NetWorld! What People Are Really Doing on the Internet and What It Means to You — John Shaqi
NetWorld! What People Are Really Doing on the Internet and What It Means to YouRothman, David H.
General
NetWorld! What People Are Really Doing on the Internet and What It Means to You
Rothman, David H.
Internet
Branch Mall at the very least had set Grant up in style. The opening
screen was attractive and helpful to buyers, with such basics as:
“Different areas of the country sometimes have different prices or may
be unable to supply certain flowers. For example, New York City has high
rents and costs of doing business, so flowers are more expensive
there....” And then below I saw a list of the offerings—for example,
“One dozen boxed long stem roses. A fragrant classic. $49.95 to $99.95.”
In the virtual version of the White Rabbit toy store you couldn’t rattle
the toys, and in Branch Mall you couldn’t smell the roses, but like the
Lilienfelds, Branch Mall had been generous with pictures of the
merchandise. I loved some little touches. Branch had given Grant a
reminder service into which you could key your spouse’s birthday or some
other date, before which an e-mail note would be sent to jog you to do
your duty.
The selection was varied. You could order everything from the roses to
“a get well soup cup containing button mums, daisies, mini carnations,
standard carnations, monte casino, statice, and a package of chicken
soup. $26.” All in all, I felt that this area was even better laid out
than White Rabbit Toys, where the opening page, though far, far above
average, didn’t communicate quite as much information as I’d have liked.
As with White Rabbit, you could order online by filling out an
electronic form.
Missing from the virtual version of Grant’s flower shop, however, were
the customized links that helped give the White Rabbit Toys its
personality and made it a true part of the Net. If Larry Grant had been
as at home in cyberspace as Rob Lilienfeld was, he could have added
links to love-oriented discussion areas or to poetry—perhaps even the
Shakespearean variety.
But instead this Web page was serving just as an electronic billboard
with an ordering mechanism. I didn’t even see a photograph of the store.
When the _New York Times_ published a photo of a Mosaic screen, it had
superimposed a picture of Grant amid his flowers and dressed in an apron
with an FTD insignia. Couldn’t a similar photo have adorned his Web
area?
For that matter, the store didn’t even offer an electronic mail address,
just a phone number for customers with questions. This isn’t to
criticize Larry Grant. He was not an honorary techie as Bob Lilienfeld
was. Like Lilienfeld, however, Grant was an intelligent, diligent
Midwest businessman who saw the Net as an opportunity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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