A Content Analysis of the Web Pages of Large U.S. Corporations:
What is the Role of Public Relations and Marketing?
by
Suchitra Vattyam
and
Charles A. Lubbers
A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications
Kansas State University
Please Address Correspondence to Dr. Lubbers at:
Charles Lubbers
Journalism and Mass Communications
105 Kedzie Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-1501
785-532-6890
785-532-5484 (Fax)
[log in to unmask]
Paper submitted to the Public Relations Division of the AEJMC for review for the
1999 Conference
A Content Analysis of the Web Pages of Large U.S. Corporations:
What is the Role of Public Relations and Marketing?
Abstract
American businesses have expended a great deal of effort on World Wide Web
activities, often with limited success. A content analysis of homepage features
for 83 of the Fortune 100 companies was performed. The percentages of pages
with each feature is provided and then the features are classified according to
the business function each attempts to fulfill. The results indicate that many
activities found on these homepages are traditionally associated with public
relations.
Evaluating Web Pages, p.
INTRODUCTION
The World Wide Web is a relatively new medium, especially for commercial
applications. While commercial applications are on the rise, online business is
still not significantly high. One study (e-land, 1997) shows that Net merchants
sold an estimated $1.5 billion worth of consumer goods in 1997 compared to $2.3
trillion for the retail industry. This does not mean that the Web should be
written off as a medium that is not conducive for commerce, because as a
commercial medium, the Web offers significant benefits both to the consumers and
to firms. Other research (Forrester, 1997) also concludes that the overall
Internet economy will approach $200 billion in year 2000, up from $15 billion
today.
The inherent interactivity of the medium challenges the notion of it being just
a replacement for the traditional media. New communication models have to be
developed to fully explain the potential of this medium. Research by Hoffman and
Novak (1995), has shown that this medium has the potential to offer great
advantages to both consumers and firms. What is left to be discovered is, how
these benefits can actually be achieved and experienced.
Unfortunately, many firms expect to get dramatic results overnight by putting
up any web site and are often frustrated if they do not experience some
immediate benefits. Since Web-based businesses are still in a nascent stage,
there are no obvious criteria to evaluate a web site's effectiveness. Some sites
offer greater value to customers and firms and are more effective than others.
While considerable academic research has gone into designing the "perfect
advertisement" in traditional media, the same cannot be said about designing a
Web presence. As a first step, Web sites of different firms have to be analyzed
so that some insight can be obtained on how the medium is presently. Firms have
different objectives for maintaining web sites. Some use them mainly to announce
their presence and enhance their corporate image while some others use them
mainly to conduct transactions. The purpose of this paper is to study the
Web-based strategies of large U.S. firms so that an insight is obtained on the
current strategies adopted.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
World Wide Web as a Business Medium
Growth and popularity of the Web
The increasing popularity of the Web as a business vehicle is due to its
current size and future growth prospects (Network Wizards 1997), its attractive
demographics (Gupta 1995, SRI International, 1995), its ability to facilitate
the global sharing of information and resources, and its potential to provide an
efficient channel for public relations, advertising, marketing, and even direct
distribution of certain goods and information services. A study published by the
Georgia Institute of Technology's Graphic, Visualization and Usability Center
(GVU) reveals a distinct shift in media habits. Almost 37% of respondents
claimed that "they use the Web instead of watching TV on a daily basis" (GVU,
1997). In the GVU study researchers examined the adoption rate of the Internet
contrasted to that of three other major media invented this century: radio,
network television and cable TV. It was estimated that the Internet will capture
50 million users in just five years (birth of the "commercial Internet" is
assumed to be in 1993). It took TV 13 years and radio 38 years to reach this
milestone. Much of this growth has been attributed to the introduction of NCSA
Mosaic, a browser in 1993. This growth is an example of a rapid diffusion
process (Rogers, 1983).
