The Internet changes everything
Most of the World is online
What you'll need to hook up
What you can do on the NET
Email
Hearth Industry Mailing List
World-Wide Web
Small Business on the Web
HearthNet
How much to put a business on the web ?
FTP or File Transfer Protocol
Newsgroups
Pornography
Search Engines
Potential Pitfalls and Roadblocks
Hello, my name is Craig Issod. I'm the owner and operator of two companies,
Stoveworks, which is a retail Stove and Fireplace company with two locations,
and CHI associates, which is a Computer and Business consulting service.
The gentleman standing here with me is Charlie Page, who is the owner of
JumpStart Marketing. Charlie has a 20 year history in the Hearth business,
and his resume' reads like a who's who of the hearth business. He's been
on the leading edge of the Industry since the his early days at Vermont
Castings and Surdiac, and carries a depth of knowledge which is unmatched
in our business.
During the next hour, we'd like to share some of the experiences and knowledge
we've gained relating to computers, communication and on-line services.
I'll speak for a 1/2 hour or so, then we'll get into a discussion and question
and answer session for the remainder of our time...How many folks here are
on the internet or another on-line service?. Good, this way I'll know how
much detail to go into on each subject !
We'll be talking about the Internet, modems, computers and the like...but
what we are really talking about is communication..enhanced and instant
communication between you, your customers, employees, and vendors.
Most of the World is on-line
Much of human history is the story of communication, the development of
spoken language, written language, and transportation of these communication
modes over distance has resulted in the sharing of knowledge among people
all over the world.
It could even be construed that this sharing of knowledge is largely responsible
for the continuing evolution of mankind. I'm getting a little ahead of myself,
so let me start by introducing the Internet and WWW and explaining what
they are and how they came about. Then I'll explain why this current revolution
could represent a great transition equal to the effect of the printing press
and the telephone combined.
First, let's define what the Internet or information superhighway is.
Simply speaking, it's the sum of over 60,000 different computers all over
the world linked together on a full time basis.
These computers are different sizes and types, and are located at government
organizations, educational institutions, and commercial enterprises.
The information on these 60,000 computers is available to millions of people.
Some of them are hooked up full time to these computers, like the folks
who go to college and who work at the Corporations where these computers
are located
Millions of others, like myself and some of you, are hooked up to this network
on a part-time basis - through a "dial up" connection. When we
call up and log-in, our computer, for a short time, becomes part of the
internet network.
So, what's so revolutionary about a bunch of boring computers hooked together
? It's a good question - the answer is that it's the people being hooked
together, not the computers, that makes this system special. The old saying
says "two heads are better than one" , if that's true, how good
are 20 million heads , or 200 million, or billions ?
What you'll need
Most folks connect to the internet with a personal computer and a modem.
The computer does not have to be too fancy, but the modem should be the
fastest you can afford, 14.4 K is minimum, 28.8K is best. You'll also hear
about faster connections like ISDN, cable modems and T1 lines. Rest assured
that for most of us, these things are in the future. For now, get started
with the 28.8
In order to connect, you must purchase a user account at an internet provider.
These providers range from a guy down the street who hacked together a few
modems and a computer, to large international services like CompuServe and
America online.
CompuServe and America online actually pass you through a "gateway"
to the internet, while a local Internet only" provider gives you a
more direct connection. If you are going to spend a lot of time online,
a local provider will probably cost you much less cause there are no hourly
charges..just a monthly fee of 20-25 month.
How many folks are on-line now, and how many are forecast for the near future.
Current estimates are that approx. 20 million US customer have access to
the Internet and World Wide Web. This number is expected to double within
the next year or two, making 40 million individuals within your grasp.
OK, so you're hooked up to the net, now what can you do ?
Let's start with the four most popular uses, email, browsing the web, FTP
(file transfer protocol),newsgroups
Email
WWW
FTP
Usenet (newsgroups)
Email
First thing I do when I go online is to check my email...I often get
20-30 messages a day from friends, family, business associates and yes,
sometimes junk email !
One click of the mouse will open each "letter" for me to read.
One additional click on the "reply" button and I'm ready to answer
the email....Hit the send button and my response will find it's way , at
the speed of light, to the recipient
And that's just the beginning, I can mail to dozens, hundreds, even thousands
of recipients with one click. In fact, we've started a "Hearth Retailers
Discussion Group" on the Internet where a bunch of us discuss issue
that are important to us. Any messages sent to the group are put in a digest
and emailed to all other members of the group. Very informative and educational
for all concerned. Any of you that belong to any online service, we'd love
you to sign up at the end of this talk.
Hearth Retailer Mailing List
Much more can be done with email, I can mail documents, pictures, spreadsheets
and databases to associates anywhere in the world...and I can keep in touch
with friends and family.--- All for no cost ! In the next few years, the
definition of email will change to include voice messages, video messages
and even Real-Time Video Conferencing.
Any questions about email and what it is.
World Wide Web
Now lets talk about about the World Wide Web, which is a part of the internet
that has been receiving the most attention from the press. This is because
the Web has a lot of flash. To a computer user, the web looks very much
like a color brochure or magazine, but the difference is that the content
is dynamic and user defined, meaning the user can decide which information
they want to see and navigate to that information.
There are over 10 million pages of information on the web already, so you
can imagine the resources available to a user. From knitting to nuclear
physics, it's all there for the taking.
Now, the business savvy among you might ask " why would folks publish
free information on these computers..
Well, many of the sites are located at Government and educational facilities,
so all of you taxpayers and folks with children in college are already paying
for much of this information.
From the library of Congress to your local library....From Newt Gingrich
and Rush Limbaugh to the White House...and from MIT to your local community
college..they're all on the net, and ready able and willing to share information
with you.
One person even put a "Punch Rush" site on the Net. This comes
up with a picture of Rush Limbaugh, all smiling and in good shape.
Each time you click the mouse button on Rush, he looks a little worse.
We've touched on the Governmental and Education parts of the web, but the
biggest growth and the subject of most of our presentation is the Commercial
part of the web.
Ten's of thousands of businesses have staked their claims on this digital
frontier. Yes, all the biggies like Saturn Cars, Newsweek, IBM, Apple and
GE are there in force.
Small Businesses on the WWW
More importantly, small businesses such as yours and mine can easily and
inexpensively set up and maintain a presence on the WWW. How much does it
cost ?...lets just say for the cost of a few weeks newspaper ad, you can
be on the web for a year.
I'm going to tell you a little about my store's experience on the Net. I
spent a lot of time last summer cruising the net. I was unable to locate
any Hearth stores on-line, so I decided to place Stoveworks as the first
Stove store on the Net. I signed up with a local Provider who agreed to
give me two different accounts. One was a dial-up account, which allowed
me to access the web, the second was a SERVER ACCOUNT, which allowed me
some space on his hard disk , which is hooked to the Net on a full-time
basis. By placing pages onto this disk, they could be made available to
the whole world 24 hours a day. I then spent a few weeks learning the basic
of HTML language, which is the CODE that web pages are written in, and soon
my pages were online for everyone to see. I didn't expect much to happen,
so I just sat back, happy with my accomplishment.
In Mid-August, I started receiving a few phonecalls and email messages from
folks who had seen my internet pages. Some of these immediately turned into
sales, other were simply information requests. I found a local distributor
for a guy in Japan, Fixed a Resolute Acclaim in Isreal, and told a Spanish
combustion engineering student where he might find a job in our industry.
My internet provider mentioned that a lot of folks were looking at my pages...when
I asked how many, he emailed me a log of all the visits to my site.
To my surprise, 50 people per day were visiting my site. This may not sound
like a lot, but what does it take to get 50 people a day into your store,
or to call you on the phone ? I was shocked, and immediately started making
improvements and additions to my pages. When you know you have a lot of
company coming over, you straighten up the house ! Soon the traffic increased
to 100 customer per day.
