Copyright 2002 by Richard Seltzer
Originally published by Wiley. The rights have reverted to the author
Please post your reactions/comments/suggestions at Blogging about Books
http://www.samizdat.com/blog/?cat=10
For examples of large-scale businesses based on this concept of online community, check: about.com (which now includes the expert service allexperts.com), clickzforum.com, workz.com, ivillage.com, office.com, smallbusiness.com, and lifetips.com.
Those businesses have staked out broad territories and, in some cases, use sophisticated technology to accomplish their ends. With your site, you might want to target a narrow, well-defined niche and serve it well by simple means that are within your budget and your capabilities.
Such environments build on the old Internet culture of sharing and helping with no expectation of payment. It's a culture of pull rather than push, where unsolicited mailings are taboo. If you invite people to come to your Web site, and make it interesting and useful enough, they will not only come, they will return, and bring their friends. To be successful with such a business model, you need to understand the old Internet culture, respect it, and work within its bounds.
Required assignments:
• participate in the "Business on the Web" chat program
• set up your own forum or regularly scheduled chat
The Internet isn't an alternative to human contact (like a one-player videogame), but rather enables human contact -- removing such constraints as shyness and self-consciousness, and barriers like physical distance. Many people have problems initiating or engaging in face-to-face conversation with strangers. They feel vulnerable, and have learned to be cautious. They may be wary of what they say even to friends, for fear of how it might affect their relationship. Online, you can have a wide variety of relationships -- from simple asking and answering questions to building business partnerships and emotionally intimate relationships, without feeling the same sense of risk that you would in the physical world. You can build businesses around Web environments in which people can interact in these new ways, with a focus on particular niche subject areas.
Imagine a series of concentric circles, like the orbits of planets in a solar system. People-to-people interaction is in the middle, with the gravitational/attractive force of the sun.
Next comes the circle of free information -- everything that libraries, educational institutions, governments and well-meaning individuals and companies have made available.
Next comes the Value-Added Services zone. This includes information by paid subscription and all the tools and services that help you find just what you want when you want it. People are willing to pay more to get less -- if it's just what they want. Even if the raw information is free, it can be worth a lot to be able to find the right information when you need it. This could include access to specialized databases, participation in specially staged on-line events -- including opportunities to interact with celebrities and experts, participation in on-line training/distance education courses, opportunities for multi-media personal interaction, and mixed media services (combining Internet use with CD ROM, telephone, radio, or television). The list keeps getting longer.
The farthest circle is the realm of transactions, where people buy and sell ordinary goods by credit card. The goods are branded and available through many different sources, both offline and online. People shop for convenience and price. Competition is intense. Loyalty to a particular vendor is slim.
In other words, the gravitational pull of the Internet as a whole is toward users interacting with one another and toward the rich resources of free information. In building your online business, you should try to take advantage of that tendency rather than fight it.
Try to create a Web site that not only provides information but also acts as a place for visitors to talk to one another, share their insights, express their opinions, and help one another. You can do this simply by inviting reactions to the articles that you post, and including those reactions in the form of on-line Letters to the Editor. You can also take advantage of the free facilities of such sites as Topica and Yahoo's eGroups to build your own email and Web-based discussion areas. You can schedule regular events, with invited guests, in free chat rooms. And you can use summaries and simple links from your main Web site to tie together this wide range of activities that actually take place at multiple sites.
With some business models, your value added might include your editing and selection -- choosing just the right remarks from participants to highlight and to encourage reaction to. In other business models, you keep the raw input expecting that, as with talk radio, for certain subject matter, the candid comments of ordinary people in the audience can be compelling.
Don't interpret this advice as a formula for easy success. You are competing with millions of other Web sites for the attention of visitors. Your competition is just a click away. It takes considerable dedication and creativity to provide real value and earn the loyalty of your audience. But it need not take much in the way of money and technology.
You could start with a controversial article aimed at a targeted audience. For instance, I posted "DEC, not Digital: doing the right thing. An experiment in human engineering", the introduction to a book I plan to write. I received many replies to that piece and posted the best 50 or so with the original article, providing a much broader range of perspective and opinion, and much more detail than the original article itself. The fact that you post responses helps elicit more responses, from people who would like to have their opinions heard not just by you, but by the audience they presume your page has generated.
