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The premiere publication that assists with startup financing, production and marketing.
Web books now cover store shelves like barnacles on a pier. With so many new publications, it's sometimes difficult to find the right balance of technical and consumer information to assist you with your business.
Our reviewers seek out volumes which contain useful information for business owners, and highlight one or two in each issue of Attainment. This means that if a book is listed here, it has probably already undergone some type of prescreening, and is recommended to our readers.
Format
This is a hefty paperback, measuring 7.5" x 9" with a 1 3/8" spine. There are 573 pages organized as follows:
Credits, Acknowledgments, Contents - 30 pages
Body - 500 pages
Appendix - 30 pages
Glossary - 5 pages
Index - 8 pages
The layout and diagrams are clear and easy to follow. The technical level listed on the back of the book is expert (many computer books come with 'fuel gauges' to describe the difficulty level), but as computer and business experts, we thought this rating was higher than the actual content of the book. If you have a basic understanding of computers and file systems, and an intermediate understanding of business, we feel this book is of interest.
Contents
The subtitle lead of this book is A hand-ons guide to successfully bringing your business to a worldwide audience, and it succeeds in doing this better than quite a number of the books which we prescreened before making the decision to review this one.
The major topic areas covered are:
Internet introduction, components & terminology and their relevance to business
Planning and putting up a Web site
Advertising, order taking, filling and tracking
Marketing, demographics, Web presence
Security and fire-fighting
Kiosks and future developments
Basic HTML
The Que book seems well balanced in terms of describing what needs to be done and why, from a business perspective. Important topics like order taking, are not only described with a variety of options, but their pros and cons are listed, to help you in your decision-making.
Order fulfillment and sales tracking are discussed, important issues for businesses which are not covered in general Web books, or books about HTML.
Security is covered, including encrypted information and physical storage. The authors wisely point out that the least secure part of the system is not the net itself, but the people who use it. (It's far easier to steal a password written on a piece of paper and taped to a monitor than it is to decrypt someone's file system on the net.)
On the Lighter Side
Because of traditional competition, print publication lag and increasing competition from electronic publications, there is a lot of pressure on publishers to get computer books out the door quickly. As a consequence, they don't appear to be proofread as diligently as more established books from companies like National Geographic and Reader's Digest.
This book is no exception, although it is cleaner than many, but we got an extra bit of amusement from the following typographical error:
Summing Up
We recommend this as a good general business Web overview. It is clear and well-organized, covers the relevant topics, has a basic HTML appendix which can help you understand the basic structure of a Web page, and keeps business needs in mind. We selected it out of about a dozen other similar texts which we felt did not cover the topics as completely as the Que book.
This book can help you get started, and to grasp the major issues, but remember that you will still need the services of a Webmaster and an ISP to get your storefront up and running. You should also keep in mind that traditional ways of soliciting and collecting money don't work as well on the Web as they do in the store, where your customer is a captive audience. There is a surfeit of information on the Web, and much of it is free. You will have to work extra hard to attract and keep your customers.
This book is not for programmers. More technical documents and information are required to actually automate a site with database information, CGI, Java, or Perl queries that can put all the good suggestions in the book into practise.
We feel the Que book is good value for the money, and combined with the O'Reilly books on writing HTML and creating and maintaining Web sites, provide a suite of information which a business owner and the technical programming staff can use together to communicate their needs and design their online storefront.
Beyond the Book
One final consideration when discussing Internet transactions is that a really good Web-based revenue model has not yet emerged. When this will happen is anybody's guess, but our guess is that traditional banks have the advantage, since they already have people's money. It is likely that traditional banks will eventually offer transaction services to businesses, for a fee, similar to point of purchase machines in grocery and other retail outlets. As a small startup business, the fees associated with new transaction mechanisms like this may be prohibitive. We recommend that you keep track of developments in this area, as they may have a dramatic impact on your Web business in the future.
Return to Attainment home page.
Other articles in this issue:
Hanging Out Your Shingle: Finding the Right Office Space
The Alternative Office: From Garages to Sailboats
The Online Store: Setting Up Shop on the Web
Promoting Your Mousetrap: An Anecdotal Look at Consumer Buying Habits
Selling Your Software: Even if You Hate Doing Business
Point to Point: The Illusion of Free Enterprise
Suggested Web sites for information related to this article:
Quantum Books Internet and WWW Business Books - 20 book abstracts indexed by author Darwin Among the Machines: The Emergence of Global Intelligence - a review of the book by George B. Dyson.
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