Challenges and opportunities

The internet, we all know how to use it, and most probably we feel comfortable surfing the web. Every day, this is becoming a reality for more and more people all over the globe. According to Internet World Stats, the number of internet users has grown more than 901 millions in the last 8 years. The percentage of world population using the WWW changed from .4% in 1995 to 23.3% in 2008. The internet growth has been exponential and it is expected to continue with this tendency.
First came web 1.0, and we were able to communicate literally from Mexico to China in a couple of seconds. Similarly we could enter web pages from anywhere in the world and huge amounts of information were available. Later on came web 2.0 and the word community grew sky high. Common users explored the idea of making their own web pages, creating podcasts and videos, sharing knowledge, experiences, and ideas.
The internet has transformed our way of life, or maybe we can say that it has become a way of life for itself. So we have the internet growing by millions every year which means a whole lot of people sharing information and a whole lot of business opportunities. In these days we have multimillionaire companies working completely on the internet, like e-bay or Google.
The links of information that the internet gives us can be a double edge sword. Companies can reach many people but they can also be affected negatively by that same people. For example blogs, every one can right good or bad things about anything. So if a costumer gets a bad experience in… lets say a restaurant, that costumer can write it on the web creating new problems for the restaurant. You better treat your costumer as they deserve…
As the internet evolved through time, so has the surfer and now, as Jakob Nielson (Web usability consultant) discover, they have become “more ruthless”. They don’t have time to waste; they just want to complete the task and then leave as quickly as possible. The loading times is also a problem, in few words web users are not patient.
Same history with e- advertisements, as Greg Stuart pointed out in his article “What if the Consumer Hates Your Product?” surfers really dislikes advertising on the web. According to his article and to a survey run by Vizu Answers 56% said that they would like to eliminate advertising. 48% said that e-ads are the most irritating ones…
The internet and the e marketing is a door to new opportunities but also new challenges. It is the role of e- marketers to find an effective solution to these obstacles.

Another satisfied costumer...