Major research organizations, including Nielsen, Commerce Net, GVU and SRI
International, have studied the demographic composition of the Internet. All the
studies have resulted in consistent findings; Internet demographics are a
marketer's dream. For example, the Hermes survey (Gupta, 1995), based on 13, 006
responses, reveals a decidedly upscale profile of Web visitors. The average age
is 35, 91% have at least some college education or better, the median income is
between $50, 000 and $60, 000, with an average household income of $69,000.
Eighty two percent of the web visitors are white, and 82% of them are male. The
March 1997 CommerceNet/ Nielsen survey of the Internet Demographics found that
women now represent over 42% of the online population. The average age of Web
users is 34.9 years.
SRI's psychographic analysis (SRI, 1995) of the Web population gives further
insight into the Web visitor and identifies two broad categories of the Web
audience. The first group is the "upstream" group and represents 50% of the Web
population. This group represents 10% of the U.S. population. It is 77% male,
97% have some kind of college education, and are upscale. SRI terms them as
"Actualizers." They are people with high esteem and active lifestyles. They are
the pioneer internet users. Most of the upstream users are already online, so
growth of the Web depends on the "downstream" segment.
Also, according to the same analysis, (SRI, 1995) the rate of adoption of the
downstream or the "other half" of the Web will determine when and if the Web
achieves critical mass as a commercial medium. Those online in this group
represent the lead users of the other 90% of the U.S. population. This group
consists of 64% males and 36% females. 70% are under 30 and 89% have at least
some college education. This group consists of "Strivers and Experiencers."
Strivers are unsure of themselves and constantly seek approval from others.
Experiencers are enthusiastic and impulsive and seek variety and excitement from
life.
It must be understood that the results from such surveys are not
population-projectable and may not be a true representation of a Web visitor.
But it can be assumed that Web consumers are leading-edge adopters.
Benefits of being online
December and Randall (1994), have summarized the key advantages of using the
Web as a marketing and advertising medium. The Web alters the way of doing
business by blending together publishing, real-time communication broadcast and
narrowcast (tailoring messages to a specific group). The Web offers the
opportunity not only to provide full information to consumers about goods and
services, but it lends itself to providing such information in rich detail and
specificity compared to traditional media.
The very nature of the medium provides important benefits both to the firm and
the
consumer. Surveys (Gupta, 1995 and GVU, 1997) reveal that the most preferred
activity of Web users is gathering purchase-related information. The Web's
interactivity allows for searches initiated and controlled by consumers. Free
trials and free products (for example, shareware offered by software companies)
and online testing provide instant gratification and reduce anxiety in purchase
decisions. The Web provides access to a great amount of dynamic information to
assist in the consumer decision making process. Comparison and speedy shopping
for even hard to find goods is possible because of the presence of huge amounts
of data that are efficiently analyzed (Wallace, 1995, 20).
Hoffman, Novak and Chatterjee (1995) summarize the benefits to the firm: using
the Web as a distribution channel reduces or can even eliminate distribution
costs for products that can be delivered via the Web, greatly reducing overhead.
Time to complete a transaction too can be greatly reduced. The technology of the
medium provides firms opportunities to monitor consumer choices and use the
information to conduct marketing research. The Web can be used to deliver
information about the firm and its offerings.
The interactive nature of the medium allows for developing customer
relationships,
effective customized advertising, promotion and customer service. Profitability
could also accrue from productivity savings due to more efficiency in the
business operations and marketing and selling functions. Online sales and
expansion into new markets can increase revenues for firms participating in
digital commerce. Commercial efforts are more efficient on the Web than in
traditional channels. "Marketing on the Web results in 10 times as many units
sold with 1/10 the advertising budget" (Hoffman, Novak, & Chatterjee, 1995).
Verity and Hof (1994) suggest that direct marketing through the Web costs 25%
less than traditional marketing.
