edited by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com , www.samizdat.com
Permission is granted to freely distribute this newsletter in electronic form for non-commercial use. All other rights reserved.
Send your comments, letters to the editor, and related articles to seltzer@samizdat.com For information on who we are check www.samizdat.com/who.html
To access other issues, go to www.samizdat.com/ioad.html. The full text of all issues is available for free, with hypertext links to the sites referenced. (Please keep in mind that URLs frequently change. We will attempt to update the information in this on-line edition, but don't expect perfection.)
For plain-text books on CD ROM, a library for the price of a book, visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
You can now receive Internet-on-a-Disk by email, by signing up
at Yahoo Groups. Either send email to subscribe-ioad@yahoogroups.com
, or register at the Web site http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ioad.
You can also use that group to discuss related matters and share insights
with other readers and with me (Richard Seltzer seltzer@samizdat.com).
Table of Contents
Articles --
Learn to ask the right questions by Richard Seltzer
Web site style -- how to appeal to a general audience by Richard Seltzer
Barter and swapping sites -- an alternative to online auctions by Richard Seltzer
New electronic texts -- from Gutenberg
Do you want to start doing business on the Internet or improve your existing online business? If so, your first task should be to learn enough about Internet business to know what to ask.
Typically you'll go to in-house experts or specialized service companies, tell them what you want, and get exactly what you asked for. But often that turns out to be the beginning, not the end of your troubles. Sooner or later, you discover that what you asked for isn't really what you need or costs far more than an alternative approach that you never would have imagined.
Answers are easy to come by. It's asking the right questions that is hard.
You aren't alone. Internet business has grown so quickly that it has led to the proliferation of specialties. You can turn to different service companies for Internet access, email, Web hosting, Web page design, electronic store services, and a wide variety of Internet marketing specialties, like "search engine optimization." Each might do an excellent job within its own sphere, but the pieces need to make sense working together, and need to be designed with your business goals in mind. You want a Web site that attracts and serves potential customers, rather than one that wins design awards.
To succeed, you don't need to become an expert in everything, but you do need to know enough so you can ask the right questions.
You need to familiarize yourself with a wide range of interrelated opportunities, some of which you may never have heard of, but that could give a boost to your business. That means not just reading a few books, but also getting some hands-on experience so the answers make sense to you, and also so you can properly evaluate the potential costs and benefits.
You don't need to learn about every aspect of ecommerce. You do need an appreciation for factors and opportunities that are interrelated. For instance, Web design is often handled by a different department from marketing or by an outside service company. But design affects whether and how well search engines can index your pages, which can have a major impact on the traffic to your site and the kind of marketing expense it will take to meet your business goals. And while advanced design techniques may require advanced training and artistic/creative talent, everything you need to know to understand search engine requirements is very simple, and can be done by anyone who can type, just using Word. Here marketing managers with a little hands-on experience in creating Web pages and some basic knowledge of how search engines work are in a much better position to make sure their companies' design efforts support business and marketing goals. Similarly, experience in reading and posting comments in newsgroups and email discussion groups can give you a feeling for the immediacy and candor of the dialogue there, what kinds of postings these audiences appreciate and what quickly stirs their wrath. Soon, you should develop an appreciation for the risks and possible benefits of using such unofficial channels to try to spread word about new products and services.
Likewise, managers responsible for ecommerce success should get hands on experience buying and selling stuff from their attics at auction sites, like eBay. There they can gain an appreciation for person-to-person online interaction and the effect of your reputation on customer demand and the prices you can command. There, too, you can learn the power of simple tools -- like email -- for finding out what customers really want and why. You can complete your sales simply and effectively by email, learning that ecommerce is not dependent on automated transaction solutions. And you also can gain an appreciation for time-consuming tasks like record keeping and fulfillment, and give some thought to how such tasks can be simplified and organized. With such experience, you can learn a lot about the personal dynamics of the Internet and the logistical challenges facing any ebusiness. Having a feel for what it takes to conduct business manually can give you a better appreciation for the potential costs of automation in lost customer interraction as well as in dollars spent. And that insight can then lead you to ask good questions about how to maintain customer contact and learn from customers, while serving them well, and filling their unique needs in an automated environment.
