Helping a friend put together a business plan in a determined effort to salvage his struggling business, I rummaged through some boxes of old books. These things had been gathering dust for a few years and were due to be dumped or sold off somewhere, but you never know what insights you'll find in old books.
What I found was instructive, if not encouraging: an old copy of "The Australian Internet Book" from 2000. If I'd read better, instead of dismissing the discouraging tone of the writing as the author trying to sound knowledgeably disdainful, I'd have had a good insight into the realities of the Internet in Australia, and Australian culture and society.
Under the title, "What is worth buying?" are the words:
"Online shopping is easy but solitary. It is price effective but hands off. You do not get to try before you buy.
As a result, things that are difficult to find, vary greatly in price, or that are not considered fun to buy, sell well online.
The items that score top in the online shopping surveys are books, music CDs, and computer software. Likewise, travel, employment and investment services hae been building for some time."
I remember commenting on the negative tone of this book 5-6 years ago. It's probably why it sat in a box for years, too. But the authors - Geoff Ebbs and Maryanne Phillips - had a very good grasp of the society and the state of technology. I just refused to believe it because of my own intellectual stubbornness - and the forced anticipation (read: "irrational expectations") of a lucrative new market for my skills.
After all, 2000-2001 in the US was still the rising tide of the dot-com bubble. There wasn't even a hint that it would burst back then.
In order to hang onto that happy anticipation, I had to ignore the comparison of statistical realities between Australia and America:
- In America, nearly 40% of households had access to the Internet;
- and more than 35% of those households had purchased using credit cards off the Net;
- broadband of any form - cable, ISDN, or DSL - was a hot demand across the country.
- In Australia, less than 15% of the nation had access to the Internet;
- and it was stretching reality to find 15% of those who were willing to buy anything off the Net.
- Internet banking was just being introduced in Australia;
- I'd been paying my bills via the Net for nearly 5 years in my rural California town.
- Americans saw the Internet as a new medium for free speech, entertainment and commerce;
- Australians were wary of putting any personal details, especially financial, onto this frightening new means of intrusion.
Amazon and Google had only risen to prominence, - supplanting smaller, less-technical services. America was still waiting to see if these "great new ideas" were going to work. Australia didn't want any part of these untested technologies.
The phrases from that old book may seem silly now, but only to some. Even now, 7 years later, Australia is about where America was then, but with all the resistance and baggage of the dot-com collapse. Australia is still being dragged - kicking and screaming - onto the Internet by government, banking and telecomms.
A solid 20-25% of Australian households and businesses simply refuse to have Internet access because they "see no need".
The Rough Barren Landscape
One good thing about a rough landscape is you can pick out the landmarks. There isn't a lot to distract from them. A long look across the Arizona desert will tell you it's going to be hard going, but you can always see the mountains day or night. And a rough land has a beauty all its own.
That's a fair simile for the state of the Internet in Australia still.
There are few markets where a little research can reveal an almost comprehensive view of the resources for search engine marketing in the US or Europe. It's pretty much possible in Australia.
SEO is an almost unknown term. In fact, it seems to be a rejected foreign term in the aussie vernacular. The standard of website development is strikingly low. Nationally familiar sites are only moving to accommodate standards in the last year or so. Many can still be quickly flagged as loose or just plain sloppy.
Mountains in the distance
Government and academic institutions have taken the entrepreneurial role from small companies, and are squashing them, suffocating innovation and creativity. Government and financial institutions dominate ecommerce activity. Government-subsidized enterprises, partially-privatized vendors, offer more than just supporting services. These institutions have become enterprises competing with the growth of individual or small enterprise.
It's fairly easy to find the majority of directories and search engines for listing: look for links from these institutions. Every TAFE and university has one or two for training students. They represent the mountains in the distance used for triangulating position.
A very small number of specialized directories are privately held, and they service distinct industry segments. Predictably, since many industries are economically shallow in Australia, only primary industries like mining have successful, effective topical directories.
Small entrepreneurial efforts to develop search engines and directories exist, but are lonely anomalies in the landscape. Still worth supporting, their relative worth to the cost involved is difficult to judge.
New pathways are not trusted
Even fewer are the blogs and free publication sites.
Free speech is a guarded thing in Australia, and the concept of blogging - citizen journalism - is still foreign and distrusted in the aussie mindset. The Australians' reticence to reveal their contact details and credit cards has some validity since the government is not bound by constitutional limits. Insightful statements are kept to guarded conversations in private; not put forward for the broader public to read. I've been warned not to say too much in telephone conversations about my real opinions, which left me speechless.
Even revealing technical or business expertise is considered "bad form."
It's a guilt thing. The sensibilities of those who are not technically savvy are offended because they know they should know more of this stuff. It's just rushing past them, and they resent it.
New ideas are not trusted. Blogs are new ideas. It's really that simple, compounded by a weak education system that produces a society-wide sense of inadequacy and insecurity.
Heading off on an unknown path, trusting to a knowledgeable guide, is not done. There is a childish petulance that arises. This petulance literally will take years to overcome.
Free publication articles to illustrate expertise is considered "bragging", even after it's been demonstrated as a common business practice, and a valuable means of driving traffic to a site while establishing links.
The stubborn reticence is being overwhelmed by pressures from government and social expectations, but manifests itself in silly ways. Despite the national push towards broadband, where the computer stays connected to the Net all the time, more than 50% of those computers have no firewall, ineffective if any antivirus protections, and no spyware protection. Tens of thousands of expensive new computers are grinding to a halt because they're simply overwhelmed.
Yet the owners seem happy to continue to expect a computer to run like a fridge.
This sort of reticence to understand and work with computers builds on itself into a sort of boogeyman. It may mean that more money moves around in the economy, but it also hampers economic growth and the independence of individual productivity.
It's not the dark nights really
When you add into this mix the fact that 2.3 million, or 96.4% of registered businesses, - and the employers of 85% of the working people in Australia - are small businesses with gross incomes under $2 million a year, the outlook and present state of ecommerce and SEM becomes clear. Less than 10% of these companies are using the Net for commerce. Of those, most are using secondary webpages offered by directories; not their own hosting and domains. Many, even companies that are involved in technology, are using what is considered outside Australia as unprofessional contact methods such as email addresses from hotmail and Yahoo.
For these reasons and many others, it will be years before Australia lives up to its market promise, if ever.
If the amendments to copyright law are strictly enforced, it will never happen. Australia will become a dark corner of the Internet, vulnerable to attack, and with shrinking future.
As if the mountains never got any closer.
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