These cost savings of course depend totally on the type of product under
consideration. Research (Forrester, 1997; e-land, 1997) shows that products like
home electronics, software, books, music, flowers, financial services, and
computers have managed to make more money through online transactions than
others. But they have predicted that in the coming years, products whose
purchase decisions are difficult and time consuming have a greater chance of
increasing their Internet related sales.
In a typical purchase of the future the final transaction does not occur
online, but there are significant benefits of being online. A Nielsen Media
Research study (Nielsen, 1997) shows that last year 39% of all Web users
searched for product information online prior to making a purchase, compared to
19% in fall 1995. Close to 75% spend some portion of their time online searching
for information about a specific product or service.
While research firms have different projections for Internet commerce in the
21st century, they have two projections in common: dramatic increases and
enormous potential (Forrester Research, 1997; e-land, 1997; Nielsen, 1997). In
effect, firms stand to lose if they do not integrate the Web effectively into
their marketing strategies.
Classifying and analyzing web sites
Despite the potential for profits, it is clear that not all firms are making
money from the Web, though they could be deriving other benefits including
improved communication or enhanced public image. The opportunities that are
available need to be examined in a greater detail. There is little information
on the types of business models in use and whether some have a potential to be
more effective than others. This section outlines four classification schemes
provided by other researchers.
Hoffman, Novak and Chatterjee (1995) proposed that "strategic insight is needed
into how sites are differentiated, how they may be designed more effectively,
and how to attract customers to sites." To evaluate the commercial development
of the World Wide Web they categorize commercial Web sites into six categories:
1. Online store front: These Web sites offer direct sales through an electronic
channel via an electronic catalog. This approach combines elements of direct
marketing with in-store shopping with greater efficiencies than both.
Customization and relationship marketing are possible. The framework for the
site depends on the role the company plans to play on the Web.
2. Internet presence sites: Flat ads, image and information: They provide a
virtual presence for the firm. These sites provide the firm with the ability to
reach consumers with an information rich communications message.
3. Content- Fee-based, sponsored, and searchable database: The provider
supplies content, which is paid for by the consumer or a sponsoring agent. This
closely parallels traditional media models.
4. Mall: This is typically a collection of online store fronts.
5. Incentive site: The objective here is to pull the user to the site by
providing some unique form of service through the site.
6. Search agents: These sites identify other Web sites through a keyword search
of a database extending through the Web.
Online store fronts, Internet presence sites, and content sites are categorized
as "Destination Sites." Malls, Incentive sites, and search agents, function to
direct consumers to these various Destination Sites. These are designated as
"Web traffic control sites."
Kresser, (1996) recognizes four distinct roles of companies on the World Wide
Web:
1. Establishing an online presence: by providing information, advertising and
promoting online, achieving editorial supremacy in a particular area of interest
to consumers.
2. Delivering content: content that is "value added, entertaining and
customized." Value could be added by enhancing text files with images, video,
and sound making it a multimedia presentation. This also includes attempts made
by a firm to distinguish the content they offer from the rest.
3. Building a community: by taking advantage of the Internet as a medium for
communication. Firms can make use of the Web's interactivity to build
relationships with consumers. Firms can offer their consumers forums for
feedback and support.
4. Selling products or services: Firms can provide mechanisms for selling their
products online.
According to Kresser (1996), "they are not separate opportunities for
business activities, rather they are components of a robust, vertically
integrated strategy." Companies planning a Web-based offering must try to
successfully integrate all these elements in their effort.
Ho, (1997) suggested a framework for evaluating Web sites from a customer's
perspective. The value created on the Web must be identified so that successful
approaches can be identified. Ho's framework suggested classifying the business
purposes of a commercial Web site into three categories: promotion of product
and services; provision of data and information; and processing business
transactions. Value creation to consumers is of four types: timely; custom;
logistic; sensational. Value to the consumer is focused under the assumption
that higher value makes a Web site more attractive. Parts of this framework will
be used to classify web sites in this investigation. It is explained in greater
detail in the methodology section.
