2.3 - The components of the Hip Webzine

The Hip Webzine consists of a home page with links from that page to a number of short articles: a mixture of features and regular columns. The home page also contains links to a "tour" for newcomers and to a page of information about Hip itself and some of its clients.

2.3.1 - The cover page

By "normal" Web design guidelines, the Hip Webzine cover page is long, taking up approximately four screens of information (Figures 5 through 8). (9) One of the initial design goals for the Webzine was to try and optimize the speed with which the cover page is displayed by keeping graphic elements small and reusing them elsewhere in the Webzine. (10) Most of the cover graphics lie below the first screen-full of text, which means that the reader will quickly have something to read, while the rest of the graphics are being copied over the network in the background.

There are several identical copies of the Webzine's cover page under different names, with each copy being referenced under slightly different circumstances. The first copy (which I will refer to as "clone 1") is referenced by readers who go directly to the Webzine via the company's URL (http://www.hip.com); a second copy ("clone 2") is only referenced internally within the Webzine itself, through links back to the home page from Webzine columns and articles; the third copy of the home page ("clone 3") is referenced only through links from elsewhere on Hip's other Web sites, (11) but outside of the Hip Webzine. Since each page reference (or "hit") is logged by name to the Web server's logfile, these three clones of the Webzine cover page make it possible to distinguish between several types of usage, and to gain a rough but useful insight into readership patterns.

The tracking that the clones allow is "rough" because there are several possible reader actions that will interfere with the intended purpose of the separate copies of the Webzine cover page:

It is possible for someone to initially encounter the Hip Webzine through an alternate route (via one of the links from one of Hip's other Web sites), arriving at the "clone 3" copy. They may then "bookmark" the clone page, and in future return repeatedly to the Webzine itself through that bookmarked address. Each return visit, since it will request the "clone 3" copy by name, will be logged just as if the reader had arrived via a link from one of Hip's other Web sites, although in fact the type of reference was a direct, explicit request for the Webzine.
Similarly a Webzine reader may "bookmark" the cover page after returning from reading a Webzine article (i.e. after returning to the "clone 2" copy). Again, return visits - since they will request the clone page by name - will be logged as if they were internal references within the Webzine, although the type of reference would again be a direct, explicit request for the Webzine.
Page caching, either local to the reader's browser software, or remotely, on a proxy Web server, will result in gaps in the Web server's logfile. This is because page references which can be satisfied with cached pages do not result in Web server "hits", and hence will not be logged to the logfile at all. Thus repeated re-readings of the cover may not be recorded.

All of these factors - and others - are significant obstacles to any attempt to derive reliable estimates of online readership patterns by way of logfile analysis, as discussed in greater detail below.

2.3.2 - The page of information on Hip

The top of the Webzine's cover page contains a few textual links (Figure 5), including a link to a page of information about Hip Communications itself (http://info.hip.com/info/). This page serves as a kind of self-promotional brochure, a way for potential clients to learn a bit more about the company.

In addition to a brief corporate profile and history, the Hip information page describes the services that Hip offers to companies who are wanting to set up a Web site. Links are also provided to Web sites which Hip has already designed and set up for other clients. (12)

2.3.3 - The Webzine "tour"

One other link at the top of the Webzine's cover page takes readers on a "tour" of the Hip Webzine. The tour begins with a page including five vaguely provocative statements (Table 1). Each statement is a link that takes the reader to a "departmental tour" page containing a blurb about the corresponding Hip Webzine department and a registration form providing readers with an opportunity to join the Webzine's mailing list.

Statement links on the first page of the Webzine tour	Taking readers to a tour page about the following department
I want to learn about artsy things - like what are they on!	Art & Music
I want to tattoo my tongue and be a guest on Oprah!	Pop Culture
I want to know what's happening!	Alphabet Soup
I want to know what's happening tomorrow!	Self Abuse
I want to run around in my lacey underwear!	Sex & Scandal

Table 1: Links on the first Webzine tour page

With this division into discrete pages, it is possible to examine the Web server's logfile and determine which tour pages (and hence which Webzine departments) attracted the most interest among new readers. In fact this was one of the reasons for the inclusion of a Webzine tour. The logfile seemed to show that the "Sex & Scandal" section attracted the most interest, (13) with the "Art & Music" section coming second. However at least two factors would make interpretation of the logfile data difficult.

The linking statements (while provocative and irreverent, in keeping with the "hip" editorial image fostered by the Webzine) may be too vague to provide a clear link in the reader's mind with any specific department's intended editorial focus.
The ordering of the statements themselves within the list may influence which sections of the tour are explored by the new readers. It is not possible to know, for example, if a link was chosen based on its position within the list (exhibiting the effects of primacy and recency noted in Schiffman & Kanuk's Consumer Behavior (Schiffman & Kanuk, 1994: 306)), or because of the semantic content of the linking statement. (14)

Originally the Webzine tour had a different structure than that described above. In its initial form (Figure 9) each "departmental tour" page contained duplicates of the statements linking to the other Webzine departments. In addition, the registration form encouraging readers to join the Webzine's mailing list was located below these links, off-screen (and hence required scrolling to view).

