Big Things Come in Small Packages.

• Author: Cutting, Bill
• Position: Brief Article

With the explosion of the Internet as a medium of software distribution, the importance of the CD-ROM as a workhorse has diminished considerably. But don't count the CD out yet. Scores of innovative firms find the compact disc to be a cost-effective, interactive tool to help marketers link customers and prospects to the Internet.

A number of these firms are in Utah. ProClix Interactive, for example, develops special CD-ROMs -- "CardRoms" -- as marketing solutions for companies that want to provide just enough rich media to intrigue, excite and entice clients to click through to a corporate website for the big payoff. In exchange for their information, customers receive some promotional item.

The real payoff for marketers, according to Proclix Interactive founder Mike Brian, is the ability of each CardRom to track and measure user activity -- offline and online -- via the ProClix server. No bigger than a business card, CardRoms are distributed via direct mall, dealer showrooms or trade shows. ProClix has produced disks for Mountain View Software, True-North Communication's Modem Media, Campus Pipeline, and has a project in the works for Saturn.

Seven-year-old Provo-based Crystal Canyon sees the CD-ROM as the key element in something called "the 2010 Web experience. This means the CD-ROM, in tandem with the Internet, delivers today what you'll get from just the Web in the year 2010. Case in point: Crystal has a patent pending on an item called eTagz, a card-sized CD-ROM designed to hang as...