Case Study: The Standard.Com Essay, Research Paper

The Standard provides critical and timely information about the Internet economy and furthermore gives a sophisticated coverage of the people, the companies, and the business models shaping it. Their content comprises insightful news analysis, business model reviews, personality profiles, and industry metrics, which support are both a print magazine, The Industry Standard and the online publication TheStandard.com.

The Standard is a business-to-business Web site designed for senior-level executives who wants to keep up with the e-business. However, The Standard does not look at products, it analyses the business models behind them, the people that create them and their chances to be successful in the electronic marketplace.

The audience consists of Internet business strategists and last year they had 450,00 unique visitors a month.

The Standard considers itself, and is considered, as the leading online magazine in the e-business field, hence they developed a targeted message: “TheStandard: Intelligence for the Internet Economy.” Their logo is very simple and also conveys the idea of effectiveness and professionalism because of its apparent simplicity.

The Web site has three columns on a black background. The left one is a menu, which is red, matching the logo. This menu constitutes the “solid” part of the design, meaning it is always there as the user clicks on different sections or articles. The middle part is white with a blue border and constitutes the frame that changes, where articles and links appear. However, leaving TheStandard’s main frame is not “just a click away,” as most of their links stay within their site. The last column on the left is for advertisings, which change as you click on different sections. Nevertheless, most of them remain business oriented such as Office.com, Visa or Worldcom. In addition, the site has a search engine located at the top of the main frame. The strength of this design is in the color code, red, black, white and blue, indeed, each section has its own code and this provide a strong identity to the different section and their relevance. The content is also neatly placed in the center of the screen and on each side there is room, assuring that most users will view it fully.

Bibliography

TheStandard.com