"Trade" and "Community" as two separate idealsWritten by M6.net
I was discussing trade and community, and our approach to this and Internet cities, on a discussion list and was asked questions below. I will take out names and references from email as I was not able to get in touch with the other member for to release this publicly. I think you will find though that it is worth reading as it illustrates possible blindness to common Offline trade and Online trade similarities. Email from discussion group member: Hi Alec I have just recently taken step from working in a big international telecommunications firm in IT department on a collection of applications, into world of Media. I read your comments in Yahoo! ONLINE-ADS digest today and decided to have a look at what www.glopro.com was... I was interested to see you talk about "trade" and "community" as two separate ideals. You furthermore mentioned that GloPro aims at strengthening "community and trade around world". What about "community trade" as a combined phrase? Do you know much about Switzerland and systems used there? Do you know much about trends going on here as far as "community trade", or "community" and/or "trade" is concerned? What do you personally feel about future of "online advertising"? The reason why I am asking you these questions, is because most logical step for me in my career is to combine IT and Media to get something along lines of "online advertising". Since USA and UK seem to be setting trends in many ways as far as these electronic enterprises are concerned, I would be interested to know your point of view on this matter and how it would affect a country like Switzerland! Thanks for your reply. S. R. Email reply from me: Dear S.R., I am flattered that you have asked my opinion, and thank you very much. One thing you may have read on our sites and not quite picked up on is that GloPro was made up from words 'global' 'products' three and a half years ago, by myself and my colleague and business partner. Hence... we are always loathed to talk about one location at a time, Internet MUST be accepted as Global... before you can go on to use it at its best. Online advertising is obviously goal for many people... unfortunately with Internet as it is today, a very plastic and false economy, basing all its growth and prospects of growth on promises by a few "conmen", very few have this chance to monopolize on it. What I mean is, people who got in at beginning, offering promises of million dollar rewards to every Net investor, are still there, and are still being seen as gurus, knowing all... and will continue to be followed by 50,000 new users per day. Hence, you have to be able to beat these people at their game and find a way to grab those 50,000 newbies. My philosophy is solid products, real companies and hard work, will get results that will stay. If you can understand that "without trade there is no community, and without community there is no trade". I'll try to be brief. In 'OLD West'... of United States of America, pioneers would go West with a bit of gear but a big idea; they might find a river and a good bit of land, this was enough to live. Then came another pioneer, camping and settling down10 miles up river, and another 10 miles down river, etc. After a while there were maybe 20 in this COMMUNITY (in local vicinity), enough for a general store, small yes... but TRADE; because of this more people came as there was now a store for less hardy, OR "further away". The community grows. This leads to existence of another store owner, a barber, a saloon, a church, a school, ladies shops, a livery, a railway station, Community now grows.... I don't have to go on! There you have it... USA can understand 'pioneering'.. as they have done it before. Glopro can strengthen this by analysing what people want and need and, as it has done since it started, provide a solution. We have built contact, promotion and research software; a search engine for average persons site; a Review site; Chat facility free in three lines of code for site owner; started partnerships, found sponsors, traded with products NOT money, spun off waste products that our web host clients call 'services' (like Microsoft did); we have even designed and built a website for MSoft in Washington, after meeting them by chance, they took out a web hosting account with us .... Microsoft!! This is called "facilitating Trade", our simple philosophy. It works! What about "community trade" as a combined phrase? What IS community trade? Trade in community.... TRADE! Simplistic approach. Do you know much about Switzerland and systems used there? Don't have to... there are no countries on Internet, as we have found with our exploits into India, and Asia, UK, US, Brazil, Middle East, Israel, Europe, Russia, Turkey..... its endless. We have a real estate site that acquired 13.8 billion dollars worth of properties in three months... unfortunately no commission... BUT that was never our intent.... we built and promoted a COMMUNITY for REAL ESTATE, realtors, property owners, service providers, etc.... ONLY real estate related; a Gold Club, Realtor List, Merchant Services List, Properties, a Search facility able to be copied and transferred to YOUR own site... hence BRANDING for us... brought people back to our database!!
| | 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!!!)
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