While the Internet’s World Wide Web works great as a fancy display device, the real power of the Web lies in interactivity. Indeed, with the right interactive programming, a Website can be transformed into a sophisticated marketing and sales tool that offers every visitor a highly personalized, highly responsive experience.

Says Stella Gassaway, coauthor of Designing Multimedia Web Sites, published by Indianapolis, in-based Hayden Books: ‘Multimedia applications have transformed the Web from a publishing medium to an interactive medium. The word `interactive’ has come to represent the most dramatic demonstrations of user control.’

In essence, these next-generation Websites take advantage of a simple truth. People who take the trouble to visit business Websites are generally extremely thirsty for information. Take the time to offer slick ways to slake that thirst, and there’s a good chance a ‘Net cruiser’ can be transformed into a Net customer.

Fortunately, one of the inspiring things about the Web is that new twists on slick interactivity are emerging all the time. What follows is a sampling of key interactive elements that every next generation Website should consider:

Website search engines: Too many Websites are little more than elephantine filing cabinets floating in cyberspace. There’s plenty of information, but digging for it can be irksome. On-site search engines help solve this problem by fetching very specific data.

Practise with search engines like Yahoo or Excite, and then decide how you can put a search engine to use on your Website.

A good industry model can be found at Vancouver-based CIVT-TV’s site (www.vancouvertelevision.com), where visitors can quickly search for news stories by key words.

Data drills: A variation on the search engine, data drills enable Website visitors to narrow their quest for information to an ever-finer point. With every point-and-click, they get closer and closer to the precise data they really want.

Terrace, B.C.-based CHBC-TV (www.chbc.com) features an excellent data drill, which visitors can use to quickly find a show they like, and then click on its title to retrieve a detailed update on the programming.

Special-interest data domains: Website designers cannot anticipate the frame of reference of every visitor that stops by. But there are certain groups of people who tend to stop by every site, and this is where a special-interest data domain shines.

At Calgary-based CICT-TV (www.cict.com), newshounds can access a searchable database of the station’s news transcripts. And at Lethbridge, Alta.-based CISA-TV (www.cisatv.com), visitors can work with a searchable database of agricultural topics covered by ag reporter Ian McDonald.

Cool tools: Besides the obvious online helpers, some firms have come up with some innovative solutions to catapult their sites beyond the everyday.

CICT, for example, offers Webheads a live camera (Webcam) view of the city that is updated periodically. Not overly practical, but that’s not the point.

Smart freebie downloads: Nothing enamors a Net cruiser like the availability of free data, software and the like to download. Victoria’s CHEK-TV (www.checktv.com), for example, offers audio recordings of the station’s Monday-Friday 5:30 p.m. newscasts – free for the downloading.

And Toronto’s Citytv (www.citytv.com) offers links to hordes of cool downloads from the MuchMusic site. Here, the currently way jaded hip can download sneak previews of computer games, an interactive jam session, 3D flythroughs and music videoclips.

Yet another station with free downloads is Edmonton’s CITV (www.citv.com), where visitors can download a utility program enabling them to view ITV news headlines while they surf the Web.

Text-only option buttons: Here’s an offering where less is definitely more.

While too many Websites seem to feature every technological bell and whistle known to man, savvier Website builders realize that many people cruising the Net with low power 28.8 K modems and low-power PCs.

Smart Website builders accommodate these cruisers by enabling them to ‘click’ to ‘text only’ versions of their sites. The result: these people can get to the data they want without being forced to endure interminable download times for the fancy graphics, frames, etc. they don’t want anyway.

Over-the-Net job applications: This is a no-brainer that should be a part of any Website looking to recruit new talent. Some sites allow prospective employees to apply via free-form e-mail. Others offer highly detailed interactive job application forms, which enable the business to begin screening potential employees right off the Web.

At CKPG-TV’s site (www.ckpg.com), based in Prince George, visitors can apply for work via free-form e-mail.

Message boards: Online bulletin boards or ‘forums’ were one of the first ways Net users began forming cybercommunities. Messages can be posted at a Website for all to see and for all to comment upon. Voila – instant public square.

CIVT has caught the public square bug with cyberforums devoted to ‘Today’s Hot Issue,’ ‘National Issues’ and ‘Today’s News and Views.’

CITV also has a free-for-all message area, where visitors can pose whatever is on their minds.

Online mailing lists: Mailing lists are a unique Internet communication tool. Circulating the Internet the same way e-mail does, they have the added capability of enabling all subscribers to both read and respond to messages on the list.

One subscriber may post a thought-provoking message, and 15 more subscribers may respond to the list with their own reflections – which can be read by everyone else subscribing to the list.

For the latest skinny on mailing lists, check out Liszt (www.liszt.com). The free service currently tracks more than 80,000 mailing lists circulating the Net.

Ask the expert: One of the easiest ways to build business relationships and goodwill is to offer free – and valuable – expert advice over the Web. In the case of Edmonton’s CFRN-TV (www.cfrntv.com), that translates into an invitation to post pleas for aid from the station’s consumer watchdog, Valerie Ocakowski.

Chat rooms: The chat room is the application that catapulted America Online to the premier spot among Internet service providers. Essentially, it’s generally a place where 30 or so people can ‘congregate,’ and exchange live text messages with one another over the Net. Everyone in the chat room gets to read anything anyone else feels inspired to type. City, for example, offers a link to a chat room for Electric Circus.

And that, as they say, is just for starters. During the coming year, look for ever more interactive technologies to continually raise the bar on Website responsivity.

For example, look for text-based mailing lists to begin proliferating on the Web. Essentially an online newsletter, businesses can use them to stay in immediate touch with their customers’ needs and concerns – while simultaneously maintaining the promotional drumbeat for their services.

But perhaps most ‘bleeding edge’ in the world of Web interactivity are panoramic VR Websites, which offer visitors photo-realistic, 3D-like representations of products and environments that irresistibly suck visitors into the action.

Given that panoramic VR works best only on high-end PCs with high-speed Internet connections, the medium probably will not catch on until after the millennium. Nevertheless, it’s a technology that should be tracked, if only to be aware of what the next level of Web interactivity will be.

Currently, interesting Web-based panoramic VR work is being done by firms like Infinite Pictures (www.smoothmove.com), View360 (www.view360.com), Evox Productions (www.evox.com), Communique (www.cvcmedia.com), and Infinite Pictures (www.smoothmove.com).

While some industry Web designers may grumble about the prospect of a site upgrade, it appears next-generation Websites, rooted in interactivity, will soon be considered de rigeur across the Web. And in the process, the Web will be transformed into something eminently more useful, personable – and profitable.

Joe Dysart is an Internet business consultant based in Thousand Oaks, ca. Voice: (805) 379-3841. Email: joedysart@aol.com.