Figure 9: The original topology of the Webzine tour pages

The restructuring of the tour was intended to address the fact that a low percentage of readers were registering their names on the Webzine's mailing list, despite evidence in the logfile showing a high number of new readers taking the tour. It was suspected that Webzine readers taking the tour were jumping from one "departmental tour" page to another by clicking on the descriptive links, and rarely scrolling down to find the mailing list registration form. The restructuring eliminated the links from the top part of the "departmental tour" pages (compare Figure 9 with Figure 4). The body copy was revised to bring the mailing list registration form up, and a new one-button registration form was used. These actions seemed to be effective, since the number of people requesting new subscriptions showed a significant jump upwards in the week following the publication of the issue containing these changes (Figure 10). By coincidence that week was also the week when Mark Schoen was interviewed on a New York morning talk show. Mark Schoen is a Hip Webzine columnist and the president of Focus International (a Hip client whose site contains a link to the Webzine).

This peak in new subscription requests can be indirectly attributed to an increase in visits to the Focus site following Mark Schoen's media exposure. This in turn resulted in a spillover of visitors to the Hip Webzine by way of the link on that site, some subset of which would have found and taken advantage of the simplified and more visible mailing list registration form.

2.3.4 - The Webzine's mailing list

The Hip Webzine is not the only online magazine which maintains a mailing list as a way of staying in touch with its readers. Many other online magazines use some kind of "subscriber" list, either to contact readers when a new issue is published (as the Hip Webzine does), or to track activity by individual "subscribers" (as both the HotWired site (http://www.hotwired.com/) and Molson's I Am Online site (http://www.molson.com/) do).

Starting in April of 1995, the Hip Webzine began to use a customized version of some standard mailing list software known as "Majordomo." Majordomo automatically handles subscription and cancellation requests, and provides a weekly summary of activity to the list administrator. Table 2 shows a summary of the Webzine mailing list's activity over the term of my internship. The algorithm connecting the various figures is not described in Majordomo's documentation, however the numbers (particularly such fields as "Total transactions" and "New subscription requests") are useful as indicators of relative activity levels from week to week.

In the second week of June Hip experienced serious technical problems with the Majordomo software, which resulted in the complete loss of the names of the mailing list members. This is evident from the figures in the "Total subscriptions" column of Table 2. Since there was no backup copy of the mailing list, this was a serious blow to the Webzine, roughly equivalent to a magazine losing contact with its entire subscriber base. On the Internet, where mass mailings (known as "spamming") are taboo, the Hip Webzine was just one small island in a vast sea of World Wide Web pages, cut off from its readers. With no way to actively solicit new readers or to reach its old readers, the Hip Webzine had to take a more passive approach, rebuilding its mailing list from scratch: a slow process, as the table entries between June and October show.

2.3.5 - The Hip persona

As part of the "hip" image which the Hip Webzine sought to cultivate, an imaginary person named Jane (15) was created, in whose voice the Webzine's editorial content was cast. Jane was, in effect, a projection of the female "type" that the Webzine's target market might fantasize about meeting online. She was bold, full of double entendre, completely at ease in her high-tech environment, "a popular gal with much on her mind" (to quote from the Webzine's cover copy), and mildly dismissive of those not as "hip" as she.

References to Jane appeared both on the Webzine's cover page (see Figure 8) and in the Hip tour for newcomers, where browsers are encouraged to get in touch with Jane, who will inform them each time a new issue of the Hip Webzine is published on the World Wide Web. Those who registered their names on the mailing list would receive a message such as the one shown in Figure 11, which announced the publication of Issue 8 of the Webzine.

2.3.6 - Webzine departments

The middle portions of the Webzine's cover page also functioned as a table of contents for the issue. It was divided into five sections, or departments, (16) as shown in Figures 6 and 7. Each department was identified by a small logo and graphic header, and contained between one and three columns per issue. Each column or article was listed beneath the section's header, with a brief teaser sentence, and a link to the article's first page. The irreverent section headings provide another example of the cocky, "overgrown adolescent" tone that the Webzine cultivated. They also illustrate the Webzine's slightly "fuzzy" editorial focus, where the boundaries of several of the departments are not immediately apparent from their name (e.g. "Self Abuse" and "Alphabet Soup"), and might well overlap.

The Webzine's division into departments occurred only on the cover. Article page's provided no clue as to which department they were part of. While the inclusion of a department's graphic header would have served this purpose, it was seen as a choice between the faster display speed of graphic-free pages, and a stronger visual identity for the departments, with Dick choosing the faster display speed.

