Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols
A technique used by service providers to give their users fast access to World Wide Web pages could stymie the plans of companies who want to rent out electronic-store space on the Internet.
The problem is due to a technique called caching, in which Internet providers cache Web pages to provide fast access to popular ones. Web caching is already used by Internet systems using the CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) Web server in proxy mode as part of firewall security systems. Caching moved to the front of Web publishers' concerns earlier this year when the Prodigy on-line service, based in White Plains, New York, released its Web browser and its caching Web-server software.
Because of its Web caching, Prodigy's 1-million-plus pote
ntial Web readers see a faster response time when they access a popular Web site. But since Prodigy's readers are accessing the Web cache instead of the actual Web itself, the reliability of the number of times that users access a specific page (known as hits) is reduced.
Prodigy's caching scheme is troubling to some Web publishers who rely on accurate page hits to determine the popularity of their Web pages (and, in some cases, to set Web-space advertising rates). "I rely on hit counts to determine whether or not I am posting data that people want to read," says Bob Wyman, vice president of new technologies for Medio Multimedia (Redmond, WA), publisher of a CD-ROM monthly magazine called Medio Magazine. "My business depends on accurate data about user preferences," he adds.
However, Don Tydeman, publisher of NetGuide Magazine (Manhasset, NY), says the use of Web hits is not useful for determining Web-page pricing models because it assumes that the electronic-publishing model is similar to the p
rint model and that readers behave in comparable ways. "That's simply not the way it is," he says. Tydeman adds that the value of a Web page is in the quality of the relationship that exists between the marketer and the customer and the Web's ability to provide both with such benefits as shorter time to market, cost savings, and expert advice.
Other firms are now exploring alternatives to the Web-hit model. Tom Dubois, director of business strategy for Nielsen Media Research (Dunedin, FL), a major media-tracking company, says his firm is investigating several measurement methods, including hit audits, user surveys, and tracking certain Web users and the Web sites they access.
Ken Appleman, Prodigy program manager for the Internet, says that he's aware of the issues lurking behind Web caching, noting that Prodigy is also in the Web publishing business. "Today, you really can't use the number of hits you get for useful financial purposes," he says. "The World Wide Web Consortium [W3C] is aware of
the problem, and Prodigy will work with the W3C to find a solution for it."
It's too early to predict what model (or models) Web publishers will use. However, Web publishers and marketers agree that a metric for measuring the value of Web services will be found. Business demands it.
INTERNET INDEX
Compiled by Win Treese (treese@openmarket.com)
Estimated number of people who can use interactive services on the
Internet: 13.5 million
Percentage of movie ads with Internet addresses in the Boston Globe
on February 12, 1995: 8
Number per day of Prodigy users registering to use Prodigy's Web
access: 15,000
Price per hour of Web access on Prodigy after the first 5 hours:
$2.95
Caching Could Stall Internet Commerce
