Web Awards 2000: Innovation

The winners in the Innovation category of the 2000 Inc. Web Awards employ cutting-edge multimedia and clever Internet concepts to attract and keep customers.

First place

Sumerset Custom Houseboats (See " Web Awards 2000: General Excellence.")

Second place

Yadda Yadda Yadda

Company: Lûcrum Inc.
Web address: www.lucruminc.com
Why it won: Its cutting-edge multimedia keep visitors coming back for more.
Company revenues: $19 million
Site-launch cost: $10,000
Judge's view: "Nice, nongratuitous use of audio media to create, inform, and maintain [its] customer base." --Jordan Ayan

Ben Franklin's knowing gaze presides over the home page of Lûcrum Inc., an E-business services company in Cincinnati. Those who are well endowed of wallet will recognize the image from the $100 bill. It's an appropriate image for the business's site, given the company's name, which evokes the idea of lucre (money, to the uninitiated). Lûcrum president, CEO, and founder John Bostick explains that the logo and the name are part and parcel of the company's motto: "Digital strategies that improve your bottom line." Bostick's dry sense of humor belies the seriousness of that message: he almost named his software-development shop Vandelay Industries, after the nonexistent company that George Costanza of TV's Seinfeld claimed to work for.

Although there wasn't anything wrong with that, Bostick, 41, decided to stick with the existing name, Client Server Associates. In recent years the company has caught the Internet wave and refocused on E-business. The new name -- and the Web site -- were launched this year. Lûcrum's site is particularly innovative in its use of multimedia. For example, the company's customers -- and others who want to stay in the know -- tune in every week to Lûcrum Radio, a weekly Webcast on such timely E-business topics as customer-relationship management. Users have the choice of tuning in live, listening to an archived version, or picking from more than 40 archived titles and creating a customized CD. "Customers can throw their desired content on a CD and play it in the car on the way to work," says Bostick. For an investment of 8 to 12 minutes per subject, Lûcrum's customers can get up to speed on all the latest trends.

The site also features a collection of video clips and a media digest of pertinent articles on such topics as E-commerce patents and digital-supply-chain issues. Lûcrum pushes hot content to its customers in a weekly E-mail blast. The idea is to give users a quick overview of what's going on in business through a mix of media. The site gets between 2,500 and 3,500 unique visitors a month, and users stay an average of four to seven minutes per visit. Lûcrum's sales team garners at least two good leads a week from the site.

That all sounds pretty good, but Lûcrum director of marketing Stephen Smith is never satisfied. Smith and Web-content manager Chuck Fields plan to change the site's navigation to emphasize content first rather than the glitzy (and slow) Flash intro. Says Bostick, "Above all, we want our site to be functional."

Judge Omar Wasow applauded that move. Said Wasow, "Function [must go] before form on the Web." --Lauren Gibbons Paul

Third place

Cross-Country Savings

Company: Dandelion Moving & Storage Inc.
Web address: www.dickerabid.com
Why it won: The site offers a clever way to exploit a new market by matching small moving companies with price-conscious individuals.
Company revenues: $1.8 million
Site-launch cost: $15,000
Judge's view: "An innovative application of the Internet-bidding concept in a different market." --Jordan Ayan

Bret Lamperes, owner and CEO of Dandelion Moving & Storage Inc., in Fort Collins, Colo., is a true veteran of the schlepping biz. He was in the third grade when his mother and stepfather launched the company with one small truck. He grew up in the family business and bought it at age 25. Lamperes understands a particular truth about trucking: in prosperous times, people move a lot of freight and business is good. But a slowdown can hit suddenly and create cash-flow crunches for small movers.

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