Hands-on experience for managers? Even managers at large companies? Yes. Definitely. The Internet business environment differs radicallly and in unexpected ways from the traditional business environment. It involves unexpected risks and opportunities. And to make effective decisions, you need an appreciation of the range of choices and the implications, which can only come from direct experience. You don't need to become an expert, but you do need to know enough to ask the right questions when talking to your experts.
A home page often tells you from its basic design what kind of audience this company is trying to appeal to.
Take a look at CNET's Download.com. What you see on the first screen (before you scroll down) consists almost entirely of links, without a single sentence of explanation. The designers presume that people who come here know why they come and know what to do, are curious to try out neat new things, and have downloaded/installed dozens if not hundreds of other programs. They know what to expect and why. For them, the fewer the words the better. Just make everything "intuitive" and they'll figure it out.
Next look at Learnlots. Here the home page is dominated by explanatory text. And if you click on the links to check their free tutorials, once again you see sentences and paragraphs. In fact, they explain everything step-by-step in excruciating detail. Many of their tutorials deal with technical subjects. But they spell out every step, rather than presuming that the reader knows the basics or can easily guess what to do. In fact, how to use Download.com would make a good topic for a Learnlots tutorial.
Download.com caters to hobbyists, enthusiasts, and early adopters of new software. Learnlots caters to a general audience.
Hobbyists/early adopters would find the Learnlots style annoying. They don't want to have to read anything. Once they download a piece of new software, they don't want to have to read a manual either -- ideally, they should be able to figure out what to do just poking around, and by recognizing similarities to the user interface of other popular software.
General users may well be bright and curious, but they prefer to have the context explained, to be led through what needs to be done the first time around.
Hobbyists/early adopters are like do-it-yourself travelers, who are happy to be dropped in the middle of a foreign city, and can quickly orient themselves, who enjoy walking through the streets alone, figuring things out for themselves, and making their own discoveries.
General users tend to buy guidebooks and maps. They would prefer to go on a tour or have a native guide or at least have a friend-of-a-friend to contact.
Some businesses try to reach both kinds of audiences. For instance, Deja.com, which started as a search site for newsgroups, with a hobbyist/early adopter type audience, has tried to shift focus and become a shopping recommendation site, with a general audience. But today they have a patchwork home page that's confusing and annoying to both kinds of people.
Other businesses create separate home pages for different audiences, even when the underlying service is the same. For instance, AltaVista created Raging Search as a no-frills alternative to their general-user portal. Raging's home page closely resembles that of Google , with just a search box and a couple links, and no explanation whatsoever.
In many cases, new businesses start out appealing to early adopters, who can be reached with a minimum of marketing effort. You get some folks who are active in users groups, newsgroups, and email discussions to try out your new product or service; and they help spread the word -- enthusiastically telling their friends, and getting a charge out of being one of the first to discover this great new thing. These folks require relatively little support. They can figure out a lot on their own, with very few clues. They also like to play with their new toys, coming up with creative new applications, and providing valuable feedback about what works and what doesn't.
But often such a business needs to quickly reach a general audience, to raise the number of users to significant, impressive levels in order to attract venture capital. This is Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm in speeded-up Internet mode. The kind of Web site that worked great for the early adopters and got you 10,000 registered users in just a couple months is not likely to work for the general users you need in order to reach 100,000 or a million users.
The difference is not just a matter of technical vs. general vocabulary. In fact, the successful early adopter site might use no technical words at all.
The difference is that you cannot presume that general users have technical common sense. You cannot presume that anything is "intuitive." You need to clearly state what you are trying to do, why someone would want to use your product or service. You need to provide a context for understanding your business right away on the home page. And you need to make it easy for those who want clear, detailed explanations to get to them. Ebay does this extremely well. Their home page is set up to cater mainly to return users, who don't require explanations. But right near the top, they address the needs of newcomers. You see "Welcome new users", with choices: register, new to eBay?, how do I bid?, how do I sell? and why eBay is safe. When you click on any of those choices, you get page after page of text, all written for an audience that not only is new to eBay, but that has never bought or sold anything at any online auction.
Also, the hobbyists and early adopters catch the drift of what you mean quickly, even when you use hyperbole.
But general users tend to interpret what they see at Web sites literally. Broad claims that work great at catching the attention of early adopters can be misleading and confusing to general users. You can easily disappoint them or leve them feeling tricked or cheated if you are imprecise. Don't expect them to read between the lines or edit your claims based on their common sense knowledge. Simply say what you mean.
