Archives

As we close out 1995, the year business discovered the Web, we move into the period of hard work. 1996 will be the year that the Web finds its ground and begins to mature.

After all is said and done, there was one stellar tool that no web-marketer should have done without. It was sometimes sophomoric, sometimes lost in silly tangents but most often at or near the edge of discovery. We read it passionately (sometimes) and wished it would just go away (other times). But through the year, this one tool stood out.

If you're serious about Web Marketing and you don't have a subscription to The Internet Marketing List, you're kidding yourself. We're proud to name it our 1995 Cool Marketing Tool of the Year.

If you haven't yet, go to the website and subscribe. Or you can subscribe by sending email to IM-SUB@I-M.COM. Archive-note: This list shut down in July 1996

You've got to admire any service willing to call itself Red Alert. A product of the Internet Resources Group, Red Alert is designed to either relieve you of this fear or let you know that you aren't being paranoid. They check your server four times an hour and notify you when there's a problem. For roughly $20/month/URL, they'll tell you about your performance problems. Calls to your pager are optional. They offer a 30 day free trial.

That's not to say that user generated content isn't an effective strategy for building a compelling website. Talk radio is rooted in the delivery of a small vocal minority to a larger audience of listeners. But, that's theater or performance art, not community. It can work as a way of building a reliable audience. It's just not community in any sense that we've seen in the non-Web world.

Using the term community raises a set of expectations that are extremely counter-productive. The sense of belonging and identification that are part and parcel of a community experience can only be promised to the minority who are willing to risk public participation. So, calling it community means that you are setting the majority of your customers up to be disappointed. Surely you wouldn't want to base your business on the notion that your customers had to take a public risk with inherent disappointment for those who didn't make the leap.

That said, Richard Selzer (of Internet on A Disk) has delivered another gem to the Web. Recently, he delivered a briefing to the folks at Digital called Building Communities on the Internet. In spite of its title, the briefing is a wonderful tour of possibilities. Its brilliance is in the gentle way it points a giant towards the new paradigm. Our reading is that the slides are much less about community and much more about helping a big firm find its way in a new world. There is a more detailed article on the site as well.

Selzer points out that his use of the term community is very specialized and means something like "You can't assume that you can treat customers on the web in the same way that you treat them elsewhere." We agree wholeheartedly.

• Your Customers Are Looking for You On The Internet!
• The Internet as an Application Platform
• Your Business and the Internet
• Is the Internet Secure?