Volvo is using the Internet almost exclusively to push its more modern, sexier S60 to a wired buyer’s market. “They’re Boxy, But They’re Good!” was the parody slogan coined for Volvo in the ‘80s movie Crazy People. In the year 2000, Volvos are no longer boxy, but they’re still good. This is due in large part to the Volvo Car Corporation’s effort to make your dad’s car appealing to you. To rope in the moneyed thirty-something demographic—“people who are technology oriented,” says Phil Bienert, Volvo’s west-coast head of marketing—the company has just launched their Revolvolution campaign (www.revolvolution.com). Based …

In its broadest definition, streaming media is a constant current or flow of mass communication. Thanks to this technology, users can listen to music and watch video in real time over the Internet. So, how does it work? Let’s use streaming audio as an example. When attempting to listen to music over the Internet, users are faced with two options. They can download the entire audio file to their computer or they can stream it. Downloading the entire file takes too much time and hard disk space. But, by using technology such as RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, users can …

Branding has been an obsession for advertisers for decades, and since the Internet has come of age, emerging as a whole new medium their question has been “can the Internet be used for branding?” The answer, at least for now, is yes—as long as we’re talking about “brand awareness.” Why brand awareness and not brand creation or building? In short, because banners don’t make us cry, says John Rubino, managing partner for Landor Associates, a leading brand-consulting firm that has assisted Microsoft, Federal Express and other well known companies in staking out brand dominance. Banners, sponsorships, classifieds, referrals, …

I recently received the :CueCat reader in the mail and, like many Internet toys that I run across, I greeted it with both skepticism and curiosity. This reader is a cat-shaped, handheld plug-in device about the size of a computer mouse that scans and reads any product code (i.e., the little black bar UPC symbols that are on virtually every product sold). The :CueCat reader interacts with supplied software and converts the scanned codes into web addresses that can launch a web browser to the corresponding web page. The basic idea is that—with just a swipe of the reader—it …