Electronic commerce is here to stay – deal with it

This column appeared March 12, 1999, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

By J.D. Lasica

The following column is based on remarks made by the author at the Online Journalism Conference held March 10, 1999, in Berkeley, co-sponsored by Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and the Annenberg School for Communication at USC. Lasica appeared on the panel “Reestablishing Credibility.”

Last year I appeared at this conference as a panelist addressing online ethics, so it was a little ironic that at the time I was employed by Microsoft.

Since that time I’ve taken a job as senior editor at BabyCenter, a Webby Award-winning startup in San Francisco that is a very rare creature: a new media company committed to traditional journalism values. Our 10-person editorial team is committed to providing high-quality news and information about pregnancy, babies, and parenting. I can’t begin to tell you how satisfying it is to come into work each day and read the latest batch of gushing e-mails from readers telling us how much they love us. That didn’t happen every day at Microsoft.

There’s a second component of our site, the BabyCenter Store, which sells maternity clothes, strollers, toddler outfits and the like, and every day we wrestle with issues over the intersection of retail and editorial credibility. So far, we’ve found the right balance. We’ve built a high level of trust, and we won’t do anything to jeopardize that trust. One of the top priorities on our agenda is to draft a company policy on privacy and editorial ethics, and on Sunday I took a first crack at it, and I think it says something about our philosophy that this is starting with a journalist rather than a marketing person or a lawyer.

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Its new disclosure policy doesn’t go far enough

This column appeared March 10, 1999, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

By J.D. Lasica

If there were a doomsday clock for Web ethics, it would surely be approaching midnight. Nearly every week the line between editorial and advertising blurs a little more, and the gulf between old media and new media mindsets grows ever wider.

The year’s most famous culture clash between old and new media, of course, came with the Feb. 8 disclosure in the New York Times that Amazon was accepting “co-op placement” payments for titles that it recommends on its editorial section pages. Turn to this week’s Literature & Fiction section and you’ll find “Evening News: A Novel” by Marly A. Swick touted under “Fine New Fiction”; turn to Mystery + Thrillers and you’ll find Laurie R. King’s “A Darker Place” heralded under “New and Notable.” Amazon received payments from the publishers for running the books under those headings. (Amazon does not, and never has, accepted payments to alter its best-seller lists. And, to be fair, it receives no payment for most titles it recommends.)

The day after the Times story, Amazon turned on a dime and amended its policy, and it should be applauded for that. But it didn’t go nearly far enough.

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Too few Web sites are taking advantage of audio

This column appeared in the March 1999 issue of The American Journalism Review.

By J.D. Lasica

We usually think of the Web as a visual medium, but sometimes we overlook the other senses.

Far too few online news sites take advantage of live audio and sound clips, lumping them in with the multimedia bells and whistles of animation, video and other razzle-dazzle effects that bring modems to a wheezing standstill.

It’s no surprise to see CNN Interactive and MSNBC making wide use of audio. But it’s heartening to see small and mid-size newspapers plunging in, too. Among the early adopters are three papers in the Midwest.

Count John Strauss among the ranks of the true believers. A reporter covering local government for the Indianapolis Star News, Strauss started working with sound files from home, then pitched the idea to the paper’s Web staff. After a small investment ($45 for speakers, a sound card and cables), Strauss was ready to launch his experiment.

When Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., revealed his marital infidelities in a story the Star News broke, Strauss tape-recorded the congressman’s extraordinary confession during a car-ride interview, then posted it on the Indianapolis Newspapers’ Web site. “It’s one thing to read people’s quotes in print, but there’s a great deal communicated through a person’s intonation and emotion,” Strauss says. “For the first time, newspapers can compete in that area on an equal footing with radio and TV.”

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When it comes to shopping online, whom do you trust? The big guys, certainly: Amazon.com (AMZN), CDnow (dossier). But what about small retailers you’ve never dealt with before? How do you know whether you’re dealing with a reputable Web merchant or a fly-by-night operator? And even if you’re certain a site is legitimate, how can you be sure it’s reliable?To check out an online merchant, you’ve got several options: Do independent research, query a Usenet newsgroup, rely on a seal of approval from a private watchdog group or visit an independent Web site that monitors e-commerce retailers.

These methods have drawbacks. Not many people have time to conduct a thorough background check of an online business. And alternative approaches still require some consumer savvy.

Consider seals of approval. Over the last year, a bumper crop of Web business-watchdog groups has emerged. They charge merchants for enrollment, with fees ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars. Companies undergo a background check, fill out questionnaires and agree to abide by a set of principles. Finally, shiny seals of approval are awarded, and just about everybody gets a gold star.

A few groups carry weight: WebTrust, a seal program run by certified private accountants and the VC-backed Business Ethics Bureau of Investigation, for instance. (The well-known TRUSTe seal program deals only with privacy.) Other outfits merely list information provided by each business.

“Some of the smaller seal programs are little more than for-profit operations that hand out a seal but have no ability to police anything. Everyone wants to get on this bandwagon,” says Russ Bodoff, COO for BBBOnLine, the Web arm of the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

BBBOnLine is the Rolls-Royce of seal programs. More than 2,200 companies have been certified. While most are brick-and-mortar businesses with an online presence, others are pure Internet plays, including eBay (EBAY), Quotesmith and Travelocity.

BBBOnLine conducts a rigorous investigation. A company must agree to abide by BBB’s advertising code and dispute-resolution program; consumers may challenge any claim of brand superiority made on the Web site. BBBOnLine staff visits the workplace of every business before issuing a seal.

“The process ensures the public that these businesses are who they say they are, and that they can deliver on what they promise,” says Steve Salter, who heads the group’s reliability seal program.

But BBBOnLine has shortcomings. Only businesses older than a year — an eternity in Internet time — are eligible. The group doesn’t include overseas merchants and doesn’t post customers’ complaints about service. And it has enrolled only a limited number of Web-based commerce sites.

Still, for member sites, BBBOnLine is the best recourse for resolving serious complaints associated with a purchase. And it’s useful for verifying the street cred of insurance brokers, financial institutions and the like. But what if you just want to go online to buy a VCR or send flowers to Mom?

Enter BizRate.com. A startup in Marina del Rey, Calif., with a staff of 35, BizRate is the only site that posts consumer evaluations of online merchants based on surveys filled out at the digital cash register. Nearly 500 merchants participate, including eToys, Egghead.com (EGGS) and Music Boulevard. The company is shooting for 1,000 by year’s end.

Unlike most comparison sites, BizRate doesn’t accept advertising, sponsorships or merchant fees. To generate revenue, it provides consulting services and sells market research based on customer data.

Says BizRate.com CEO Farhad Mohit, “Our model leverages what is best about the Internet: real consumers banding together to help create content and value for other consumers. We’re focused on helping users select the right merchants, so they can avoid problems before things go wrong.”

The company relies on more than 1,000 customer surveys each day that evaluate online merchants by 40 criteria, such as the product’s condition upon receipt, customer support and whether the right products get shipped. And staff reviewers place orders from each merchant to evaluate the shopping experience. Mohit says customers seem most concerned about ease of ordering and on-time delivery.

BizRate.com visitors can peruse categories like computers, music or housewares to summon up ratings criteria most important to them. America Online (dossier), Excite (ATHM) and Lycos (LCOS) use the company’s shopping ratings; in January, BizRate.com agreed to rate merchants listed on Microsoft (MSFT)’s MSN Shopping site.

Online merchants that reliably deliver the goods will ultimately win consumers’ confidence — and get their business.

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Step #1: Start with your newsroom’s corporate culture

This column appeared in the May 1999 issue of The American Journalism Review.

By J.D. Lasica

Web journalists today face a choice: work at the online division of an old media company, like Tampa Bay Online or Time Digital, or dive headlong into a new media company that exists only in cyberspace. More and more, they’re choosing the latter.

Consider Janelle Brown. When she graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1995, she knew she wanted to be a journalist, but the traditional route of ladder-climbing at a newsroom didn’t appeal to her. “The idea of working at some really dry or dull newspaper didn’t interest me,” she says. “Old media seemed so hierarchical, while new media seemed so exciting and vibrant and starving for talent.”

She took her first job as an editorial assistant at HotWired, quickly became a low-level editor, moved to Wired News as a reporter, and then joined Salon last year as a technology correspondent. “In old media, I could never have gone from an editorial assistant to a journalist writing nationally recognized stories in the space of three years. Here you have more room to grow as a writer and person.”

Most of her journalist friends have either joined or begun freelancing for Web sites like SonicNet, Suck, Wired or Citysearch. “It’s a chance to get in the door and build up your clips pretty quickly,” she says.

Brown is in the vanguard of a new phenomenon: journalists who forsake old media for new media. Young people, especially, are eager to head straight to a Web content business.

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