[8] 2002 e-business-strategies-for-virtual-organizations

e-Business Strategies for Virtual Organizations
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nately for its devotees, this model will rely on fast and cheap
bandwidth to deliver satisfactorily. This is not yet a widespread
reality.
� Internet presence sites are advertising or ‘brochure’ sites with
a distinction between image presence and information presence.
Using this model requires the user to formulate more
clearly in advance just what purpose the site is intended to
achieve. Image sites that entertain and engender a feel-good
response are particularly suited to products such as clothing
and lifestyle objects. The information presence model suits
businesses whose success (or so it may appear to them) is
predicated upon the provision of timely and accurate customer
information; airlines being an obvious example. Others
might include travel packages, financial investment opportunities
and car makers.
� Content sites are divisible into fee-based, sponsored and
searchable database systems, with the emphasis on value
added content available to the consumer. These are either paid
for directly by the client, paid for through advertising or
where merchants or providers pay an information provider
for placement in an organized listing such as a catalogue mart.
These offer significant opportunities for fast searching and
maximum hit rates in an information overloaded market.
Traffic control sites
Although each of these sub-groupings has evolved since the
original proposal, the categories of malls, incentive sites, and
search agents are still useful to work with.
� The mall typically constitutes a collection of online presences.
These may be individually created and specified, or made by
the mall provider to a common format for ease of navigation
and sharing common technology for customer tracking,
electronic payments, mailing lists, shopping cart technology
and the like. You may like to see these in action at http:/
/www.worldshopping.com/ and http://www.internetmall-
.com/. It is interesting to effect a search for malls relevant to
your business and to compare the costs. Obviously taken from
the idea of a physical shopping centre or street in which
businesses cluster to gain mutual advantage from the presence
of shoppers looking to spend, it takes more care and
thought to justify association in the virtual world in which
physical proximity counts for nothing. When another site is
only a link away, what advantage is there in being on the same