Alpha-geeks' sound bytes

It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that over the past five years the business market has been flooded by textbooks on electronic commerce in general and e-marketing in particular. Undoubtedly, the implications for business strategy of the enormous technological advances that have taken place in such a short time are a major reason why publishers have commissioned them. There is, however, more than a faint suspicion that what is really driving sales is an inherent fear in the business (and perhaps the academic) community that they may be left behind in the brave new electronic world.

As might be expected from such a rush of publications, the standard is variable. But what was evident in many of the "first-generation" texts was the belief that marketing would not only have to adapt to accommodate the new technology but that marketing strategy should be driven by it. As Susan and Stephen Dann note in Strategic Internet Marketing , "Most texts in the field were too busy emphasising what is different about the internet, and not what can be adapted from past and present marketing knowledge." The year 2000 appears to have been a watershed. Forecasts of huge expansion were modified in line with the realism induced by dotcom crashes. There was a growing recognition that e-commerce was not marketing's panacea and that perhaps there was a need to get back to marketing basics.

It was during the post-watershed period that these four texts were written, and the greater realism is evident. It is apparent that lessons have been learnt in the short time that electronic commerce has dominated the business agenda. The demise of high-flyers such as Boo.com and the profitability problems of those that by other measures appear enormously successful (such as Amazon.com) are not glossed over as they were so many times in the past. The heroes are still generally online dotcoms, but they are being matched more and more by traditional companies beginning to take advantage of the new technology.

The authors of Strategic Internet Marketing are Australian academics with an evident world view. The examples used are often familiar or described in such a way that they appear familiar. The book is designed to be user-friendly and, although comprehensive, avoids over-complicated techno-babble wherever possible. It has an excellent (and necessary) glossary with some of those wonderfully descriptive terms associated with the internet, including "feature-creep", "alpha-geek" and "voodoo-programming". It also has an excellent sense of perspective about the advantages and perils of the internet.

Introduction to E-Commerce and Internet Marketing may be described as related texts. Not only are they of similar size and design and both part of the McGraw-Hill/ MarketspaceU series, at least two chapters are, with minor differences, the same. These are presumably the contribution of the one author who is common to both books. The texts are somewhat formulaic, with an emphasis on the "application of suites of tools for doing business in the networked economy", and the content is more standard than revolutionary. They do, however, review the application of e-commerce and e-marketing clearly and relatively concisely for the student and business reader, using examples from a wide range of online and offline businesses, and applying, in general, traditional models and concepts. Interspersed with the text are articles and case studies that bring alive many of the ideas discussed. Particularly interesting features are the "sound bytes" - extracts from interviews with top business executives and other experts.

A disappointing aspect of the MarketspaceU texts is that they are so heavily US-centric. Despite being flagged as international editions, not only do they contain few contributions from non-American academics to the theory underlying the texts (as is perhaps to be expected), there are also few non-North American case-study examples.

Wired Marketing may also be seen to be a reflection of the nationality (one supposes British) of the authors, but in a different way. The theory is drawn largely from a wide range of multinational sources, and the companies quoted are generally recognisable to an international audience. The tone of the text, however, is generally less hyped, more genteel, than the others. This is the one text that highlights in a major way the problems associated with privacy and the collection of customer data. Perhaps this reflects European concerns about data protection as against the American premise of freedom of information. The text also warns the reader of the dangers of cyber-terrorism and internet crime.

Any book on e-commerce (or indeed any subject) is bound to be a product of its time. But any text based on strategic use of technology faces more than revisionism. How can a text promote something as best practice when, perhaps even before it is published, new technology has made it redundant? Of all the texts reviewed, Dann and Dann's recognises this most explicitly. By application of Moore's Law (that the amount of information storable on a given amount of silicon has roughly doubled every year since the technology was invented) they calculate that, in the period between beginning their book and publication, computer speed and capacity will have doubled. Their text is, according to the authors, designed to have a "half-life" rather than a "shelf-life". They fully expect that the evolution of ideas, systems, websites and practices will see half of the new ideas in their book expire. With a freshness of thinking that distinguishes this text, it recognises that no book on this subject is ever finished so much as put "on hold" to await further releases.

John Egan is principal lecturer in marketing, Middlesex University Business School.