Most attempts at evaluating Web sites are limited to subjective personal
preferences. Only a few academic studies have been done (Hoffman, Novak and
Chatterjee, 1995; Ho, 1997; C. Liu, 1997). Hoffman, Novak, Chatterjee, (1995)
suggest that further work is needed to estimate the relative distribution of
firms across different Web business models and types of firms within each
category.
Liu's study (1997) attempted to analyze the content of homepages by looking for
a set of features. The features include: company overview, products and
services, what is new, search, employment opportunities, interactive feedback,
customer assistance, index/directory, financial facts, links to other sites,
online business, guest book, FAQ, and messages from CEO. A similar set of
features was used in this study. The conclusions from his study were that the
objective of Fortune 500 companies in establishing homepages was to "announce
the companies' presence on the Web, to promote the companies' image, to enhance
public relations, to attract users to browse products and services, and to
collect user responses and other related data" (Liu, 1997).
Objectives and research questions
While commercial applications of the Internet are increasing rapidly,
particularly in the form of business sites on the World Wide Web, on-line
business is still relatively insignificant. Firms use their Web presence to
satisfy a wide range of business purposes. Ho's (1997) classification of
purposes include, promotion, provision and transaction. Two other purposes could
include, improving communication and providing a sensational value to potential
consumers. It is suggested that we must first properly identify the value being
created on the Web (Ho, 1997) by analyzing the different features that are
present on a web site. The objective of this study is to analyze the homepages
of large U.S. firms from a business purpose perspective. This study proposes to
provide a profile of commercial use of the World Wide Web by large U.S.firms and
will answer the following research questions:
1. What percentage of sites in the sample under study maintain Web sites
under their corporate name? How has it change since the previous study?
2. What is the main content of homepages?
3. What seems to be the main objective of these firms to maintain a web
site?
4. Is the presence of features for one business purpose correlated with
the presence of features for another business purpose?
METHODOLOGY
Sample chosen
The homepages of the top 100 of Fortune 500 companies were content analyzed.
The top 100 Fortune 500 companies were chosen as the sample to gain a better
understanding of the Web strategies or practices of large U.S. companies.
Previous research (Li, McLeod & Rogers, 1993; McLeod & Rogers, 1982) shows that
Fortune 500 companies usually provide leadership in the use of information
technology.
Locating web sites
The Web site of Fortune magazine (www.fortune.com), was used to locate the Web
sites of the top 100 of the Fortune 500 companies. For those sites that were not
linked to the Fortune magazine site, a search was conducted using a searchable
database of the company name list available on Hoover's Online
(http://www.hoovers.com). A homepage was defined as a "document on a web server
that can be referenced under the corporate name and that is developed and
maintained by the corporation and serves as an entry point for customers to
access specified information using an electronic medium" (Liu, 1997, p. 336).
Framework for evaluation
For the purpose of this study, Ho's classification of business purposes of web
sites was used to classify the Web sites (Ho, 1997). The framework classifies
business purposes of a commercial Web site into three categories:
1. Promotion of product and services
2. Provision of data and information
3. Processing of business transactions
Promotion is specific to the products and services that a business offers to
customers. Provision refers to the supply of information to gain good will,
exposure, credibility. Processing refers to those business transactions that are
beyond generation of sales leads through promotion. For an oil company,
information on its gasolines and fleet fueling services is promotional, whereas
data on exploration and reserves, or financial reports are provisional.
One other objective for maintaining a Web site could be to communicate with
potential customers. According to the communication model proposed by Hoffman
and Novak (1995) the Web can be used to develop relationships with consumers,
and to invite consumers to provide information and content to the medium. The
Web also allows narrowcasting of information tailored to suit specific consumer
interests.
Providing sensational value to surfers can also be classified as a purpose for
maintaining a Web site. The Web site might provide entertainment or some other
incentive to the consumer for visiting the site.
To make this classification easy to understand, some examples of Web site
features in each of the categories are provided.