2.3.7 - Webzine articles, columns and columnists

Each article and column was segmented into two separate pages with a "continue to next page" link at the bottom of the first page. This structure was chosen for two reasons:

it broke each column into two screen-sized pieces
it required an explicit action (a mouse click) for a reader to complete a column. Since each mouse click would be recorded in the Web server's logfile as a separate page request, it became possible to determine which columns were being read to completion and which ones were losing readers after a sample of the first page.

Near the top of each column's first page were two links: the first a link back to the Webzine's cover page, and the second a link "back in time" to previous columns by the same author. Thus a reader interested in a particular columnist's work could follow a chain of links back through all previous issues of the Webzine.

Not all columns appeared in all issues of the Webzine. Since articles and columns were contributed pro bono, authors submitted material as the spirit moved them. The Webzine's irregular publishing schedule meant that only the most dedicated of these writers persisted beyond two or three issues. Fortunately, as writers drifted away, others would appear, just as eager to break into print.

The most constant members of Hip's pool of writers were Mark Schoen (author of the regular "Speaking of Sex" column, and president of Focus International), Gayle Ginsburg (Hip's astrologer), and Randy Shore (also author of a regular column in The Vancouver Echo community newspaper).

Each of Hip's columnists was provided with an EMail address, which readers could use to send comments or questions to the authors. However, since Hip's system did not easily allow EMail to be checked from off-site and since most of the authors did not yet have Internet access, these EMail addresses served mostly as drop-boxes. Authors would periodically drop by and inquire if there were any messages for them; there was very little in the way of two-way conversations between readers and writers.

Since Focus International is one of Hip's paying clients, Mark Schoen's regular column in the Webzine served a dual purpose for Hip. The "Speaking of Sex" column was popular in its own right (logfile statistics show that it was the Webzine's most popular feature - see Figure 17). This popularity might serve to boost readership of the Webzine as a whole. As an added bonus, Hip stood to benefit indirectly from the column though a form of cross-marketing: since the Webzine includes a Focus logo and links to their catalog on its cover page, Webzine readers would often leave the Webzine to browse through the Focus material. Hip's arrangement with Focus International was such that they received a percentage of any sales coming through the online catalog.

2.3.8 - Sponsorship and advertising on the Webzine

Hip Communications made only limited use of sponsorship within the Webzine and had little or no staff time devoted to attracting advertising for the publication. Since Dick Hardt had initially hoped to derive some revenue from the sale of advertising space on the Hip Webzine, he had had a media kit prepared in an attempt to attract advertisers for the inaugural issue.

The media kit touted the Webzine as "the world's first commercial webzine" and invited interested companies to be "one of the first advertisers to actively participate in the Web." A demographic profile of Web users was provided, with the media kit noting that companies advertising on the Webzine would "be able to identify, understand, and communicate with the people who are shaping our future." Sponsorship of a Webzine column could be arranged for a fixed period of one month, for a one-time set-up fee of $1000 US.

Response to these flirtations with sponsorship was muted. Prior to my arrival, several issues of the Webzine had included a logo-sized graphic for SoftQuad, the software company which created HoTMetaL PRO (an HTML Web publishing tool). At one point in mid-summer Dick Hardt was approached by an advertising broker, placing ads for clients on an assortment of Web sites. As a result of that contact, two issues of the Webzine featured a sponsorship arrangement with CDNow (http://www.cdnow.com/), a Website which markets CDs on the Internet. The last few issues of the Webzine had no sponsor presence at all, other than the regular arrangement with Focus International, mentioned above. (17)

Footnote 9:
Yale's Center for Advanced Instructional Media's Web Style Manual suggests that WWW pages contain no more than two to three screens worth of information (Lynch, 1995). (back)

Footnote 10:
With most Web browsers, graphics are cached locally when they are first transferred, making subsequent references to them much faster. (back)

Footnote 11:
As an example the Web site of Focus International which is also housed on Hip's server, contains an explicit link to this incarnation of the Hip Webzine's cover page. (back)

Footnote 12:
Although the Webzine provides a link to the information page, it is interesting to note that the link is not bidirectional, since the information page makes no mention of the Hip Webzine. This seems to be an indication that Hip is gradually disassociating itself from the Webzine's image. (back)

Footnote 13:
A fact born out by logfile readership statistics, which show that the two most popular Webzine columns were "Speaking of Sex" and "Dear Dick," both appearing in the "Sex & Scandal" section of the Webzine (see Figure 17). (back)

Footnote 14:
Note that the "Art & Music" section, which attracted the second highest number of hits after the "Sex & Scandal" section, was located at the top of the list of links. (back)

Footnote 15:
The name "Jane" was selected to partner "Dick" (after Hip Communications' founder Dick Hardt), as in "Dick and Jane" (back)

Footnote 16:
Issues 1 through 5 of the Webzine also included a Humor department. This section was dropped with Issue 6 due to a shortage of material on hand. A Fiction department was also planned, but was no longer a part of the Webzine when I arrived. (back)

Footnote 17:
Since Focus is a client of Hip Communications, this arrangement was strictly quid pro quo. (back)