remember their name. It's
not hard to imagine why so many of the dot coms are struggling
to show a profit.
I polled
a bunch of people in my office yesterday, asking them to
name their favorite and least favorite .com commercial.
Most people drew a blank. When prompted, most could describe
a commercial, but were not able to name the company being
advertised. This is pretty bad for the advertisers because
I work with a bunch of technology people. If the commercials
miss this group of consumers - people who are up on the
lingo and interested in technology how much effect can the
commercials be having on the great masses of humanity that
are TV's target audience?
Perhaps
one reason they could be missing the masses is the language.
Everything is an e something. What is m-commerce anyway?
And why should we care?
We need
to care because the web appears to be the way of the future.
According to the statistics wizards at the Gartner Group
(www.gartnergroup.com),
revenues for business-to-business e-commerce will reach
$7.3 trillion dollars in 2004. We need to educate ourselves
so we can get a small chunk of those revenues. The first
step in understanding anytechnology is understanding the
language.
For
those of you not steeped in the jargon of the net, I will
explain what some of the terms mean.
B2B
or business-to-business: Doing business over the web between
a company selling a product or service and the one purchasing
it (www.belmark.com
is a good example. We talked about them last month in Dot
Com). The distinction here is that B2B can be more than
just selling a product; it might involve checking inventory
levels before placing an order or tracking shipments.
clicks
and mortar company: A company that does business on the
web, but also has an established business in the "real"
world. (www.barnesandnoble.com
is a viable business both on and off the web.)dot com company:
A company that first of all has the term dot com in
their business name (which is also their web address like
www.yahoo.com ). These
companies exist only on the web. All of their business is
done over the Internet and they wouldn't exist without it.e-business:
A general term for doing business over the web. It could
be with your customers, with your suppliers, or with your
own employees through an Intranet.
e-commerce,
B2C, or electronic commerce: Conducting a sales transaction
with the public over the Internet (www.amazon.com
will be glad to sell anybody a book on virtually any topic).
e-marketplace: Bringing together corporate buyers and sellers
over the web, like eBay, only for business. www.ariba.com
does this, linking buyers and sellers of office equipment
and supplies. These companies can also be called infomediaries,
and take a matchmaker's
or finder's fee.
e-tailers:
Internet retailers or companies that conduct sales transactions
over the Internet. These can range from mom-and-pop outfits
to some of the largest companies in the world.
extranet:
A site that people external to your company have access
to, but only by permission, and they have to go through
a security screening.
intranet:
A site that only employees of the sponsoring company have
access to.
m-commerce or mobile commerce: Conducting an Internet business
transaction via mobile phone or hand-held device such as
a Palm Pilot. This is one that is getting a lot of promotion
in California.
Remember
that marketing people are inventing new terms every day,
so there is no way I can cover them all here. Perhaps I
should write an e-dictionary, become an e-tailer and sell
it to all of my e-friends.
To reach
the author, email [email protected]
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