from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
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)