Surfin' the Internet for The Green Industry: an overview

by Hans C. Groot, Ph.D.

"The Internet" -- love it or leave it ... but just keep in mind that you can't get away from it as this 'virtual world' continues to grow by leaps and bounds and increasingly affects how you can retrieve information and do business. It's an invaluable source of information.

In this new column for the Pacific Coast Nurseryman [PCN], we'll begin to explore how this relatively new communication network is affecting the Green Industry. We cautiously use the terms 'begin' and 'explore' as in this phenomenally growing virtual world there are no clear answers and we have not yet even begun to see any light at the end of the tunnel. There is really no one way the net is or can be used and almost daily someone comes up with another way to increase its usefulness.

This first column will provide a sampling of the internet and what it offers. Future columns will dig a little more into specific topics -- information databases, retail use of the internet, B2B or business-to-business websites, Green Industry related organizations and their use of the net, government agencies and what they make available on the web, and more. We'll also take a look at the net from the perspective of the homeowner -- what's out there if you are interested in houseplants or gardening.

As we cite any specific information in this column on e-mail addresses or websites, we'll give you the information that will enable you to link to them. This column also will be posted on the PCN website [http://pacificcoastnurseryman.com] and there the column will have 'hotlinks' permitting you to link directly to either the e-mail address or website.

As PCN's state purpose is to serve The Green Industry, we decided to take a look at what various search engines include under this umbrella. Keep in mind that these search engines base their indexing of internet information and website on the basis of what is published there. For example, if you have a nursery website but did not include the words Green or Green Industry in your site's 'hidden' description, a search based on Green Industry is not likely to find or include your site in the search results.

We used four fairly common search engines and we list in order of the number of Green Industry sites each found - Netscape (34), Go To (40) Yahoo (118), Alta Vista (200), Lycos (628,367) and Excite claims it found an incredible 2,928,095 websites.

While many of the sites found, clearly had some association with the Green Industry, the search engines also found Greenville, Greenwich, Greensboro, green tea, the Green Bay Packers and an article on green card lottery scams. The indexing systems, in other words, are not perfect but can begin to lead you in the right direction.

So what did we find? Nurseries, trade associations, a floriculture network, university and extension services, tools, consulting firms, plant and tree locator services, a company that produces software for the industry, information on industry shows, farm management and monitoring systems. It also included such sites as a credit reporting agency, a listing of classified ads, several sites listing jobs in horticulture, and industry directories. We also found a number of business-to-business (b2b) sites that try to link suppliers with consumers - such as wholesale nurseries and retail nurseries.

The list of 'finds' was not limited geographically. It included sites from the U.S., Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and various European countries.

In future columns, we'll start visiting some of these sites.