The claim:

What justifies this claim:

• The basic reason for a Bill Board, whether along the Paved Interstate Highway or along the Electronic Information Highway, is to provide a SOURCE of INFORMATION :
  • short enough so that people can quickly SEE IT ALL and will read it,
  • long enough to provide a basic description of what the business has to offer,
  • plus who to call or write to in order to get more info,
    
  • be noticed,
  • . . . and affordable so that a business of any size, commercial or hobby, can try it!

Let's do the affordable first!

• They're only $10.00 a month (6 months minimum to get started) for your very own InterNet Bill Board along the Electronic Information Highway! One page, no pictures, no set up fee, but it gives a small business (actually, any size of business) an inexpensive way to get included and noticed on the internet - a cheap way to try it out!
  (price changed from $5.00 to $10.00 /month 1998)

• If desired, pictures & graphics, etc. can be included for a higher fee. Actually, from this basic beginning, your INBB can grow into a full-blown WEB page, adding as many 'bells & whistles' as you desire! But the main intention is to start with a basic and affordable WEB page and get your business's URL established.
  Visit here for more cost/size details.

  To see some existing INBB's, goto URL http://www.kbsb.com/ib/

How short or long the Bill Board is depends on what you have to say. For a Bill Board, too much information will take too long to read - or too long to LOAD onto the computer display. Pictures and Graphics take the most time to load - so their 'use' must be justified by the impact they will make on the viewer. Usually, only a line or two will provide the necessary information: what the business does, how to get more info, etc.

The best strategy might be to grab the viewer's attention with a short Bill Board, then refer to larger (but slower loading) WEB PAGES for all the details! It depends again upon what you want to say. The full blown WEB page can be added later if and when you feel it would be a benefit.

An example:
• the short & quick InterNet Bill Board,
• a longer WEB page detailing a single item,
• and the main HOME page.

The real magic, the real trick of technology is, HOW can an Internet Bill Board be found and noticed?

• A major advantage, if not thee only advantage, of 'having your URL on the Net' is that many people and businesses are performing searches for items (using "keywords") via the Internet Search Engines. If your business is NOT associated with a WEB URL ADDRESS, then your business will NOT be found!
  (URL = Uniform Resource Locator = http://www.kbsb.com/ib/)

  Do you want your Resource Location i.e. your business, to be found?

• With an InterNet Bill Board (INBB) your company will have a definite URL address. For example, try this URL - http://www.kbsb.com/ib/todd/, or this one - http://www.kbsb.com/kbllb/ and this will bring you to a specific INBB with a specific URL. (The ads are legitiment - just ignore the common last names for this demo!) All WEB pages have a specific URL, and so will your INBB. An INBB is an inexpensive method to get all the benefits that a URL can provide.

  Try this little experiment:
  Go to http://www.YAHOO.com/yahoo/ and search for INBB - and see what you find!
  (don't forget to keep pressing your BACK button to come back ... or BOOKMARK me now!)
  

• There are also different approaches for searching and being found, depending upon the location of customers that each company or business wants to attract. A local Pennsylvania company may not care if someone in California sees their INBB, so only local 'search locations' or databases would be targeted.

• However, if a company wants to target customers from across the state, country, or even the world, then the wide-area search locations or databases would be targeted with the INBB's URL to reach those customers - BUT - a company NEEDS a URL first - and that is what the InterNet Bill Board will provide. A definite address that people can come to and see the company's NAME, WHAT THEY DO or HAVE TO OFFER, along with the postal address and telephone number of the business so that further communication can take place.

  ---

• You do not need Internet access to 'own' or 'gain the advantages' of an INBB. Companies that are not on the net, can't access the net, or don't ever want to get involved with the USER side of the net do not have to - the INBB will handle these situations. Your INBB will provide your phone number, fax number, postal address, and/or location to the viewer of the INBB. Eventually though, if desired, an E-MAIL account can be established so that the company can receive direct customer inquiries via the net. But this adds to the complexity and cost - a complexity and cost that may not be needed, at least not yet!

  ---

• So, along with the INBB, the INBB's URL information will be published on several search engine databases. That way, when someone 'performing a search' types in keywords, and those keywords match the information on the INBB, that company's INBB's URL and description will be displayed.

  This is why the minimum start-up time is six-months (it takes several weeks for the URL's information to 'spread around the globe' via the WEB): to give your URL a chance to become established and perform. Besides, six-months is only $30.00!
  

  How much is another potential customer worth?

I hope this has been useful. I know I may have assumed a basic understanding of some operations that a user may not actually be familiar with. (... I know - preposition!) Please contact me and I will be happy to explain in greater detail.

Again, the basic reason for a Bill Board, regardless of what type of highway, is to provide a source of INFORMATION :
• short enough so that it can be seen quickly and people will read it,
• long enough to provide a basic description of what the business has to offer,
• plus how to get more info,
  
• be noticed,
• . . . and affordable so that a business of any size, commercial or hobby, can try it!

pages by: Steven L. Bonnell ( slbnl@kbsb.com)

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