Consumer Behavior On

An Overview of Cyberspace and Cybercommunication

On the WWW Netizens—those who spend a considerable amount of time on the Internet –can access an immense database of information in a graphical environment through the use of programs called Web browsers—software programs with a graphical user interface that enables the user to display Web pages as well as navigate the Internet. In 1994, the first commercially available Web browser software that accommodated graphics, Netscape Navigator, was released (later followed by Internet Explorer). People could now navigate in cyberspace by pointing and clicking on icons, making the Internet almost as user-friendly as the original online services (e.g., CompuServe, Prodigy, and America Online, all born during the 1980s). To connect to the Web, one needs to gain access in one of four ways: through a commercial online service (e.g., America Online), a corporate gateway (e.g., AT&T’s WorldNet Service,) a local Internet Service Provider (ISP), or an educational institution.

Initially, people found it difficult to find information on the WWW—it was like trying to find a book in the library without a card catalog. This problem created demand for another software program, the search engine—a computer program on the Internet where users could type in a name, word, or phrase, and the search engine would troll the Net to locate relevant information and Websites addresses. In rapid succession a number of programs with catchy names like Yahoo! (founded in 1994 as a bare-bones directory founded by Stanford University students Jerry Yang and David Filo and now the Web’s most popular site, followed by MSN and AOL), Excite, and InfoSeek emerged as search engines. These rapidly became high-traffic locations, and advertisers began to advertise on them using banner ads—little, rectangular static or animated billboards that are located on at the top of a Web page and that can serve as a gateway to send a consumer to an advertiser’s Web page.

E-commerce—the sale of goods and services on the Internet—had its genesis when in 1995 Jeffrey Bezos envisioned a new business paradigm that involved selling books online at Amazon.com, and Pierre Omidyar launched eBay, an online marketplace.

Today, virtually every business, from the local florist to global corporations, has its own Websites, and many individuals have their own home pages. Since the online services and the search engines are the gateways to all of these sites, they also attract the greatest number of “hits”—landings on the site that might represent multiple requests by the same visitor and so doesn’t represent the number of unique users—and the greatest volume of advertising. For many college students, the WWW is the first source of information from everything from news to term paper research to travel planning. For advertisers, the Internet is a valuable component of an integrated marketing communication (IMC) program and, like other media advertising and promotional tools, is most effective when used in conjunction with the other program elements.

The Internet is a digital interactive medium. It is interesting to note that initially marketing was interactive, with the majority of marketing communication being carried out by salespeople and face-to-face communication in retail stores. Subsequently, marketers and consumers relied more on mass communication, and, for the most part, interactivity left marketing communications. With the Internet, marketing communications increasingly involve interaction between buyer and seller.

Advertising on the Internet is considered interactive advertising since, unlike traditional advertising media, it offers the consumer an opportunity to respond to the ad (as do other interactive media: CD-ROM catalogs and magazines, stand-alone sales and information kiosks, and interactive TV). Interactivity is a big plus since it gets the customer actively involved, leading to better learning and often a sale. While some observers believe these new interactive media will totally transform the nature of advertising as we know it, others say that, like TV and radio before it, it will simply be one more addition to the media mix. Nonetheless, given that consumers can make purchases over the Internet, it also ads new channels of distribution. Most Internet advertising most closely resembles broadcast advertising in that it has sound and motion.