brochureware
<marketing, jargon> Planned but non-existent product like vaporware, but
with the added implication that marketing is actively selling and promoting it
(they've printed brochures). Brochureware is often deployed to con customers
into not committing to an existing product of the competition's.
The term is now especially applicable to new websites, web site revisions, and
ancillary services such as customer support and product return.
Owing to the explosion of database-driven, cookie-using dot-coms (of the sort
that can now deduce that you are, in fact, a dog), the term is now also used to
describe sites made up of static HTML pages that contain not much more than
contact info and mission statements. The term suggests that the company is
small, irrelevant to the web, local in scope, clueless, broke, just starting
out, or some combination thereof.
Many new companies without product, funding, or even staff, post brochureware
with investor info and press releases to help publicise their ventures. As of
December 1999, examples include pop.com and cdradio.com.
Small-timers that really have no business on the web such as lawncare companies
and divorce laywers inexplicably have brochureware made that stays unchanged for
years.
[Jargon File]
(2001-05-10)
Nearby terms:
broadcast quality video « broadcast storm « Broadway
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brochureware » broken » broken arrow » broker
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