But don't focus too narrowly. If you have a variety of interests and would be happy to have your site and its audience grow in a variety of directions, post diverse material and add new material based on the response you are getting -- both in terms of traffic and in terms of feedback. As mentioned earlier, a random article of mine about Halloween, www.samizdat.com/hallow.html, turned out to be very popular. And in making plain text versions of public domain books available, I discovered that they were very important not so much to teachers (my first target audience) as to the blind, who could read them with text-to-voice converters.
Whenever you add responses to one of your articles, go back to the search engines -- or at least to AltaVista, which is the most prompt in entering new material -- and resubmit the page. The added content should mean that your page gets found more often and that you should get more responses, leading to more content and more traffic.
When you start getting so many replies that manual editing of static documents becomes tedious, that's time to consider using software designed to make online interaction easy to manage.
When you shift to this realm, you can use the replies you've already received to jump-start the discussion. People are much more likely to get actively involved when they see interesting and provocative content and lots of participation from other readers.
Check the free forum offerings at delphi.com, multicity.com, or (if your interest is educational) at nicenet.org. Delphi boasts "Over 2 million registered users. 80,000 active Forums. 50,000 messages each day. 10 million+ total messages."
At Delphi, first click on Help for detailed instructions and lots of practical advice on how to set up and run your own discussion areas.
Because everyone doesn't have to be connected to the Internet at once (as is the case with chat rooms), forums let you carry on discussions across barriers of time as well as space. Your crazy schedule and time zone differences needn't get in the way of discussing recipes or disk drives with anyone, anywhere. And you don't need to hurry your response -- you can think about it for days, weeks, maybe for months before posting. You can go back at any time to see what you said and what others replied. And you can point others to the site to see what's there and join in.
QuickTopic.com offers another very interesting alternative. You can post your article at their site using their utility to upload it from your hard drive. They automatically add "comment" markers at the beginning of each paragraph. You can remove any of those markers or add new ones. Once you have approved the look of your page, visitors can click on those markers to view what others have said or to post their own reactions there. They give you a unique URL which you can tell friends about by email or can link to from your pages. This can be as private or as public as you want. For an example, check http://www.quicktopic.com/7/D/PxSrLHbs5xFD.html, where I've posted an article of mine entitled "The Power of Words on the Internet -- Content-Based Internet Marketing." Please feel free to comment.
As an alternative, consider using the free facilities of QuickTopic, Topica, eGroups (groups.yahoo.com), or Quickdot.com They provide the means for automated list management (people add and subtract themselves, without you having to be involved). And the same discussion content can be made available both by email and on the Web in forum-style. All those sites are set up to help people like you get started, with easy-to-use software, clear explanations, and abundant help.
In contrast, chat software allows numerous people to exchange text messages
simultaneously in the same "session." Chat is often used for quick, casual,
anonymous one-liner conversation. As soon as you type your message, it's
available for others in the same session to read. When a dozen or more
people actively participate at the same time, it gets very difficult to
read what is said and even more difficult to follow the multiple threads
of conversation. You need to read fast and type fast, but if you do, and
if the topic is up
your alley, the experience can be exhilarating and stimulating -- whether
you are flirting or flaming or brainstorming.
The problem with forums is a matter of human nature -- we tend to procrastinate. We know that we can post and read there anytime that we want, so there is no urgency. If a conversation really gets going, then the momentum can carry it along. But it is often difficult to get that kind of interactivity going. The discussion needs to reach some critical mass before it becomes compelling. Yes, we intend to participate, just like we intend to follow through on New Year's resolutions; but more often than not, it just doesn't happen.
Chat on the other hand has immediacy. When a chat topic is scheduled for a particular time, you either connect, or you miss it. Chat also can generate energy and enthusiasm and stimulate useful ideas because of the element of live interaction.
In other words, the tool you need depends on the job you want to do.
