ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION A contract development team was building a Website for a client organization. The Website was to include up-to-date drug information and was intended to be used by physicians as a substitute for the standard desk references they currently use to look up such drug information as side effects, interactions, appropriate uses, and data from clinical trials. The business model for the site was an advertising model. Physicians would visit the site regularly because more current information would be available and that information would be more readily findable on the site, relative to published desk references. Pharmaceutical companies would buy advertising for their drug products on the site because the visitors to the site (physicians) represent their target market. Regular and increasing traffic because of repeat visitors, and new visitors joining based on word of mouth among physicians, would drive up the value of advertising, generating a profit for the client.
