Contrary to popular belief there is such a thing as a profitable venture
on the web. Success online comes from two factors – value to the
customer and value to the company. Most of us understand the value to
the organization and are able to relate to it readily. But very few of
us understand that the key to achieving this is to understand the value
to the customer. And what does this mean? It means understanding your
customers within the time frame and context to achieve business objectives.
Many of the existing business models on the web are a mere extension to
their online counterparts, but the web can also redefine traditional business
models. What the web does is that it helps us do things that we normally
did in slightly different ways. And if this generates added value to the
business, then isn’t it a case for consideration? New business strategies
that take advantage of the net as a many-to-many interactive medium that
emphasize communication and community are what we are going to study here.
What is an online community?
In business-speak a portal is an online community. It brings buyers and
sellers together by providing content in the form of advice, services
or any other benefits. A portal is a content aggregator – content
in the form of information, knowledge or experience. Example: Yahoo.com;
autobytel.com, e-loan.com, travelocity, expedia and instill.com.
A portal is synonymous with a gateway – a major starting site for
users when they get connected to the web. Typical services that a portal
offers include a directory of websites, a facility to search for other
sites, news, weather information, email, stock quotes, phone and map information
and sometimes a community forum.
How do online communities make money? After all they don’t really
own anything. They rely on their partners for all the money. Now isn’t
that one of the most unpredictable ways of making money? But surprisingly,
the current statistics show that portals or rather these infomediaries
dominate a lion’s share of the business and will continue to do
so in the future.
To understand how they make money, we need to understand how they work.
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Community software 2004 |