ASFD Pinnacle Website Proves More Popular Than Expected Website Intended for Press a Hit With Public

Furniture World Magazine

To make it easier for journalists to obtain information on this year's Pinnacle Design Achievement Award winners, in October the American Society of Furniture Designers (ASFD) created a new Web site. The decision was fortuitous, as members of the press have visited the site in unprecedented numbers. Surprisingly, the Web site has also proved to be extremely popular with the general public. For the past six years, ASFD has relied on mail distribution of compact discs (CDs) to the trade and consumer press to publicize the Pinnacle Awards. CDs proved to be slow to produce and were not as user-friendly as has been hoped. The time required to receive slides of the products from the designers and manufacturers, added to the time to create and print the CDs, meant that the CDs were not available to the press until mid to late November. Publications that needed pictures sooner were accommodated with duplicate slides. While the CD contained all of the text and pictures that a journalist would need to write articles on the Pinnacle, they did not allow "browsing" to see what the Pinnacle was all about. And many journalists (particularly those working for newspapers) simply don't have CD drives in their computers. In response to requests from the media, this year a Web site was created to provide journalists with product descriptions and pictures of the finalists before the awards presentation. To accommodate timely downloading of the large CYMK picture files by trade and consumer journalists, ASFD retained Doug Lowman, DNL Solutions in Hickory NC to create the special Pinnacle Web site. Lowman in turn used a new web hosting service, Lunarpages which provides optical, high-speed connectivity to the Internet. Access to the press Web site required access codes not available to the public. More than 100 high resolution and press book files have been downloaded per day, with more than 80 press users using the site by November 15. All comments were quite favorable-- so much so that it has been decided to eliminate the Pinnacle press CDs next year and rely on the website for the furniture trade and consumer press. Almost as an afterthought, a page was added to the regular ASFD Web site to present the Pinnacle results to the public without the need to register or log in. This page allows the public to view contact information and product descriptions for each of the 57 Pinnacle finalists and the winners in each of the 15 categories. In addition, the 228-page press book can be downloaded if a broadband connection is available. The public can view the same information as the press, but cannot download picture files. The almost instant acceptance of the visits per day have been recorded since the end of October. Strong interest was shown in all 15 product categories, with the greatest interest in Occasional Tables, Occasional Storage, Home Lighting, Home Entertainment and Bedroom. "This great interest from the public is consistent with claims made by several other organizations," says Karl D. Felperin, ASFD Pinnacle Awards Chairman. "Evidently, the furniture buying (or looking) public is using the Internet more to make their choices. Consumers who want to know what the best designed products are turn to the Pinnacle Awards." To visit the Web site, go to http://www.asfd.com and click Pinnacle Award. If you want "Press access" to download picture files, contact Christine Evans (email asfd@ac.net) for an Access Code.