So when the time comes to appeal to general users, redesign your Web site. Provide a clear description of what you are about right on the home page, and make it easy for new users to get to voluminous detailed explanations. And at the same time, revisit your marketing messages, avoiding exaggeration. Try to crisply state exactly what you do and why general users should take notice. Your aim should not be to attract attention, but rather to set the right expectations.
Keep in mind, that while early adopters are easy to reach to begin with; they may also lose interest quickly, always looking for the next new thing.
Treat general users with respect, appeal to their intelligence, and give them all the details they might possibly want. And if your service meets their needs, they'll take the time to read and learn, and become loyal repeat customers. These are the folks you want to build your business on.
If you want to clear out your attic or find rare items or shop for used merchandise at bargain prices, you can try online auctions, like eBay; or you might want to check another set of Web sites designed to help Internet users barter or swap merchandise with one another.
For instance, MrSwap.com specializes in music, movies, and videogames -- mass market merchandise. That limitation greatly simplifies their business. Buyers know what they are getting, and know what it's worth. For popular items, there are likely to be many listings of each at any given time, meaning that you are likely to find the item you want at the condition and price you want, quickly.
As a seller, you don't have to waste time describing your items or taking and posting photos. MrSwap already has photos on file, together with links to ratings, reviews, and additional info for all common music, movies, and games. You just indicate the condition and the price, and your listing for that item will appear on the same page with everyone else's.
You can become a member for free, and they claim they have over half a million items up for sale.
They use an intermediary payment system -- SwapPoints -- to facilitate swaps. In other words, instead of direct payment of cash between the parties, and instead of having to barter directly, where you have something another person wants and that person has something that you want (which could be difficult to work out), everybody deals with MrSwap. When you sell something, you get SwapPoints; and when you buy something, you spend SwapPoints. If you do more buying than selling, you can pay for SwapPoints from MrSwap at $1 a point.
For the first 20 items you list at the site, you get 20 SwapPoints that you can use immediately to get whatever you want.
When you find an item you want, you request it by clicking the "Swap" button. MrSwap sends an email to the member who listed the item. If the seller confirms, MrSwap sends you an email confirming the deal. SwapPoints get transferred when the buyer confirms receipt.
Shipping is another unique aspect of dealing at MrSwap. They only handle limited kinds of merchandise, of known size and weight. When a swap is confirmed, they send a stamped pre-addressed envelope to the seller. The seller just puts the goods in the envelope and drops it in a mail box.
You pay for shipping and handling at the time you make your offer (by debit or credit card or by funds you previously deposited at MrSwap by check or money order). The transaction goes through when the deal is confirmed.
On the one hand, that mechanism simplifies matters. You don't have to concern yourself about getting envelopes that are the right size, and you don't have to go to the post office to get the package weighed and buy postage. But you end up paying MrSwap a small premium (the "handling" charge) on every item you buy. And their sending out the envelope means it takes longer for you to get what you want.
Like at eBay, there's a rating system. But here buyers just rate sellers, not vice versa, because MrSwap acts as the intermediary. The rating seems intended primarily to help keep people honest when they describe the condition of their goods. At eBay, there are many more variables and much of the action takes place directly in email between buyer and seller; so sellers can rate buyers, as well as vice versa.
Another major barter site, WebSwap.com, deals in all kinds of merchandise. The only limitations relate to legality and good taste.
Membership is free and there's no transaction fee (for now). You can list what you want to buy, sell or swap, with your own detailed descriptions and photos (very much like eBay). You can say you only want cash deals, or can indicate their your willingness to swap.
There is not time limit built in and no bidding, and hence none of the urgency and excitement of an auction. This is more like a fleamarket.
The matching is done primarily by WebSwap's software, though you can browse or search on your own, and when you view a descriptioin, you also see a list of everything else that person is interested in buying, selling, or swapping.
If there's a match at the time you post, WebSwap lets you know right away. Otherwise WebSwap emails you later, whenever a match is found. When you get notified about a match, you can click on the item to see the description, can request more info and can see the owner's rating history. Then you can click to make an offer or delete the match.
As at eBay, ratings help keep people honest. Ratings are given to the person sending something by the person receiving it. In cases, of a swap both parties can rate one another.