There are two different varieties: IRC [Internet Relay Chat] (the chat rooms you can find by way of Liszt.com) and Web-based chat. IRC requires that the user install separate software. Also, in most cases, people who are behind "firewalls" -- security shields erected by companies or individuals to protect their systems from hackers -- cannot participate in IRC chat, unless settings are changed in the firewall (which corporate security people will rarely change). In other words, if you want to appeal to a business audience, avoid IRC chat. Web-based chat often only requires a browser, though sometimes users may need to quickly download a little "plug-in" program for their browser. Typically, Web-based chat works fine, regardless of firewalls.
Also, the free public chat rooms provided by major portals like Yahoo (chat.yahoo.com) and discussion sites like Delphi and Multicity are typically temporary. You create them when you want them, and they go away when they are inactive. And they typically do not give you a way to save the transcript of a session.
If you want to experiment and practice or hold informal meetings, the free chat rooms may be just fine. But if you want to set up a regularly scheduled chat event as an important part of your business, you'll probably want to pay for professional-quality service.
My favorite discussion software company is Sitescape, www.sitescape.com, which has a hosted service at www.webworkzone.com That's where I hold my weekly chat sessions about Business on the Web, and also where I have my Bootcamp forum area, for discussion related to this book. I hold my chats on Thursdays from noon to 1 PM, US Eastern Time (that's GMT -5 during standard time, and GMT -4 during daylight savings time). Please join in to get a feel for this environment and also to ask questions related to the subject matter of this book. For details on how to connect, as well as edited transcripts of previous sessions (dating back to June 1996), go to www.samizdat.com/chat.html Also, please feel free to participate in the Bootcamp forum at www.webworkzone.com/bootcamp
SiteScape Forum was originally developed at Digital Equipment, by people with whom I worked in the Internet Business Group, back in the early days of the Web. It is a very robust and rich piece of software. I love it not just because I am familiar with it, but also because many of its features reflect suggestions that I expressed to the developers along the way. It is the practical fulfillment of the most important items on my discussion-software wish list.
What are those items?
• The user only needs a browser (nothing to download).
• Designed for peer-to-peer discussion (where everyone has the right
to speak at any time, without the intervention of a moderator or facilitator).
• Threads of discussion clearly visible while the chat is going on
(you can click on the message you are replying to, so participants see
the relationship of one message to another).
• Transcripts automatically saved (so you can later review what was
said, and also as content to add to your Web site, to attract more traffic).
• Transcripts viewable in threaded form (by topic, rather than just
by the time of postings).
• Content in transcripts searchable (SiteScape Forum has AltaVista
search software built in, for searching locally through all of your discussion
areas. The pages are also well-constructed for being indexed by public
search engines, if you so wish. Many other discussion solutions do not
make this possible. As a test, cut and paste the URL of a forum-style posting
in the ADD URL area at AltaVista and see if the crawler can find that page).
• Both chat and forum capabilities in the same environment, so you
can continue the discussion or post followups late, without the time-urgency
of chat.
• Users can display all messages, not just the current few.
• Viewer controls the pace at which messages appear (Some chat software
displays each messages as it is entered; but in an active session the messages
can fly by faster than you can read them. SiteScape Forum normally refreshes
automatically at fixed intervals, but gives me the option to click Pause,
and then Resume to set my own pace.)
I've comfortably managed chat sessions at SiteScape with as many as two to three dozen live participants. In addition to my weekly chats, I've used it for business meetings, for online consulting sessions, and for course-related discussions (including office hours) in distance education.
If price is no object for you, you should consider Webex for professional online meeting services. They are set up to handle events of all sizes and kinds. If you have a large company, you can engage their services by subscription. Otherwise, you can sign up for their pay-per-user service, for which they now charge 35 cents per minute per user. That might make sense if you are holding a half hour meeting with a couple of other people. In that case, you'd wind up paying $21. (Even then, you might have been better off with long-distance telephone). Webex might also make sense if you hold a chat with a celebrity or expert and charge your audience to participate. Then, if demand is high enough, you can insist on your customers signing up in advance and can charge them enough to make a comfortable profit beyond the Webex charges.
