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The Jedi Master Speaks

No. 2

The Net is Completely Voluntary

em Português nell'Italiano

The Net is COMPLETELY voluntary. The emphasis is on the word "completely" because all previous media have also been, to some extent, voluntary. You have to pick up a book or a newspaper and read it to find out what is written in them. You have to turn on the radio or TV and select a channel in order to absorb what is delivered by these outlets. Ditto for movies, videotapes, various sound recording media, fax machines, telephones, etc.. Even conversation...word of mouth...depends upon the mutual goodwill of the individuals involved.

But no medium in all of human history has depended so thoroughly upon the willing free choice of its participants as the Internet. No one hears from you unless you email them or talk to them in a chat room. Even spam, that scourge of the Net, depends, to a certain extent, on the free choice of the recipient. You can block it, respond "remove" to the sender or even change your email address if you feel you are being "harassed" by it. But, even if...as is true with yours truly...you "accept" it all, it only takes a couple of seconds to delete stuff you don't even want to read beyond the subject line. The inconvenience of unwanted intrusion is roughly equivalent to that posed by junk snail mail. You don't even have to open it to decide to discard it.

In a sense, all other major principles of the World Wide Web, each briefly described in the previous article, The Thirteen Commandments of the WWW, derives from this first commandment." For example, the deflationary pressure exerted by the Web is directly attributable to this rule. The chase for "eyeballs," step one in exhorting someone to purchase your wares, requires that more and more stuff...information or goods...be given away or at least discounted, to keep up with the competition. If people don't come to your site, you can not sell...ANYTHING...to them.

Or, consider the need to shorten development cycles. If you are effective, your competitors will quickly VOLUNTARILY visit your site. Having done so, they must also rapidly decide just what it is you are doing that is creating your effectiveness. Then, they must CHOOSE to imitate it, or better yet...find an even more compelling way to do what you have done. The battles between Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and the competition "sneaking up from below" illustrate this effect quite nicely. Nimbleness IS effectiveness on the Web.

If you are old enough, you remember the "bad old days" when TV was loaded with tedious, boring commercials. You were forced to endure them every ten minutes or so, just to be able to watch Ed Sullivan, Howdy Doodie or Lucille Ball do their thing...the reason you CHOSE to turn to that channel in the first place. Competition among advertising agencies did create some excellence...after all, they DID want you to buy the product being hawked...but it was the content of the show itself that drew the viewers.

Then came the remote control and, with it, the sound bleeper. Now, viewers could VOLUNTARILY turn off the sound, go to the bathroom or make a sandwich, and only the sound of the program returning...assuming you, like most people, had viewing partners to watch the store...signal led you that it was time to return.

Now the competition by ad agencies heated up enormously. Recently, TV Guide listed their idea of the 50 best TV commercials ever produced. As you read through it, ask yourself how many of these "ground breaking" ads could compete today with the Budweiser frogs and lizards, or the "Got Milk" side-splitters? Indeed, the AVERAGE commercial today is better than many of these old-timers.

But, I explain too much.

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If you have comments or suggestions for Willy, you can contact him at:
willy@dreamagic.com

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