» uk-netmarketing: roundup: 17-03-2000

The marketing potential of virtual communities
UK-Netmarketing Weekly Round-up - March 17, 2000

In the never-ending search to increase a site’s stickiness the concept of community is highly prized. One possible way of achieving this is through virtual communities; chat rooms, which allows users to adapt different forms (avatars) and interact with others in a virtual reality world.

Ian Tester asked, "Does anyone have any thoughts on virtual communities…there was a big feature on them in Revolution last year, but the concept doesn't really seem to have taken ... despite the much-vaunted 'stickiness' of the concept. ... Anyway - are there any good ones? ... My feeling is that they're not as effective as they could be..."

Jo Crumpton responded, "…for those who enjoy chatting online it does offer a much richer and immersive environment compared to the text based alternatives. Those who do enjoy the service can spend amazing lengths of time inworld, in the Virtual Zones you can find people playing virtual bingo together, in the US they're even getting married online! Virtual Zones (www.virtualzones.co.uk) has recently launched in the UK..."

Jo expanded on some of the possibilities within this particular world, "there is ... scope to customise your avatar with different heads, body shapes and accessories, as well as rent your own your apartment which can be decorated. ... It has it's own monetary system where you collect credits from virtual cashpoints, in order to buy the items you want. These virtual worlds do create great brand building and e-commerce opportunities as branded environments, or inworld objects can be created, which can link directly to a URL. For example at a specific time each week a representative from the company could be inworld, in their branded environment, to answer any questions on a specific topic. Events, competitions and games can also be hosted inworld."

Stefan Magdalinski pointed out a different ‘advantage’ of communities, "Quake III is by far and away the best online virtual community ... I'm surprised no-one's adapted the engine to a communication/hanging out environment (easy to do) instead of the far more important business of KILLING EACH OTHER REPEATEDLY."

Briony Pope shared some of her experiences of earlier virtual community software, she emailed, "you could customise your avatar - buy new heads, give people presents like magic wands, garlands, ... You could have your own private 'lawn' ... It was absolutely incredible how long people would spend on it. I overheard a conversation between a couple of old timers who said that back in Sept. [1997] they were spending 40 hours a week 'in world'. I spoke to a lawyer who would go online for an hour or so before going to work ..."

Dee Edwards added, "There are some very good sites out of Finland. Also in Shockwave, but much better than Dobedo. Dobedo isn't very interactive except for the chat part ... the Finnish sites have very nice elements of interactivity, such as asking a virtual bar tender if somebody has been there or if anyone has asked after you. Also, they have online gaming which is done in a social way and more appealing to mass market. They have been developed as branding exercises or development, but I guess this is where the most innovative stuff is done. ... the cost [is a] factor, although I guess the new Altavista and Freeserve deals may have some impact on this."

Interstitial advertising, normally a separate advertising window that pops-up when visiting a web page, is becoming a widely used mechanism for capturing data about a site’s visitors. Richard Stephens asked, "I am trying to persuade my clients to use a small interstitial on their homepage, to prompt visitors to register their e-mail address, but they aren't keen - they reckon people will find it obtrusive. Has anyone got any experience of the beneficial effect of interstitials used for these purposes (or any other) which I could use as ammo?"

Mike Hales replied, "Depending on frequency, we've found them to really effective and non-obtrusive on VirginRadio.co.uk and TFIFriday.com. That said we did limit the number of impressions per user per week. (3 per user per week)". Ian Fenn put the other side of using interstitials writing, "Users find interstitials an annoyance. They didn't request the interstitial; therefore it is simply a barrier to the fulfilment of their goal."

If data capture is your mission, Bharat Karavadra suggested an alternative, "... my view is that you should put a simple request and form on the home page or an advert to a larger form on another page. Either way only interested visitors will complete the form and hence you have a quality, if only small, marketing database. I have found this most effective in the early days when we really did need to communicate only to visitors interested in our business. ... mailing these visitors with news and links back to our site, over 80% of them have returned after reading the newsletter."

