So are YOU ready to communicate in this international medium? Whether you're building your own Web site, taking part in discussion groups, visiting a chat room, or just sending and receiving e-mail, you'll meet more and more "foreigners" on Internet - and vice versa, of course.

Let's look at some tips for communicating effectively in this new global village.

1. Write in plain English

Write clearly, with small words and short sentences. If you're writing long messages or creating long Web pages, include a simple summary at top.

Be very careful to write exactly what you mean. If you're writing for a general audience, avoid sarcasm, colloquialisms and other things that rely on a certain tone of voice or cultural background.

2. Watch out for phrases with two meanings

Although English is de facto international language of Internet, differences abound between, say, English and American English. It's easy enough to allow for differences in way that we spell "colour", "apologise" and "organisation", but other - more subtle - differences can easily lead to misunderstandings.

For example, does "bi-weekly" mean twice a week or once every two weeks? It's different for Australians and Americans. Similarly, when Australians "table an issue", they are raising it for discussion, but for Americans, "tabling an issue" means putting it aside.

3. Include area codes in phone numbers

Any time you quote a telephone, fax or mobile (cell) phone number on Internet, ask yourself whether your readers reside outside your local area. If you're potentially addressing distant readers, include your international code and area code in these numbers.

4. Allow for variations in postcodes

American zip codes and Australian postcodes use numbers only; U.K. postcodes contain letters and numbers; Singaporean postcodes use numbers only, but appear in a different place in address; all have different lengths from each other.

If your Web site includes an order form or a demographic survey, allow for postcodes that fall outside your own local format.

5. Include your full postal address

For example if you had just 200 people paying you just $20 a month, you would have a steady cash flow of $4000/month, month after month, rain or shine. Many people accomplish this first month or two their site is up. But that’s just beginning. Some individuals have member only websites that generate 5-10x that amount of money!

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s discuss exactly what a member only, paid membership site is?

Whether you call them member only, membership, subscription, or mentor websites, they all have one thing in common. … they are bringing in steady, recurring cash flow for their owners, month after month, from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars with an endless variety of topics.

Some of these sites provide mentoring or coaching, others contain useful articles or information in a particular field or product. Still others publish results of tests and studies or product reviews. Finally some membership sites provide specialized service or act as a meeting place for people with a common interest.

But all these sites have one thing in common: to access website (or best information on site) you have to pay for it!

Why Would People Pay for Information on Internet?

The key to getting people to pay for access to a website, is to provide specialized information/coaching/data/service that is hard to find anywhere else, or would be time consuming to find on your own.

Here’s another way to look at it:

Have you ever subscribed to a newspaper, magazine, or newsletter? Have you ever bought a non fiction book that gave advice on a topic you were interested in? I’ll bet you have. I’ll also bet that you could have found almost all of information these resources contained from free sources.

You paid for information either to save time or because you thought information would be better or more specialized for what you were looking for, isn’t that correct?

Just a few short years ago it was almost unheard of to charge for access to a website and almost no one was doing it. Today it’s not only much more acceptable but there are still relatively few membership websites. This makes it perfect time to start your own member only site, since there is still little competition.

Choosing a Topic