1. Promotion: Items on sale, special offers, product announcements,
product/service database search, rates and fare quotes.
2. Provision: Stock quotes, employment opportunities, press releases, general
database search, financial reports, research data, survey results.
3. Transaction: On-line auctions, interactive brokering, custom orders,
interactive consulting.
4. Communication: Feedback on site, offer customer service.
5. Sensationalism: Multimedia, sweepstakes.
These features and a few others from Liu's study (1997) were used to arrive at
the final coding scheme for this study.
Data Collection and Analysis
The coding was done between March 20, 1998 and April 1, 1998. Once the web site
was located, the features in the coding scheme were searched for on the homepage
and on all the pages that could be reached through links off the homepage. Thus,
the researchers looked through one level of links. If the feature was present,
it was coded as 'yes' and if it wasn't present it was coded 'no'.
The statistical analysis was done using MINITAB software, version 10.5, for
Macintosh computers. Descriptive statistics and tally tables were used to
calculate percentages of homepages having each of the features. Each of the
features falls under one of the business purpose categories. Also correlation
coefficients were computed between scores for each business purpose category. A
three level classification for evaluating correlations, proposed by Hays (1981,
p. 325) was used in this study. 0 to 3.0 is considered a low correlation, 0.31
to 0.6 is considered a medium correlation whereas 0.61 and above is considered a
high correlation.
RESULTS
A total of 83 Web sites were found through the two search methods. Five firms
had links to their sites, but they were unavailable because they were under
construction. Two firms on the list underwent mergers with two other companies
since the publication of the list and hence did not have Web sites under their
older corporate name. Ten other companies either did not maintain Web sites
under their corporate name or did not have links from the Fortune or Hoover's
Web sites.
Page Features
Table 1 shows the number and percentage distribution of the features. Four
features were observed in almost 90% of the sites: press releases, financial
information, overview of the company and listing of products. Around 60% of the
sites had a general search engine, offered stock quotes, or asked for feedback.
Fifty percent of Web sites were offering customer service through their sites.
Close to 40% of the sites offer transactions in the main area of their business,
or announce new product launches, or offer special sales and limited offers.
Nearly all of the most popular features on these sites are features which are
traditionally linked to public relations.
Table 1
Percentage of sites with coded features
Feature
N sites
% of sites
Table 1 Continued
N % of
Feature sites sites
Press releases
76
91.6
Financial information
76
91.6
Listing of prices
23
27.7
Overview of company
75
90.4
Free products/services
23
27.7
Listing of products
74
89.2
Messages from CEO
22
26.5
Employment notices
72
86.8
Custom product search
19
22.9
General search
55
66.3
Transactions in other areas
19
22.9
Ask for feedback
53
63.9
Multimedia
17
20.5
Stock quotes
52
62.6
Product search
17
20.5
Offer customer service
42
50.6
Update service
15
18.1
New product announce.
35
42.2
Customizing site
12
14.5
Transaction in main business
32
38.6
Index of people
11
13.2
Special sales or offers
31
37.4
Sweepstakes
8
9.6
Direct to other sites
27
32.5
People Search tools
2
2.4
Listing products and services, providing a company overview, financial
information, and news stories about the company account for a large percentage
of the homepage's functions. Though the percentage of firms listing products and
services is very high, product pricing information is provided by only 27% of
the sites. The ability of the medium to support multimedia is being exploited by
only 20% of the sites. Thus, it appears that features are being used more for
public relations purposes rather than for traditional advertising or marketing.
Analysis of web site purposes
In order to examine companies' intentions for having the Web site, the
five-part classification scheme described in the methods section was applied to
the web pages under analysis. Using this classification as a guideline, the
features coded in this study were classified into these five categories.
Promotion. Features that were classified under promotion include:
special sales or limited offers, new product announcements,
product/service database search, customized product searches, listing of
products and services, and listing of prices.
