THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 25, 1995 TAG: 9510250449
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: KILL DEVIL HILLS LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
With the click of a button, computer users across the world will be able to watch the waves breaking at Outer Banks piers, see a hang-glider soaring over the Atlantic or tour a Hatteras Island rental home.
The Outer Banks is scheduled to have its own ``Cyber Mall'' by January, complete with color storefronts and window displays that computer users can enter and browse around. Shoppers in Spain could order hammocks from Nags Head without making long-distance phone calls. Real estate companies in Duck could reach potential customers in Denmark, providing them with up-to-the-minute information about what properties are available for which weeks of the summer for a specific range of prices.
Possibilities for local promotions in an international market are endless, said computer expert Cliff Allen.
``The World Wide Web gives you the graphic capabilities of television, the immediacy of radio and the permanency of printed newspapers all rolled into one,'' Allen told a group of Outer Banks business executives who gathered at the Ramada Inn on Tuesday.
``One virtual, cyber mall can promote your entire area on a much bigger scale than merchants could ever hope to do themselves,'' said Allen. ``For $35 a month, you can make a local call to your Chamber of Commerce and get your information sent all over the world. Plus, you can interact with the people you're reaching on computers. The more you interact with them, the more likely you are to retain them as customers.''
About a dozen barrier-island businesses already are on-line, subscribers to Internet and World Wide Web. Representatives from at least 30 other local organizations are interested in joining those services. They attended a three-hour seminar Tuesday to learn more about the evolving opportunities of marketing on an international computer network.
``We now have 150 subscribers to the Internet through Interpath - and more are coming on-line every day,'' said Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce Executive Director John Bone, whose group sponsored the $50-per-person seminar.
``We have our own `home page' and are now bringing people to live and invest in this community who we couldn't reach just three years ago. Let's all be part of this technology so we can show the world what's happening on the Outer Banks,'' Bone said. ``We get calls from people in Raleigh who want to know if we have indoor plumbing around here. We need to get as much information out there as possible so people around the world will know that the Outer Banks is not just some backwater community.
``We need to pull all the local merchants together on the Web and link all our resources together so we can do more for this area - and more for our own businesses.''
Now, Outer Banks businesses have their own individual home pages on the Internet. These pages describe the businesses' offerings, provide interactive information about the most frequently asked questions and include graphics or photographs of specific services.
The ``Insiders' Guide to the Outer Banks,'' for example, already offers its full-color travel book on-line. Hatteras Realty displays its 1995 brochure and pictures of each house on the international computer network. And Kitty Hawk Sports sells everything from sunglasses to kayaking equipment through its computer advertisements.
``We've had a very good response to the Internet page so far. But we still have a great deal to learn,'' said Real Escapes president Lilias Morrison, whose Duck realty company has been on the Internet since May. ``It's important for us to be in as many places as possible on the computer networks so that people can find us more easily.''
Bone and two other Outer Banks businessmen hope to link all of the local ``Home Pages'' together through a single cyber mall so that anyone looking for any type of information about the area could start at a single spot. Net surfers could click onto the mall, see a square for each individual business, then enter a window showing surfboards, a catalog of clothing, or even original artwork created by local artists.
Already, 116,000 commercial companies around the world have pages on the Web; 2,000 American educational institutions are on-line; and 10,000 nonprofit organizations have their own home pages.
Russ Lay and Tim Keagy of Outer Banks On-Line Solutions hope to help those numbers soar by including more Dare County customers in their soon-to-open cyber mall.
``We want to provide free sites for the National Park Service, state parks like Jockey's Ridge and nonprofit groups like the Surfrider Foundation and Nature Conservancy,'' Lay said. ``We're going to promote this mall with e-mail on special events and advertise activities to bring people down here in the shoulder season.''
Virtual storefronts in the cyber mall will rent for $50 to $100 a month, Lay said. Designing a home page for the Internet costs from $500 to $10,000 - depending on how complex the creation is. Businesses that already are on-line will be able to buy a link from the mall for $25 to $50 a month.
``We're thinking of everything from having a live teleconference chat room where people from around the world could interact with Outer Banks residents instantly; to offering daily fishing reports; to providing on-line coupons for Internet users,'' said Lay. ``We can get you going for $1,000 or less. That's cheaper than the Yellow Pages. And it can be just as permanent because anyone with their own printer can save whatever information they want to out of those cyber mall screens.''
Most of the participants at the morning seminar seemed excited about the range of opportunities that new computer technology would bring to their businesses. Representatives from Chesapeake Medical Specialists, a local T-shirt company, the Pointe golf course in Currituck, the Village at Nags Head and Gray's Department Store were among those who attended.
Outer Banks artist Glen Eure seemed interested in displaying his original paintings and prints on computer screens around the globe.
``What's the possibility of this thing becoming counter-productive, though?'' Eure mused, about half-way through the presentation. ``I mean, if people can visit the Outer Banks in virtual reality, they might not feel they need to come here.''
Lay did not share such concerns. ``I don't think anything will replace what human nature tells you to do,'' he assured the artist.
``People will be even more anxious to come here and experience this place first-hand - with all their senses - after they've visited us on the Web.'' MEMO: TO LEARN MORE
For more information about on-line possibilities for the Outer Banks
- or to include your business in the upcoming cyber mall on the Internet
and World Wide Web, call the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce at (919)
441-8144 or Outer Banks On-Line Solutions at (919) 480-1859; e-mail and
Internet address is: russlay(AT)interpath.com.
by CNB