Piers Beckley wasn’t quite so positive about interstitials. He emailed, "On our site, when presented with the option to skip an interstitial, 65% did so. You may also wish to reflect that a reader writing to useit.com (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980628_comments.html) found that 16% of their visitors baled from the site entirely when presented with a splash page. Let's face it, people - interstitials suck."

Martha Lane Fox is never far from the news when the press gets dotcom fever. The Lastminute.com flotation and subsequent turbulent stock market prize ensured a plethora of coverage. But how will the latest dotcom millionairess fare?

Ben Rooney feared the worst, "Anyone watching the press coverage of Ms Lane Fox will see that she is being set up for the most almighty fall – the classic media ploy – put them on a pedestal and then kick the pedestal away. I fear, that through no particular fault of hers, she has been very very badly advised. ... although she may not have wished it, she has become the face of e-commerce, New media, [or] whatever term Fleet Street wants to use. It may well be that it has helped build Lastminute's brand but as far far bigger fish have found, those who try to use the media for their own ends find, things don't work out quite as they imagined. As soon as Ms Lane Fox started to become the living embodiment of this ‘revolution’, Lastminute would have been well advised to have got some professional media relations/publicity people in to help build the right image. I swear if I hear her say she is as technological as a peanut (or what ever it is) one more time I am going to scream. She has been far too over exposed."

Robin Edwards added, "I think I agree with most of this. My biggest concern has been that Brent and co have been put forward (against their wishes?) as gurus to the rest of us involved in e-commerce, either as service providers or entrepreneurs. Call me old fashioned, but the financial results on offer do not, given the funding involved, inspire or educate me. I love the concept of buying things last minute, preferably at a bargain price, but I believe there is much work to be done on making lastminute.com the ultimate destination for such a concept - it has already been diluted with basic services that are clearly not last minute offers."

Nicholas Tettenborn reminded the list, "The power of women in heading an Internet company has been shown before. I remember the days of Cyberia (Europe’s first Internet Cafe)where Jene Tear and Eva Pascoe were the front women for that company. The two men involved mainly stayed in the background. They knew that there was more interest in ladies in technology. It was a clever tactic and all have benefited. Eva Pascoe was on Question Time … I think it's a bit sexist to say that a lady could not handle the publicity in the way that Branson et al could. Fair play to Ms Lane Fox."

Credit card fraud is the hot potato of Internet security. You can almost guarantee that a company’s board will ask about online credit card fraud in the same sentence as e-commerce. Celine Maguire may have had that experience, she asking, "Does anyone know where I get my hands on research, which shows that it is safer to use your credit card on the Internet than in a restaurant, etc?"

Anna Pedroza responded, "Is it actually safer? In terms of fraud I thought that whether it was by phone or online it ran the same level of risk and the poor old merchant had to foot the bill?"

Tim Ireland came up with some handy URLs, "This has some figures: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/special/19990716.asp But these are the only folks I know who bother to do actual research: http://www.natlconsumersleague.org/favorite.htm#ifraud".

Ian Tester on the other hand suggested some practical research, "you could do some independent research: 1. get techie, sit at computer for 1 hour & try to sniff packets, in the hope that you'll intercept some non-encrypted credit card details (a certain amount of tech knowledge may well be required here) ... 2. get anyone, go to any petrol station or supermarket. in 1 hour, see how many receipts featuring card type, number and expiry date you can find (contrary to common opinion, that's all you'll need to shop on the majority of sites, the cardname often isn't even checked....) hey presto! data!"

Freeserve’s website re-design prompted Richard Houston to email, "separated at birth: http://www.freeserve.co.uk (new!), http://www.amazon.co.uk,http://www.bol.com the web's 'blue' period." Stefan Magdalinski reminisced, "ahh yes. reminds me of the web's classic 'yellow left hand nav bar' period, although I think that was less of a fashion, and more people being unable to configure vignette to do anything at all other than the http://www.cnet.com defaults." I wonder if blue is the new black...for websites.

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