Provision. Features classified under provision include: stock quotes,
employment notices, press releases, general company overview, messages
from CEO, and financial information.
Transaction. Transaction included whether or not the site supported
transactions in main area of business, and whether or not the site
supported business transactions in other areas.
Communication. Features classified under communication include: Ask for
feedback on site, offer customer service, provide update service, provide
option to customize site.
Sensational. The features classified as providing sensational value
include: multimedia, sweepstakes, offer free products or services, direct
surfers to other sites, or in other works, "cool links."
The features coded in this study were classified into these five categories and
the results are presented in Table 2. The mean number of features in each
homepage purpose category is provided at the bottom of the column in the final
row of the table. The five business purpose categories do not all have the same
number of features, so to aid in comparing the mean values each mean value is
converted to a score on a scale of 10. The mean and the standardized (based on
10) mean are presented in the final row of Table 2.
Values in Table 2 indicate that 92% of the sites have at least one feature to
satisfy the promotional business purpose of the Web site. About one-fourth of
the sites have any four features and 40% have any three. Among all the features
for promotion, listing of products is present on almost 90% of the homepages.
Customized product searches are offered by 20% of the sites. Prices of products
are listed by 25% of the sites.
The values in Table 2 indicate that around 80% of the sites have at least 4
features that can be classified under the provision purpose. The average number
of "provision features" in the sites is 4.5 and is 7.5 on a scale of 10. The
provisional features that are most commonly found on the homepages are press
releases, financial information, overview of the company and employment notices.
Values in Table 2 also show that almost 55% of the sites offer some form of
online transaction.
Table 2
Percentage of sites with different levels of features
No.
Promotion
Provision
Transaction
Commun.
Sensational
#sites
%
#sites
%
#sites
%
#sites
%
#sites
%
0
6
7.2
1
1.2
38
45.8
15
18.1
32
38.6
1
21
25.3
2
2.4
39
47.0
27
32.5
33
39.8
2
22
26.5
2
2.4
6
7.2
29
34.9
12
14.5
3
13
15.7
9
10.8
11
13.2
6
7.2
4
12
14.5
17
20.5
1
1.2
5
7
8.4
40
48.2
6
2
2.4
12
14.5
Mean
2.4 (4/10)
4.5 (7.5/10)
0.61 (3.1/10)
1.47 (3.7/10
0.9 (3/10)
Table 2 also contains the number and percentage of sites with different levels
of features for the purpose of communication. The values indicate that almost
half the sites have at least 2 features that serve the purpose of communicating
with the potential customer. A little over 18% of the sites do not have even one
of the communication features. Around 60% of the homepages ask for some form of
feedback and offer customer assistance. Update services, and the option of
customizing the site is provided by around 15% of the homepages.
Finally, Table 2 shows the number and percentage of sites with different levels
of features for sensationalism. Looking at the table it can be observed that 61%
of the sites have at least one feature for the purpose of sensationalism. No one
feature is used much more than the others. Twenty percent of the homepages have
some form of multimedia in them. Thirty percent direct the surfer to other "cool
sites" or provide free products or services. Over nine percent of the homepages
have sweepstake offers.
Correlation of web site purposes
Table 3 shows the results of correlations between the business purposes to see
if any kind of relationship existed between them. From the table it can be
observed that two medium correlations exist between the business purposes. One
is between promotion and transaction and another between promotion and
communication.
Table 3
Correlations between the business purposes
Promotion
Provision
Transaction
Communication
Provision
0.065
Transaction
0.463
0.062
Communication
0.522
0.163
0.281
Sensational
0.197
-0.180
0.085
0.079
In summary, homepages of all firms are not the same. Some features seem to be
more common than some others. News releases, company overview, employment
notices, financial information, and product listing are present in over 90% of
the homepages. Many of the most common features found on these homepages fall
in the traditional domain of the public relations operations of the
organization.
