Canadians don’t use their PCs to their full potential. That was a characteristic gleaned from focus group research by Toronto-based Microsoft Canada and it is also the raison d’etre for the firm’s one-month-old online venture, familywave.ca. According to Sue Borden, marketing manager for familywave, Microsoft discovered that Canadians didn’t know, for instance, that they could create shopping lists or a family schedule with Windows software.

The homegrown initiative also represents a demographic shift for the company – from focusing on tech-savvy users to typical Canadian households.

‘Canada is a wired country, so it’s a good place for us to be in terms of reaching a new set of consumers,’ says Borden, who adds that women are naturally a large part of this drive. ‘There’s a whole group of people we haven’t touched in the past. More people are online and more people have access to a PC right now.’

According to Statistics Canada, in 2001, more than 5.8 million or 49% of all households had at least one member who regularly used the Internet from home, an increase of 1.1 million over 2000. Furthermore, an earlier study from Stats Can indicated that women have closed the gap on men substantially over the years in terms of usage. About 22% of men surfed the Internet in 1994, compared with only 14% of women. By 2000, the proportion of men browsing the net had more than doubled to 56%, while the proportion of women had more than tripled to 50%.

Familywave.ca, which has a magazine feel, reaches out to consumers, and females in particular, with articles that are penned by journalists and organized into three categories – life, style and fun. For instance, a piece in the ‘life’ section describes how women are introducing their toddlers to computers, while a ‘style’ article discusses how to illuminate a desk properly. There are also service-type items specifically related to the PC, such as tips on how to file recipes and clean your computer, as well as information on Microsoft products.

Explains Borden: ‘It’s hard to educate with advertising campaigns. With familywave, we’ve tried to offer articles and tips that are easy to understand. It’s not full of tech talk. We want to make this something that everyone can come and use.’

In its first 12 days of being live, familywave drew approximately 72,540 page views, with limited ad support. Borden won’t disclose how much the site costs, citing competitive reasons, but says Seattle-based parent company Microsoft increased the Canadian subsidiary’s ad budget by 20% for the endeavour, which ‘it fully supports.’

Right now, the site is being promoted through online links with MSN.ca, but there are plans to run print ads this spring in women’s publications such as Today’s Parent, Canadian House & Home and Chatelaine. The objective is to drive awareness about the ‘online resource,’ and touch on what consumers will get out of familywave.

‘We feel like we’re providing value,’ says Borden. ‘If we can do a better job of showing people how they can maximize the experience, it’s a benefit for us down the road.’

After taking a gander at the site, Peter Mosley, a Toronto-based interactive consultant, gives it ‘two thumbs up.’ He describes the layout as ‘clean and appealing,’ and is impressed by the Microsoft News Groups, which can also be reached directly from Microsoft Outlook.

But, he points out, the Internet hasn’t reached the masses just yet. ‘Think of it as a baseball game,’ he explains. ‘We’re at the first batter of the first inning in a nine-inning game. Microsoft has seemingly seen fit to enter the mainstream – or at least try – by offering a magazine-style site to offer folks, who are probably new to the Web, a chance to get quick info and break down barriers to entry.’

Mosley suggests familywave will indeed help break those barriers through features such as its comprehensive glossary and article section, which will help new users comprehend technological jargon. However, he believes that in order to truly assist Web neophytes, familywave should ‘step outside of the Microsoft box and offer some of the tried-and-true info to new surfers,’ such as a bookmark file of ‘must have’ URLs, including the likes of Google, Canada.com and theweathernetwork.com.

‘The site on first blush has some useful information, but could really benefit from more relationship building with the users – a newsletter or membership would be nice,’ he adds. ‘I [also] wonder about the familywave.ca name. What does it stand for? Is it confusing in that it isn’t totally branded as being Microsoft?’

In addition, he stresses that Microsoft has to make it relatively simple for ‘newbies’ to find the site, through some channel partnerships with the likes of Yahoo, as well as by investing in broader traditional advertising.