Web Communities for Content, Commerce, and Customer Retention

SVAMA 10/14/98 Copyright ©1998 RealCommunities, Inc. 06/09/14 05:01 PM
Web Communities
for content, commerce, and customer
retention
Cynthia Typaldos
Founder and CEO, RealCommunities, Inc
Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Marketing
Association
October 14, 1998
This entire presentation is on the web at:
http://www.realcommunities.com/svama/index.htm

SVAMA 1014/98 Copyright © 1998 RealCommunities, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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About me
GolfWeb
The 12 Principles of Civilization™
Corporate Communities
Q&A
Appendix:
Further Reading & Learning
More on Corporate Benefits from Web Communities
Web Community Categorizations
RealCommunities Contact Info
Presentation Outline

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Founder & CEO, RealCommunities present
www.realcommunities.com
Co-Founder & COO, GolfWeb 1995-1997
www.golfweb.com
Software Business Consultant & Instructor,
UC Berkeley Extension 1993-present
Director of SW Marketing, Director of Standards, Sun
Microsystems
Marketing, SW Engineering: Data General, Bank of America
Education: UC Berkeley - BS, grad school Computer Science
MIT - MBA
My Background

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My GolfWeb Experience
developed business model and operating plan
co-managed company
responsible for vision, definition, and implementation of
GolfWeb’s community products
developed International operations
raised $10M in venture and corporate funding

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60% market share (next golf site has 16%)
2-3M pageviews/day, several million readers/month
destination website (content, commerce, community)
Business Week award - one of 7 websites selected for
“Best Products of 1996”
Acquired by CBS Sportsline in January 1998
GolfWeb Facts

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Community Firsts on GolfWeb
Guest Book (Jan ‘95)
User extensible database in the OnCourse golf course
directory (Jan ‘95)
Member Profiles, Signature, Database, Application
Integration in the Players Club (Aug ‘97)
Member Profile automatically updated by member activity
(Aug ‘97)

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GolfWeb Community Info
Players Club - fully integrated membership product
community infrastructure: registration, member profiles, groups,
invite a new member sign-up, member management tools, etc.
golfing community applications: leaderboard, scoring,
handicapping, find a similar member, etc.
golf course database (23,000 courses) - user-updatable
communication tools: polls, quizzes, chat, discussion
groups, games, guest books, newsletters, email, etc.
invested ~ $3M in community software definition and
development

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Existing Online Communities
GolfWeb Players Club
Yahoo! Clubs
Netscape Netcenter
Silicon Investor
Motley Fool
ClearStation
Ebay
Amazon.com
BarnesandNoble
Edmunds Automotive
Autodesk
Compaq
Javasoft
VerticalNet
AsianAvenue
iVillage
NetNoir
The RV Club
www.edmunds.com
Utne Cafe
Wall Street Journal
Homestead
GeoCities
AOL
WorldsAway*
NetNoir Online
Women.com
Virtual Memorials
ConvoNation: Virtual Hangout for Sick
and Disabled Kids -- www.maniax.com
Moms Online: A Home for Moms in
Cyberspace -- www.momsonline.com
Regarding Vietnam: Stories Since the War
-- /www.pbs.org/pov/stories
SeniorNet: Bringing Wisdom to the
Information Age -- www.seniornet.org
The Body: An AIDS and HIV
Information Resource --
www.thebody.com
The Family Village
--www.familyvillage.wisc.edu/
ESPN Sportszone
www.matchmaker.com

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What do all human
communities need to
thrive?

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12 Principles of Civilization™
1. Communication 4. Environment 7. Trust 10. Expression
2. Identity 5. Boundaries 8.Governance 11. History
3. Purpose 6. Groups 9.Commerce 12. Evolution

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Principle of Civilization™ #1 -
Communication
off-web

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Principle of Civilization™ #1 -
Communication
web software implementations

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Principles of Civilization™ #2 - Identity
off-web

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Principles of Civilization™ #2 - Identity
web software implementations

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Web Community Identity
Examples
GolfWeb Players Club Member Profile
eBay Feedback for Registered User
Motley Fool Personal Profile
RealCommunities’ Member Profile

RealCommunities’ Member ProfileRealCommunities’ Member Profile

Corporate Web CommunitiesCorporate Web Communities

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Corporate Web Sites
“The portals of tomorrow are the
corporate Web sites that are being
constructed today… I look forward
to watching what happens to the
traffic numbers…as corporate Web
sites become prime destinations.” --
Portal mania, Danny Rimer, 4/15/98, c|net

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Web Hubs
“A hub is a central position from which
everything radiates. It's more like a railway station
than an on-ramp. It's a subtle distinction, I know,
but an important one, because a hub becomes the
focus of your activities, not just a pass-through.”
-- Jesse Berst, 7/1/98, ZDNet AnchorDesk

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Where does Community Software fit into
a Destination/Hub Web Site?

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Why Corporations are creating web
communities...
They want to to enhance their relationships
with their natural communities of:
customers
suppliers
distributors
partners
3rd party developers
subcontractors
investors
employees
etc.

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Where does Community fit in a Corporate Web
Site?
Customer Community
Supplier
Community
Partner
Community
Ecommerce
Employee
Community
Investor
Community

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Stock Brokerage Example: Business-to-
Consumer
Key Benefits
groups and other features create customer
“stickiness” and loyalty
ability to create community applications (e.g.
investment groups) for differentiation
data mining
production automation, news generation

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Hi-Tech Example: Business-to-Business
Key Benefits
market research (focus groups, surveys)
data mining (for salespeople especially)
ecommerce word-of-mouth capability
customers helping customers

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Corporate Communities Today

Q & AQ & A

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Books:
Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships,
Increasing Customer Loyalty,and Maintaining a
Competitive Edge
Author: Cliff Figallo
Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual
Communities.
Authors: John Hagel, Arthur Armstrong
Further Reading & Learning
My UCB Extension course on Web Communities:
www.typaldos.com/webmarketing/ucb/fall98.html
next class starts Feb 4th
Experience: Join some web communities!

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Corporate Benefits from Web
Communities
Make money
Save money
Retain customers

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Benefit: Increased Revenue
A well-structured and well-managed
community fosters the development of
trust between members, and therefore
word-of-mouth reference sales.

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Benefit: Cost Savings
Lower operational costs
member-created content
Better leverage of corporate resources such
as engineers, customer service
customers helping each other
organizes support or development personnel in
one-to-many dialogue for better efficiency

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Benefit: Customer Retention and
Marketing
Members adding value and locking in
Members have much information of value
Increasing returns/network economics come into play
Member “lock-in” or “stickiness” due to value added by being part of the
community, status achieved, connections made. Helps combat
commodity pricing.
Market Research
polls, surveys, quizzes, focus groups
data mining of member community
Differentiation
How the community site is structured and managed gives the corporation
a “personality”
opportunity to provide unique community applications

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Communities
Products & Components
Web Community Categories

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Communities
Personal Community Aggregations
me and my friends and family (group focus) - Portals
My-Home-page-on-the-web (personal focus) - Home Page Sites
Hub/Destination Communities
Lifestyle, Interest websites
Corporate Communities
business-to-consumer
business-to-business
Associations

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Products & Components
communication tools
registration tools
complete community solutions
3 different types of communities (see next
slide)
community applications

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06/09/14 05:01 PM
Contact Info for
RealCommunitiesCynthia Typaldos
CEO
408 867-8875
ct@realcommunities.com
RealCommunities, Inc.
www.realcommunities.com
Web Communities Strategic Consulting
14510 Big Basin Way, Suite 285
Saratoga, CA 95070

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