DISCUSSION
Results from the previous section indicate that not all firms use the Web for
the same reasons. But if a generalization is to be made, we can say that most of
the firms in our sample of large U.S. firms use their Web presence to promote
their image, improve public relations, provide company information, and provide
information regarding products and services. The remainder of this section
answers the specific research questions posed earlier.
1. What percentage of sites in the sample under study maintain Web sites under
their corporate name. How has it change since the previous study?
Using the sampling techniques described in the methods section we found that
83% of the top 100 firms maintained web sites under their corporate name.
Previous research (Liu, 1997) shows that 64% of Fortune 500 companies in the
1996 list maintained web sites. This shows an increase in the number of firms
maintaining web sites. More and more large firms seem to be moving toward using
the Web as part of their overall strategy.
2. What is the main content of homepages?
Press releases, financial information, overviews of the company, listings of
products and employment notices were present in almost 90% of the homepages.
While Liu (1997) reported similar results for overview and listing of products,
his study showed that only 50% displayed financial information and only 30% had
employment opportunities listed. Fifty percent of homepages were offering
customer service through their sites. This is close to what Liu (1997) reported.
Close to 40% of the sites offer transactions in the main area of their business,
or announce new product launches, or offer special sales and limited offers.
Around 15% of the firms provide the surfer with the option to customize the
site. The firms also did not provide very detailed contact information, a
general business address and the webmaster's e-mail address were provided. Some
sites cited employee security as the reason for not furnishing contact
information.
3. What seems to be the main objective of these firms to maintain a web site.
How has it changed since the study done by Liu (1997)?
Listing products and services, providing company overview, financial
information, and news stories about the company account for a large percentage
of the homepage's functions. The homepage is also being used as a means to
recruit new employees. Looking at the mean score on a scale of 10 for each
business purpose from Table 2, it can be concluded that provision with a score
of 7.5 is the business purpose that is being met the most through the homepages.
It is even higher than promotion which has a score of 4. Communication, with
3.7, comes next. Sensationalism with a score of 3 is next. Around 50% of the
firms offer some form of online transaction. This is up from 25% reported by Liu
(1997). This shows a shift toward increased online business for large firms. The
scores show that most firms use the Web to provide provisional information, to
gain goodwill, provide stockholders with relevant information. The purposes of
provisional contain features which are traditionally associated with public
relations activities.
4. Is the presence of features for one business purpose correlated with the
presence of features for another business purpose?
The correlations between the presence of features for different business
purposes revealed a medium relationship (0.463) between promotion and
transaction and another between promotion and communication (0.522). A weak
relationship (0.281) exists between transaction and communication. Firms that
have features for transaction may also tend to have features for promotion.
Similarly, firms with features for promotion tend to have features for
communication.
Hoffman and Novak (1995) proposed that the Web allows interactivity both, with
the medium and through the medium, where the consumer can access hypertext with
multimedia content. The Web has been said to have properties of an impersonal
mass medium and face-to-face, personal communication. Most firms in the study
do not seem to be making use of the potential of the medium to carry multimedia.
Just over 20% of the firms have multimedia on their homepages. This low figure
may also be because of other technical issues like band-width, slow connections,
or long download times associated with multimedia on the Web.
The firms seem to provide the consumers with a greater amount of interactivity
with the medium than through the medium. In other words, "machine interaction"
is high compared to "person interaction." Consumers are allowed to interact with
the medium by surfing the Web sites set up by the company. Only to a very
limited extent are the consumers allowed to add content to the sites by way of
their experiences, feedback and suggestions. Not all the sites have mechanisms
for customer comments or questions, they ask the customer to call or send in a
fax with their queries. Most firms are using the Web as a medium for mass
communication to provide information to consumers about goods and services in
great detail which is otherwise not possible through other traditional media. A
few firms on the other hand provide the consumer the option of customizing the
site so that information specific to that customer can be delivered, blending
together real-time communication broadcast and narrowcast.
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