Teasers: Is Push Everything?
March 1997
Teasers: Snippets we write ourselves about items we plan to write about more fully in the next few issues. Think about it as our early thinking about the industry buzz.
Is Push Everything?
Wired magazine suggests that the Web (as we know it) is dead. That is, asking for information as the web navigation metaphor is to be replaced by the Push metaphor, where publishers and advertisers will send us things. What they’ll send us will be a combination of:
- Things we asked for like specific stock quotes, information on our best clients, or the scores for the home team
- Things our agents asked for on our behalf. This might be the availability of merchandise, against some set of requirements (a reservation for a romantic dinner for two at an Italian restaurant downtown this Saturday night, preferably at 8:00, no more than $75) or some information it senses we need (the check you were expecting hasn’t arrived and if the automatic payment schedule runs tomorrow it will create a negative balance) – think of it as personal, intelligent email)
- Things that affinity agents we signed up for are recommending. This could be something to buy like a movie or a book or it could be a recreational activity like a vacation destination. Perhaps it might be a recommendation to consider a job (members of your affinity group from the Class of 88 at Wabash U are moving this year from their second to their third jobs, mainly going to jobs in the xxx area; based on that, we have two jobs you might want to consider).
- Things your demographics make you appealing for. This is the really controversial part. You may be getting lots of things you never wanted, just because someone knows something about you that suggests you’d be a good customer for his product. It’s junk mail on the Internet, but it’s intelligent junk mail.
We suspect that Push will be only one more stage in the development of the web and one that itself evolves and changes. Pushy push that irritates the user with its in-your-face, look-at-me-now attitude might be appropriate in an entertainment or home viewing environment, but it’s never likely to work in a business environment, where it interrupts the user’s purpose and is likely to be ignored or screened out.
There’s lots of push announcing at Internet World in LA, March 10-14; we’ll write about in our next issue. You tell us: Have you tried Push? Do you like it?
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Entire contents © 1997 by Amy D. Wohl. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden.