Hoffman, Donna L, Thomas P. Novak, and Patrali Chatterjee, "Commercial Scenarios for the Web: Opportunities and Challenges," (December 1995).

Abstract.  The potential of the World Wide Web on the Internet as a commercial medium and market has been widely documented in a variety of media. However, a critical examination of its commercial development has received little attention. Therefore, in this paper we propose a structural framework for examining the explosion in commercial activity on the Web. First, we explore the role of the Web as a distribution channel and a medium for marketing communications. Second, we examine the factors that have led to the development of the Web as a commercial medium, evaluating the benefits it provides to both consumers and firms and its attractive size and demographic characteristics. Third, we discuss the barriers to commercial growth of the Web from both the supply and demand side perspectives. This analysis leads to a new classification of commercialization efforts that categorizes commercial Web sites into six distinct types including 1) Online Storefront, 2) Internet Presence, 3) Content, 4) Mall, 5) Incentive Site, and, 6) Search Agent. The first three comprise the "Integrated Destination Site," and the latter three represent forms of "Web Traffic Control." Our framework, argued in the context of integrated marketing, facilitates greater understanding of the Web as a commercial medium, and allows examination of commercial Web sites in terms of the opportunities and challenges firms face in the rush towards commercialization.  Download pdf.

This material first appeared on the Project 2000 Website in the summer of 1995. Many of the original links have been lost, but we have attempted to archive much of the original content for historical purposes.  

The Cyberporn Debate.

The July 3, 1995 Time magazine cover story on “Cyberporn” by Philip Elmer-Dewitt , is based on its exclusive access to Marty Rimm’s Georgetown Law Journal paper, “Marketing Pornography on the Information Superhighway .” Already, the Rimm study and the Time cover story are providing ammunition for conservative special interest groups, lobbyists, and elected officials. However, as documented in the series of critiques which follow, both the Rimm study and the Time cover story contain serious conceptual, logical, and methodological flaws and errors. These flaws and errors are sufficiently severe that neither the Rimm study nor the Time cover story should be taken seriously by policy makers considering issues involving the Internet and the so-called “Information Superhighway.”

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Hoffman, Donna L. and Thomas P. Novak, "Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-Mediated Environments:  Conceptual Foundations," (July 1995).

Abstract.  This paper addresses the role of marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments (CMEs). Our approach considers hypermedia CMEs to be large-scale (i.e. national or global) networked environments, of which the World Wide Web on the Internet is the first and current global implementation. We introduce marketers to this revolutionary new medium, propose a structural model of consumer behavior in a CME that incorporates the notion of flow, and examine the set of consequent testable research propositions and marketing implications that follow from the model.  Download pdf.

Also see the earlier January 1995 working paper version.