Establish A Web Beachhead

Alan Joch

MARKETING ON THE INTERNET: MULTIMEDIA STRATEGIES FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB by Jill H. Ellsworth and Matthew V. Ellsworth; John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-11850-8, $24.95

In the search to find yet another angle for an Internet book, the Ellsworths key off the current hot topic: commerce on the Net. Unfortunately, the book never addresses the question of how profitable on-line companies are. Instead, the authors quote gee-whiz statistics about how fast the Net is growing and imply that growth equates to profits for companies on the Net. Buying studies have yet to prove that's true, however.

But if you're a true believer in Net commerce, or are afraid that you're letting a business opportunity slip by, this book provides a handy starting point for establishing your compa ny on the Net. At its best, the book offers practical advice on what makes a home page attractive and easy to navigate. At its worst, it's a rehash of Net introductory material that you'll find in dozens of other books.

Most appealing are the step-by-step examples of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) code that show you how to format ASCII text and embed hypertext links for documents you want to publish on the Net. The authors also show how the same HTML text appears when viewed by different Web browsers. The core of Marketing on the Internet: Multimedia Strategies for the World Wide Web offers solid advice for businesspeople itching to establish a Web site. But, like the Net itself, you'll have to sift through some extraneous material to get to the good stuff.