Unlike eBay, all the communication goes by way of the Web site, instead of direct email between buyer and seller. With the listing, you just see the username and the city.
When someone makes an offer, WebSwap notifies the seller by email, and that person accepts or rejects or makes a counteroffer. Only when a deal is agreed to does WebSwap let both parties know the real names and shipping addresses. If money is involved, you pay WebSwap, and WebSwap pays the seller. After a two-week waiting period (to make sure that everyone is satisfied with the deal), WebSwap cuts a check and sends it to the seller. That puts WebSwap in a position of control, adding an element of safety; but it also eliminates all the human contact that leads to much of the fun of online auctions, and it also means there's a long lag from consummation of the sale to receipt of payment.
To explore other similar sites and what they have to offer and how they operate, go to AltaVista and do a search for
barter* swap*
If you are interested in a particular kind of merchandise and would like a site that specializes in that, add those words to your query. Don't worry about the fact that you'll get millions of matches -- the matches at the top of the list are the ones that are most likely to be useful to you.
Keep in mind that shipping can be a headache when you deal with non-standard merchandise with weights that are hard to estimate and sizes that are hard to fit in a convenient package. It may be quite easy to help people get together and arrange swaps over the Internet. But packing and shipping large items -- like lawnmowers -- can be so complicated, time-consuming, and costly that it just isn't worth the effort.
I believe that problem opens up an opportunity for local businesses -- combining old style fleamarkets and Internet-based matching. Why not set up a site that lets people list their items and make initial contact; then if it looks like they may have a deal, they can get togther at a particular parking lot at a regularly set time. There the buyers and swappers can inspect the merchandise, finalize deals, and drive home with what they bought. And while there, buying or swapping based on contacts made over the Internet, these same folks may see other things they like and make deals for them too. In this case, the commerce takes place very much as before, but the Internet helps ensure that buyers, sellers, and swappers don't waste their time.
If you come across any businesses that work like that, please let me know.
Adding dozens of new titles every month, Gutenberg has already made over 2800 etexts available for free over the Internet. These include classic works of literature and history, as well as out-of-print and little-known works by great authors. If you can, connect by ftp, rather than the Web, to get the most recent ones. Here's a list of those recently added, alphabetized by author. The file name is useful for fetching the text from the ftp site. Many of these are available now or will be soon on diskette from PLEASE COPY THIS DISK for those who cannot get them themselves. For the current catalog, check http://www.samizdat.com/catalog.html.
William Harrison Ainsworth -- Windsor Castle (wndsr10.txt)
E.A. Allen -- The Prehistoric World (prehw10.txt)
Dante -- Inferno (translation by Longfellow) (1ddcl10.txt
Charles Darwin -- Animals and Plants under Domestication, volume 1 (1vapd10.txt)
Arthur Conan Doyle --
John Galsworthy --
T.H. Huxley --
Henry James --
Andrew Lang -- Myth, Ritual, and Religion, volume 1 (1mrar10.txt)
Mohammed/Mohammad -- The Koran/The Q'uran (koran10.txt)
M.D. Post -- The Sleuth of St. James Street (sosjs10.txt)
Marcel Proust -- Du Cote de Chez Swann (swann10.txt)
Howard Pyle -- Otto of the Silver Hand (ottos10.txt)
Henryk Sienkiewicz -- Quo Vadis (quvds10.txt)
Oscar Skelton -- The Canadian Dominion (cndnd10.txt)
William Makepeace Thackeray --
John Webster -- The Duchess of Malfi (malfi10.txt)
Return to Internet-on-a-Disk
Go to Readers' Room
and Writers' Showcase
My
Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities
by Richard Seltzer, on CD, includes four books, 162 articles, and 49 newsletter
issues that will inspire you and provide the practical information you
need to build your own personal Web site or Internet-based business, helping
you to become a player in this new business environment.
Web
Business Boot Camp: Hands-on Internet lessons for manager, entrepreneurs,
and professionals by Richard Seltzer (Wiley, 2002).
No-nonsense guide targets activities that anyone can perform to achieve
online business
success.
Reviews.
A
library for the price of a book.
This site is
Published by Samizdat Express, 213 Deerfield Lane, Orange, CT 06477. (203) 553-9925. seltzer@samizdat.com
.
<