More sales occurred, some of them large...I sold stoves from New Mexico
to Tennessee, and at last count sold over $30,000 worth of product directly
from the Net. Now, not a day goes by that I don't receive a phone call or
email from my Store's site.
All this activity presented one problem, I didn't really want to get into
the mail order stove business. Yet, piles of leads from all over the US
were building up on my desk. I thought about it and came up with two choices,
I could either go into the mail-order stove business...or..I could start
a central large Internet site - a place for Hearth Retailers and Manufacturers
to post information about their stores and products. The Idea expanded to
include volumes of information about general hearth topics, editorials and
even short stories about Home, Hearth and Energy.
Hearthnet
And so, my current project, Hearthnet was born. This large central site
now sees thousands of visitors per month, with the volume building quickly.
In addition, the site has won a prestigious award which places it into the
"top 5% of web sites". This award is given for superior design
and content. Rest assured that Charlie and I will be spending the next few
years putting all of our 40 years of Hearth Experience into the content
portion of this site. It's a big job, but someone has to do it!
The HPA is considering a web site, which would promote our industry, products
and it's members. Jim Butchart and I put together a small demo site which
gives an Idea of what such a site might look like.
I realize that not everyone can spend hundreds of hours on this project
like I did. There are many firms, including ours, that can do the entire
job for you, from concept, design to the final posting on the Net. You don't
have to have any computer experience, although it's helpful for you to have
an email address so that you can answer inquiries to your store.
How much does it cost to put your business
on the web?
As with many projets, the costs can vary, but figure the cost of authoring
and storing a site on the Internet for a year to be from $100. to $200 a
page. This means for around 5-600, a retailer can have a decent presence
on the web,. Most manufacturers should spend more, and an investment of
about $2000. will get them a decent site.
Let's touch on two other uses of the Internet, FTP or File Transfer Protocol,
and Usenet.
File Transfer Protocol
FTP is simply the uploading an downloading of computer files to and from
the internet. When I want to put my WWW pages onto a computer which is at
my Internet Providers location, I use an FTP program to transfer them. But
FTP can be much more than just this.
There are internet sites with large amount of computer freeware and shareware
programs, these are yours for the taking. If you use certain software in
your home or business , you can often get updates and bug fixes free by
visiting a site maintained by the Software Company.
As the Internet matures, you'll be able to download manuals and service
guides from all of the major Hearth manufacturers..say you need a manual
for that old Vermont Casting Defiant that one of your customers has. You'll
go to their FTP site, which does not exist yet, and download the manual
within less than one minute. An incredible savings in time, phonecalls,
etc. Print it out on your printer for the customer, or give it them on disk
if they have a computer. This is the type of service that differentiates
quality specialty dealers from the Mass Merchants.
If any among you are musicians, FTP can be a great source of written music.
I'm a guitar player, and frequently visit OLGA, which is the On-Line Guitar
Archive. The words and chords for thousands of popular songs are posted
here. I download the songs I want and print them out. Until now, this type
of information was not available to me unless I wanted to spend big buck
on songbooks.
You can download large newsletter, documents, book excerpts and even audio
and video clips. Imagine being able to preview movies and records from the
comfort of your home. This technology is here today, as as the capacity
of the Internet increases, will become more mature.
Newsgroups
Newsgroups or Usenet is a part of the internet which acts like a large bulletin
board system. There are seperate "groups" which cover just about
every interest one could possibly have, and many that cover subjects you
couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams. There are currently over 20,000
newsgroups with millions of posted articles. If your interest is skiing,
you can go to numerous skiing forums, if you're into old trains, there's
discussion groups for that too. You simply choose which newsgoups interest
you, and subscibe to these --at no charge of course. Whenever you go online,
you can cruise through the newest articles. You can also list eariler messages
or search through all the newsgroups using search engines.
Newsgroups Porn
The USEnet is also home to many newsgroups with sexual content. This material
always attracts a lot of attention, as it's one area of interest that all
human beings, and other species, share.
Yes, there are many newsgroups that store pictures of naked men and women.
