I have my business on the Net, NOW what?Written by M6.net
Out of blue, apparently having seen a posting of mine on a discussion list, I received an email from a desperate new Net businessman. He had built his web site and, after 6 months, knowing that Internet was for him, asked, "where to go now?". How do you stand out of crowd, enough to make your product work and without going broke doing so, with expensive and often useless advertising. VC's and Investors can stoke your growth's fires, but they only provide capital, one must still find most effective uses for it. Below is email and response, I hope this helps a few people, it is an account of what we do regularly, and it works. As follows: Here is email from Edward S. I have taken out anything that can directly identify him. Hi Alec, My name is Edward. I'm a co-owner of a start up internet company. I've read your article at http://www.smallbusinessloans.com/ and thought that maybe there's anything that I can learn from your experience at starting a new internet business. Our games website has been in business only 6 months so far. We don't have any employees yet and do everything ourselves, me and my colleague. The biggest problem we've faced so far is promoting our site, letting people know about us. The advertisement costs money and our budget is very low at this time. We've been looking for some venture capitals/investors but have been unsuccessful so far. I would be interested to hear any suggestions or ideas from you. Thank you, Edward S. My reply to Edward S. Dear Edward, This sounds very familiar to us, when we started. We tried out ALL methods that were available three and a half years ago... but to try them today would be very dangerous. That is why we had to change our way of promotion. The main form of promotion that we use now, which is JUST as effective as what we used in past and definitely Internet accepted, is a little bit of extra work. 1. Write some articles, first, about your experiences so far, or lack of; or difficulties you are facing, etc. Anything that can give you a few interesting words that you can use. I write my own but we do use writers too, we use university students for most of our jobs, they are fresh, open minded, and very trainable... plus cheap! If they get good, then you employ them fully later. 2. Employ a writer part-time, 1 session of 4 hours a week, if you can; and a promoter for same to be increased later. The promoter is actually most important, if your articles are grammatical enough. 3. Get promoter to go to Newsgroups (i.e. http://www.Dejanews.com and use Power Search, to search on words that closely relate to your product i.e. games, online games, board games, etc) use search to find people playing games or trading games etc, then talk to them.... suggest to them that you have a site that would suit their visit. They will come and check out who you are! Become GURU, comment on their own games (NOT BAD COMMENTS always good!!!)
| | New to the Net: Safe ChattingWritten by Linda C. Allardice
New to Net: Safe Chatting By Linda C. Allardice One of first places I visited when I signed up for my Internet service way back in 1993 was public chat rooms. It was so fascinating to have all these strangers gather together and talk about everything from politics to just how much they really hated their bosses. My mouth gaped like a sea bass when I noticed some folks spilling their guts onto computer screen and admitting to stuff that should be kept secret – such juicy gossip I couldn’t get at my hairdresser on one of her busiest days. Chat rooms are still enormously popular, but rules of safety remain as steadfast as a palace guard. If you’re new to Web, you’ve got to be extremely careful in chat rooms. There are some major don’ts you need to follow to keep your chatting an enjoyable yet safe experience. Don’t ever for whatever reason enter your real name, address, city, phone number, password, or any other personal information into a chat room discussion. Oftentimes, a perpetrator who may want to hack into your computer -- or worse your home -- can come up with clever ways to get inexperienced Internet users to reveal personal information. They might get you to talk about landmarks, places of interest in your community, where you work or go to school to zero in on your location. Don’t respond to Instant Messages if you don’t know sender. Instant Messages are those private messages that pop up on your screen apart from main chat room. Some are easy to detect as spammers when they send you an IM saying they are a model and want you to look at their pictures. That screams “yes, I am a porno perp” loud and clear. Some spammers have password sniffers on their end that can snatch your password if you reply to message. One they have your password they can have a field day with your account. Spammers might send you an IM that says “Warning: you cannot continue in Chat Room without entering your password here.” This catches many new Internet and some veterans off guard and they mistakenly comply with request. Go to a private chat room if possible.
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