The Internet An Ethnographic Approach
Daniel Miller and Don Slater
Oxford· New York
First published In 2000 by Berg ...
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The Internet An Ethnographic Approach
Daniel Miller and Don Slater
Oxford· New York
First published In 2000 by Berg Edironai offices: 150 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 111, UK 838 Broadway, Third Floor, New York, NY 10003-4812, USA Repnnted
In
2001
many other TrinI friends
© Daniel Miller and Don Slater 2000, 2001
All rights reserved. No parr of this publicatIon may be reproduced In any form or by any means without the wrmen permission of Berg.
Berg
IS
an
Imprint
To Debbie, Dennis, Emily, Kim, Mr Dass and
of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book IS available from the Brltlsh Library.
ISBN 1 859733840 (Cloth) 1 85973 389 1 (Paper)
Typeset by 1S Typesetting, WeIlingborough, Norrhanrs. Primed in the United Kingdom by Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King1s Lynn.
Contents Acknowledgements
1 2 3 4
5 6 7
IX
ConclusIOns Trinidad and [he Internet - An Overview
27
RelanonshlPs
55
Being Trim and Represennng TrImdad
85
The Polineal Economy of the Internet
117
DOing Busmess Online
145
ReligIOn
173
Appendix: The House-to-House Survey
195
Glossary of Terms
205
Bibliography
207
Index
213
Illustrations (Plates) - all at lmp:llethnone' get most of their commissions). The boys have a good design sense (they all have art trammg and are heading f~r either
The reverse Side of this siruanon IS the low or no pay, which 111 turn precludes building up a greater skills and orgaJ1lzanonal baSIS for evolvll1g ecommerce. On the one hand, thiS IS not a valued service, because no one has a clear sense of what It IS worth, what It accomplishes, what one IS domg It for: 'Clients don"t understand, they figure the Internet IS supposed to be free, la la In. \xrhen you run down the cost of them, they have thiS confused look on thelf face.' On the other hand, there are plenty of webdeslgners, either young ones like thiS or those 111 [he II1lt1al stages of s~[(Jng up more serIOUS busmesses, who are willing to work for very little or nothing, for experience, for a foot m the door, as some kmd of investment. Hence payment for these baSIC (and even not so basIC) sites IS driven well below what IS reqlllred for a vwbJe busmess, both because clients don't value It, and because at thiS level 'anyone' can do It. ThiS obVIOusly applies largely to the middle or lower range of busmesses that a firm like Millenmum would encounter; but Similar Issues anse at much higher levels, With advernsJl1g agencies and bigger clients.
156
157
The Mid-range, 'Catalogue' Websites
The Internet
So [he professIOnalism of MiIJenl1lum and [heir skills may nor prove sufficient In themselves. In the next [wo examples we find It IS those With a morc Integrated II1volvemenr 111 commerce Itself who may be 111 a berrer position [Q move the clients forward or [Q explOit new niches. OUf first example shows the push factor of advanCing technologies and the second rhe push from advanCing commercial acumen. One of [he cybercafes srudied which had always done bl[s and pieces of local advernslIlg and wcbdeslgn, m rhe same [Jmc - hy dint of gleeful opportUnism and rechno-t:Jlrhusiasm - was building up leading-edge Internet software skills; there were also people there wl[h long-term interests In graphIcs (including a former US graffiti artist) and musIC. At rhe time of our research Internee anllnanon produced through Shockwave Flash was the btest development, tmnsformIng the look of many wehsltes, as well as Upping the technological ante, or entrance fee, on dOlllg web-deSign. The cafe ulllqllely seized on the Idea that they could produce 3D-second advertlsmg Spots llsmg shockwave (at almost no cost whatsoever) and transfer these to Video (tor the price of a Video capture card), both undercutting any other mode of TV advertlsmg production and makmg more money than they'd ever !magllled. Their first TV ad was for a medium-Sized musIc rerailer. They could equally produce radio Spots. With their combination of deSign skills, software skills and entrepreneUrial orgal11zatlOnal knowledge (particulariy well adapted to small busmesses), one could easily Imagllle them movmg up the value chain to both media production and marketing for particular busmess sectors. In the second example, a freelance webdeslgner recoglllzed that the marketIIlg of websltes (publiclzmg and advertlsmg them, getting them listed on portals and on the websltes of bus messes m complementary markets) was as lI11pOrtant as the webSite Itself: IT1deed, thiS marketing II1volved a wide range at media (ensuring that web addresses were on letterheads and cards, hyperlinkmg to relevant sites and portals, gemng mto webrlngs, publiclzmg sites through on- and offline media such as press ads, mail shots, email, etc.). That IS to say, marketing a web site involves both publiCiZing It and makmg It IIltegral to all corporate puhliclty. The deSigner was JUSt about to rake on a marketing partner specifically to carry OUt these functions, at which pomt one can agatn sec a mOVe on ro the patch of the full-serVice advernsmg agency. !The ~gcnc!csl don"t see that;ls ;l threat to them as ver. They will. Ok! And a lor or the compalllcs will go through thclr ;lgencles baslc~lly ;lskil~g thcm to, you know abour web deSign and hopefully by thcn, With my markctlng tclla, I would nrrange a rclanonshlp With thc advcrtislng agencies ... bCC;lUSC, this IS, as tar as I could see, IS rhe tururc o~ markenng as such.
158
Domg Busmess Online
So the cenrrallssues tor the small band of webdeslgn firms and free lancers that were esrablishlllg themselves as senous buslllesses centred around professlollalizatJon: how to differentiate themselves from all the young whlzz-!(1ds and how to present themselves and the Internet to real paylllg clients of a reasonable size as sellers of a profeSSIOnal service. The mam definmg tearure of professlOnalization was III the relationship between webdeslgn and ecommerce: they could not only produce good-quality graphiCS backed by skilled use of software~ but they could subordinate this to a clear undersGlIlding of the marketing and orgalllzarionai needs of their clients. In the contex:r of the Internet, thiS might well mean educating their clients III both webdesign and ecommerce. It also meant establishmg a clear contractual and pa~'ment baSIS: handling rhe relationships between firms. In other words, profcsslonalizatJon already Implied pushlllg heyond the bounds of webSite as advertisement to a rethlllklllg of both medium and husllless III relation to each other. One of the more established deSigners we spent time With was a netenthUSiast, but felt hiS mall1 task was to keep hiS clients hath realistic and yet eXCIted about what the net could do for their buslllesses. A difficult balanclllg act. He was offenng commercial solidity: profeSSionalism; clear hnets and execution; a deSign process driven by business needs rather than the tcchlllcal or graphiCS potentials of the net. The results were neat, solid deSign With an emphaSIS on IIlformatlon presentation. Jones (as we shall call hllll) adamantly stuck ro low-tech solutions: no Java, no frames, no plugins, no database IIltcgratlOn, ~1Ild so on, so thar they could be qll!ckly downloaded hy surfers With low-level computers and web browsers. Nevertheless, unlike that of earlier local webdesigners worklllg at a Similar techI11c<Jllevei, hiS work exuded hoth commercial profeSSIOnalism and very good information deSIgn, such as clearly presented mformation with derailed attention ro navigation and bck of clutter. Interactlvlty, however, was very limited: there was not a lot to do on the sItes beSides filling III feedback forms. Jones also paid great attention to those aspects of webSite marketing that could be dealt With wlth1l1 the SHe, such as mera-rags and descnptlons. Jones"s carchphrase was, 'usc technology because It IS applicable, not because It IS available,'· \'