The good news is that you or your children cannot just surf in and see these
pictures. If you try to look, you'll see only a bunch of wierd text characters,
like a typewriter gone mad. This is the code for a certain type of computer
file called a "binary file". You can download this code, convert
it with a special program, and then view the pictures with another program.
It's not easy, so you don't have to worry about your 7 year old stumbling
across these vivid graphics.
My personal opinion is that any censorship of the Internet would be a step
backwards. Like they say in radio, if you don't want to hear it, just change
the station or turn it off. No one is forcing anyone to look at anything.
Newsgroups allow the posting of questions and the sharing of opinions. I
have already seen quite a few questions and answers relating to our industry
posted on certain newsgroups. One person asked about a specific brand and
type of fireplace insert--he received answers from folks that already had
purchased that model. Another person asked about the safety claims of unvented
gas products. The answer came from someone outside our industry, and was
very detailed and informative.
This type of dialog is something that was previously unavailable to the
customer and is quite powerful. Instead of just having to rely on what a
manufacturer's literature or the local Hearth Retailer says, opinions and
facts can be gathered from all over the US ; or world.
Search Engines
OK, we've established that there is an incredible amount and variety of
information available on the Net. But how does one sort through millions
of pages of documents in order to find information about any specific topic?
Luckily for us, the Net is home to dozens, even hundreds of sites called
"Search Engines". The good folks who operate these sites have
attempted to catalog the entire internet. You and I are then allowed to
enter "keywords" in order to find any information we are seeking.
The search can be quite detailed - you might enter "woodstove and creosote"
if you are trying to find articles about chimney deposits or chimney fires.
The search directory would then find any related documents, and return them
to you in a list, with the most important ones at the top. Clicking your
mouse on a listing will be transport you directly to the related site.
It might seem technically impossible for someone to catalog every word in
every document on the internet -- a total in the billions of words. Actually,
it's a rather easy task, because it's done by automatic software robots
called spiders. These spiders go out into the internet, similar to the way
a phone solicitation machine calls every phone #, and search out every document
they can find. They then return every word of each document to their host
computer, which neatly catalogs it.
POTENTIAL PITFALLS AND ROADBLOCKS
OK, now we've talked about a lot of positive aspects of the Internet. But,
as with any medium, there are also a lot of pitfalls and roadblocks that
you could run into. One big problem I've seen, is that once folks get online,
their heads seen to swell and they come up with all sorts of grandiose schemes
about what they are going to do on the Net. I know of many stories where
companies spent ten's of thousands of dollars on a web site, and received
almost no visitors. A recent study indicated that the "biggies"
like Toyota, Saturn and other large companies are spending from 300,000
to 3,000,000 on their web sites..and that's just for the first year. How
would you like to spend that kind of bucks and see no reward ?
Just throwing money at the Web will not work. It takes a combination of
Marketing experience, networking, computer knowledge and , as with most
things - "the right Idea at the right time". Much of my time is
spent consulting with folks and telling them NOT to create a Web site. Still
more time is spent trying to convince folks that they don't need to install
their own Internet Server at their place of business. It's far better and
more economical to rent a server at places called "server farms".
Let's make some analogies to the printing business.
1. You could spend millions creating a magazine, and if you don't mail it,
get it on newstands, and advertise it..no one will read it. This is the
case with the web sites that are fancy, but have no traffic.
2. Let's say you decided to publish a magazine. Would you buy a color printing
press and set it up at your place of business ? This is the case with all
the folks who want their own Web server at their place of business.
They are other potential stumbling blocks..the list is too long to go into
here. Remember, in some ways the Net is like the Wild West, many folks are
glad to sell you land, while many others are getting it free or cheap..as
always, buyer beware.
We've covered most of the current uses for the Net, but there are also uses
that have not even been thought of yet. As the technology develops, new
applications will be brought to market. Many of these will change the way
we work, live and communicate. When you look at this evolving picture, it's
easy to see why we say " The Internet Changes Everything!"
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