If you are planning a very large event -- up to 2500 people in an "auditorium style" environment -- with PowerPoint slides and voice and streaming video, as well as text chat, you should consider Placeware, www.placeware.com But for optimum performance in their environment, the participants need fast Internet connections and powerful PCs; and, in some cases, firewalls can present problems.
You might also want to consider the paid services and related marketing offered by ArsDigita www.arsdigita.com, TalkCity www.talkcity.com, or Yack www.yack.com
You can find dozens of other related services, by searching at Yahoo or Open Directory http://dmoz.org. But if you have a serious interest in building a business around online discussion, you should ask for advice from participants in the eModerators discussion list at Yahoo's eGroups. To subscribe, just send email to eModerators-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Their discussion focuses on distance education, but much of the experience shared there is of value for any kind of online discussion. Also check the related "Resources for Moderators and Facilitators of Online Discussion" at www.emoderators.com/moderators.shtml
That's one of the major advantages of online interaction as opposed to automated processes. Automated processes need to be clearly, carefully, and completely defined to meet every eventuality. Interactive encounters can take place in a loose framework, with people setting and following agreed-upon rules, rather than being forced, robot-like, down a single path.
For instance, you might schedule a guest expert, and anticipate more participants than you could normally manage in a peer-to-peer environment (with everybody having the right to post whatever they want whenever they want). You want questions to go through the guest or a facilitator helping the guest, rather than appearing randomly on the screen. You'd like to control the pace of discussion. You'd like the online equivalent of having people raise their hands. For that, you could go to a specialized service that is setup for auditorium-style chat. Or you could simply set a rule that if you want to be recognized, you should post a message consisting only of a question mark ? and wait to be recognized by the guest/facilitator. Then if it turns out that you don't have as many visitors as you anticipated, or they don't have many questions, you can simply rescind the rule, and encourage peer-to-peer style postings.
For example, you can set up:
• Open chat rooms -- live unscheduled chat sessions with random or
self-selected sets of participants.
• Interest-based chat rooms -- live unscheduled chat sessions, with
separate rooms for participants with different tastes and interests.
• Celebrity events -- where a public audience gets an opportunity to
interact with a celebrity at a scheduled time. This can be auditorium-style,
with a small percentage of questions submitted ever reaching the celebrity.
Or it could be partitioned, with a small number of people paying to actively
participate and a larger audience in read-only mode.
• Team meetings -- for invitees only, with registration and password
protection, held at a fixed time and following an agenda.
• Distance education/training sessions -- linking teachers and students,
with the teachers controlling the direction of the discussion and setting
the rules for participation.
• Product support and help desks -- unscheduled chat where people with
problems and questions connect to get immediate answers from experts.
• "Business chat" -- (the way I use the term) scheduled public discussion
where business people share their experience and knowledge with peers.
The host invites expert guests, sets the agenda, and facilitates the discussion.
All are welcome to join in and all have equal status. All can post at any
time; all can ask; and all can answer.
As you plan and build your chat program, don't limit what you do to what today's software makes easy. Do what will help your audience and promote discussion, and bring you business value, regardless of the tedious work involved. Your business needs should drive the technology, not vice versa. The more you know first-hand about the headaches and the benefits of business chat, the better you'll be able to pick what's right for you as more powerful, easier-to-use software and services become available.
Please post your comments at our blog, http://www.samizdat.com/blog/?cat=10
This site is Published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. (617) 469-2269. seltzer@samizdat.com
For a library for the price of a book, visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
Return to B&R Samizdat Express
Check our sitemap page www.samizdat.com/sitemap.html from which you can get to any other page at this site in one click.
| Internet Business Showcase: | |||
Dog Training and Pet Care Veterinary, Dog/Cat Veterinarians |
Viatical Settlements RFID Tags, RFID Readers Link Popularity & Link Exchanges |
Hair Restoration for Hair Loss Hair Restoration Plastic Surgery & Surgeons |
Used Cars Guide Homecoming & Prom Dresses Dropship & Wholesale Sources |