In this edition, MEDIA launches 'CReATION', an expanded section
covering the Internet and all that's happening in that medium.
When we first started covering cyberspace in 1996, finding stories worth
publishing was like trying to get blood from a stone.
Now, MEDIA's editorial team finds itself swamped under a deluge of press
releases and phone calls from eager 'Net entrepreneurs banging their own
drums.
Progress made by the medium and the industry surrounding it has been
nothing short of astonishing, given the fact that cyberspace as we know
it is barely out of its infancy.
Huge amounts of money are being spent not only by marketers building a
presence on the Web, but also by those companies who make a living
selling the Web, whether they are ISPs, Web designers, website owners or
whatever.
Last year, advertising expenditure throughout most of Asia received a
massive shot in the arm from Internet-related advertising - in Hong Kong
alone, monthly expenditure in 1999 in this category had increased
10-fold by last December, compared with January.
There is no doubt that the Internet is set to make the kind of an impact
in our lives in the way that television did when it was first introduced
in the 1950s.
There is also no doubt that despite what may transpire on the stock
markets of the world, the Internet bubble may occasionally burst, but it
will never dissipate entirely.
So now it is high time that the advertising and marketing industry gets
into gear and makes proper efforts to come to grips with what the medium
is really all about, and how best to exploit it.
So let's have less bickering, bitching, moaning and finger-pointing and
try, instead, to promote learning and share what little knowledge we
have about the 'Net.
Otherwise, huge opportunities for progress risk being lost as various
camps engage in petty playground squabbling over who's right and who's
wrong - and what a price to pay just for a fleeting moment of
superiority.
