With information from the Web, you can become a real expert in a particular market sector. Increasingly, successful practices are those which have identified a market sector in which they really wish to become a leader in knowledge and expertise. With this proactive marketing strategy, firms are able to claim a market sector for themselves. While the Web is a great source of information for practice, many firms and organizations are beginning to stake out their own presence in this new frontier. Some practices have already set up their own homepages so visitors can find out about who they are.
Reasons vary, but seem to fall into two broad categories.
Some use the same reasons as explorers throughout history a desire to establish their presence in an unknown realm in the hope they can help fashion the future. Others use it primarily for communication, as noted above. So far, very few see it as a marketing tool, since it can seem to be a broader version of the yellow pages. Behind the mystery of the Web, we see a real shift in the professional practice of design. Our field is becoming increasingly reliant on knowledge, more broadly and more fundamentally than before.