People watch a handful of TV shows, read a few magazines and one newspaper. Getting users to designate a Web site as their portal is the only way to guarantee that a user will visit a site every time he or she logs on. But the problem is more complex. It's tricky, Hoffman says. If we don't recognize that we have to make it easy for the newbies at the same time its challenging for the experienced users, there's a danger we'll lose the newbies before they even get on.
Theories point to 'imprinting' One way to sidestep the issue is to get to users first.
The Web may contain millions of pages, but, as Schoenfeld notes, not all are created equal. Many Web marketers swear by the notion of imprinting. This goes back to the research of Austrian naturalist Conrad Lorenz, who worked with greylag geese in the 1940s. New users imprint on certain types of brands very early on in their Web experience, when they are still surfers. This is, of course, a simple model for what is actually a complex series of waves.