Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 63

Martha Stewart and e-commerce

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collect recipes, project instructions, and gardening ideas. These kinds of free items
are considered “fish food” (Siegel 26). Fish food is something free that is offered
to attract visitors to the Web site and to lure them back for subsequent visits. The
invitation to visit Martha by Mail was also offered, but this offer was extended
well after the invitation to visit the site for other purposes {Martha Stew art Livings
1998, February, 40).
The user encountering the site in 1997 would have found the splash page
offering a different visual and textual accompaniment each week. The splash page
provided the user with some tidbit of information about gardening, cooking,
decorating or holidays. The user then entered the site and tunneled to the recipe,
gardening, entertaining (etc.) information. If the user wanted to go to the virtual
store after reading about a product in the recipes, gardening, or craft instructions,
tunneling was required to reach that destination. Today, the splash page provides
the user immediate access to the Web store.
Registration, then and today, requires the visitor to provide personal
information: name, address, e-mail address, phone number and a screen name.
Further required information details the visitor’s areas of interest. An interesting
aspect of