Bulletin Board

A collection of 11 short articles on technology. Topics include how a Web site can be bad for business, different types of laptop cases, incorporating online, and handheld scanners.

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The Sad Hatter
Web-site marketers should take the same oath doctors do: First, do no harm. It's an oath Do Rags Inc. has broken, with a year-old site for its line of hats. The $2.4-million company, in Hewitt, Tex., is all about fun: products include the Viking, the Yak, and the Bonehead. But Do Rags made the fatal mistake of relying on visitors to maintain its site's liveliness, and they have not obliged. As a result, the site feels like a summer camp where the counselors are still trying to lead a sing-along long after the kids have gone back to their tents to play cards.

It's tough to pick the most depressing feature of www.mentalgear.com. Possibly it's the contests, one to design a "mental hat" and the other to take a picture of someone wearing one. Do Rags promises to name one winner for each contest each month. As of October there was one design winner posted for January and one design winner for February. No photo winners posted at all.

The contests get stiff competition from the site's chat boards. In October there were five "conferences" mustering a total of three messages among them. The calendar of events was completely blank. Some of the hats displayed were from a discontinued catalog.

"These concepts should have turned the site into Grand Central Station. Instead it looks like a graveyard," admits Do Rags CEO and founder Alan Wills. "It's totally against our culture and marketing image." Wills says the problem is that Do Rags budgeted $5,000 for the site and spent all that money up front to hire a Web-design firm, leaving zero for maintenance.

"We don't see it, so we don't think about it a lot," Wills admits. "That's terrible because lots of people are seeing it and aren't getting the most positive image of our company." As a result, Do Rags' image-boosting tactic has in fact become a liability--a kind of negative advertising.

Wills plans to eliminate some of the fancier stuff and possibly start maintaining the site himself "as a hobby." "We should display the products, tell something about the company, let people download our catalog, and maybe have a very simple ordering system," he says. "I think if we do that, then people will say, 'Hey, they've got a nice little site." --Leigh Buchanan

The Walls Have Ears of Corn
Supermarkets aren't shy about advertising: product ads are plastered in windows, on shopping carts, and on receipts. But often the largest expanse of potential advertising space--the walls--is left bare.

Schnuck Markets is changing that. The St. Louis-based chain is demonstrating a service that displays large digital advertisements for everything from American cheese to lottery tickets on full-color, high-resolution screens on store walls.

The concept comes from WOW|media (800-829-7270), which sends ads over ISDN lines to site-supervisor Apple computers at 10 Schnuck locations. The ads arrive at five-second intervals; the supervisor machines then channel the images to Fujitsu Corp. Plasmavision 42-inch screens over wireless Ethernet connections. Advertisers' fees pay for both the service and the screens, so the markets get everything gratis.

Although most ads are for national branded products, the network can also deliver regional or even store-specific ads and information. -- Kimberly S. Johnson

Case Studies
Laptop schleppers are a demanding lot. While Silicon Valley engineers rack their brains to create a better, faster mobile computer, their customers are more concerned with how to carry it around. "People don't get opinionated about their track balls or surge protectors, but they have peculiar and strong opinions about computer cases," says Glenn Rodgers, a designer and developer of computer accessories for Kensington Microware Ltd., in San Mateo, Calif.

Gone are the days of the slim, black cordovan zipper case. Today consumers invariably want a bag that counteracts the laws of physics by being protective and lightweight but large enough to hold all their accessories. "I've never been able to win on that one," Rodgers laments.

But Rodgers's company does have a spill-proof solution for maladroit users threatened by an errant coffee cup. The Kensington Sports Notebook Wetsuit (800-535-4242, www.kensington.com, $49.95) is a form-fitting neoprene sleeve that protects computers from spills, scratches, and other mishaps. No, you can't take it diving.

David Gilson, a sales representative for a Vancouver, B.C., food wholesaler, wanted a case that was large enough for his files but that didn't require acres of desktop space to unpack. His search led him to the Legtop Podeum Pro, from Rach Inc. (360-384-4111, www.podeum.com, $99.95), which he now carries around "almost constantly."

The Podeum Pro is both carrying case and portable work surface: the base of the case is a nonslip platform that fastens around the user's leg. That setup holds the computer in place, which is key: last year insurers paid out close to $300 million for laptops that met their makers sliding off users' knees, according to Chris Stirling, vice -president of Rach.

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