Feature: Web site for professionals trades slickness for facts (July 1998)

Sony Electronics site favors information over a pleasing personality

Professionals often have very different needs than consumers when it comes to product information, and a Web site geared toward pros should reflect that.

The Sony Electronics Business and Professional Group Web site www. bpgprod.sel.sony.com is pretty bare-bones compared to virtually any consumer product Web site. Rather than glossy, worshipful photos and paragraphs of slick marketing copy, the site features no-

nonsense product specs and nearly clinical photographs designed to show how products work. In fact, some of the most important photos are of the back of products, so users can see what types of input and output options they’ll have.