The Void in Cyberspace

Disappointed. Frustrated. Infuriated. That’s how I feel about the Internet these days.

Ironically, as its scope expands, I use the Internet less. There’s a small group of Web sites I visit regularly, but to go any further than these proven few just invites irritation or worse.

And I’m not alone. Many of my friends and colleagues use the ‘Net the same way. We don’t have much time, and resent wasting it on Web sites that don’t pass muster.

We’re in danger of a huge failure here, namely of turning off new ‘Net converts before they’re truly plugged-in members of the cyberspace community.

It’s not the ‘Net itself that frustrates me, because I continue to be enthusiastic about the things it can do for all of us. It’s a terrific medium for the delivery of training, for example. And e-mail? Love it.

The problem is the people who pretend to be making use of the Internet, who trumpet the existence of their Web site with serious fervour, but who really don’t even try to make it work.

There are countless-and I do mean countless-urgings that we should go to www.abcwidget.com to learn more about what such-and-such a company is doing. And what happens when I make the trip? Usually it’s a sales pitch at best. Frequently, it’s a listing of the widgets that ABC makes and a phone number down at the bottom of the screen, and maybe a little button that’ll take me to the marketing department via e-mail. And if I use that button to ask for more info? Nothing happens.

They’re too busy to answer their e-mails, I suppose, so I revert to the phone if I really need information. It seems that’s what they had in mind all along.

If that’s how you’re going to announce your presence to the world on the Internet, it’s not good enough. Maybe it’s better than nothing, but if you don’t even live up to the tiny promise you implicitly make by inviting e-mail, then you’re doing yourself more damage than anything else.

I run into this all the time in my work, because theoretically I can do a lot of research on stories I’m writing without ever leaving my keyboard. I can, but for every Web site that helps me out in some way, there are five that don’t even come close.

Some sites have obviously had the benefit of thousands-hundreds of thousands-of investment dollars, but they remain shallow, devoid of useful information. Call them glorified sales pitches. I guess they keep the CEO and the board of directors happy, but what do they mean to me or you? Not much.

So what is it that we want? What could we in end-user land actually take from a well-conceived and well-executed Web site?

I’m no visionary, so I’m not going to go off on a leaping tangent of imagination here about what the Internet could be, or about e-commerce and all that wonderful stuff. In any case, most of us have pretty simple needs.

I think many of you are not unlike me in just wanting information that saves us research time. You’re spec’ing a truck or looking for some specialized training or maybe trying to find the latest on length laws in Oregon. You could call that state’s compliance department, but that means getting passed from one person to another before you get the goods. Could take hours. It would be much simpler to find it on the Web with a quick search.

As it happens, that example is an easy one, and it can be done exactly that way. Great. But let’s go truck spec’ing. Say you want to find out all you can about seats, or air dryers, maybe tires as well. It doesn’t really matter which component we’re talking about, because the truth is that some sites will help you a little and some not at all.

Here and there you’ll find one that understands. That company knows that small fleets and owner-operators in particular, like this journalist, need to know more than the raw fact that a tire, for example, has a certain tread depth.

We want to know what that means, what difference it makes, but not in salesmanspeak. We want it straight. We want help.

If all we get is a naked advertisement we’ll just move on like we do with the remote control in front of the TV when the commercials start. We’re outta there. But in this case, we’ll never come back.