Poor Richard 33
#033/20-Aug-99
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/
29,000 Subscribers in More Than 100 Countries!
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IN THIS ISSUE
- Finally ... Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
- Beginner's Column: Creating Subdomains
- More on Viral Marketing
- Web Site Fraud a Major Problem? No
- Graffiti on Your Web Site, Part II
- ClickTheButton to Price Comparisons
- Build a Virtual Store
- Protect Your Images With Digital Watermarks
- Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
- Book Reviewers Wanted -- Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
- Reading Back Issues
**** IF YOU FIND THIS NEWSLETTER USEFUL ... FORWARD IT TO FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES ****
Finally ... Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing is finally in print!
Written by Chris Pirillo, the editor of Lockergnome ( http://www.lockergnome.com/ ), the book explains the ins and outs of the e-mail publishing business -- from starting a small e-mail newsletter to hosting a discussion group, from finding advertisers as a way to make money, to things to consider when formatting your newsletter.
Lockergnome has somewhere around 150,000 subscribers, so he knows what he's talking about. But on top of that there's a foreword by "Internet Culture Maven" Angela Gunn ( http://www.agunn.com/ ), and chapters by ...
- John Funk, President of The E-mail Knowledge Group http://www.emailknowledge.com/
- Geoffrey Kleinman, Editor of The Kleinman Report http://www.Kleinman.com/
- T. J. Lee and Lee Hudspeth, Publishers, The Naked PC http://www.thenakedpc.com/
- Randy Cassingham, Author, This is True http://www.thisistrue.com/
- Peter Kent -- that's me, Publisher of this very newsletter http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
We sent out electronic copies of the book a few months ago. You can see what those readers had to say about the book here:
http://PoorRichard.com/email/testimon.htm
And you can find sample chapters and a Table of Contents here:
http://PoorRichard.com/email/
The book is at our distributor right now, and will be finding it's way into the bookstores over the next couple of weeks.
We're selling it on our Web site, of course ( http://www.topfloor.com/cgi-bin/hazel/hazel.cgi ), though we don't actually have it in our offices yet. Order now, though, and the book will go out to you as soon as we have it, hopefully by the end of the week.
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Beginner's Column: Creating Subdomains
A couple of readers recently asked me about how to create subdomains -- how to create what are in effect third-level domain names. For instance, .com is a top-level domain name; TopFloor.com is a second-level domain name. And Books.TopFloor.com would be a third-level domain name, or a subdomain of TopFloor.com.
DEC, before they paid millions of dollars to buy the altavista.com domain name (the name they should have had _before_ they picked a site name!), used this URL: http://www.altavista.digital.com/.
DEC had already registered digital.com with InterNIC, but adding the altavista subdomain was a job for the system administrator.
So the answer to the question is simple. If you have registered a domain name to a Web server, and now want a subdomain of that domain, talk to the system administrator of your Web server. It's _not_ a job for InterNIC or some other domain-registration authority.
More on Viral Marketing
I discussed Viral Marketing in this newsletter some time ago:
http://www.topfloor.com/pr/newsltr/028.htm#viral
Just today I ran into an interesting article on the subject, published at the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Web site. Draper Fisher Jurvetson is a Venture Capital company in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to The Industry Standard, it was this company that is responsible for the term "viral marketing."
The article is written by two of the partners -- Steve Jurvetson and Tim Draper -- and describes their belief in the power of this concept. DFJ funded HotMail in 1996. HotMail, as many of you I'm sure know, is a free Web-based e-mail system that was sold to Microsoft a little while back (for somewhere around $400m I think it was). The article compares HotMail with Juno, another free e-mail system. The writers point out that in 18 months HotMail grew from nothing to 12 million subscribers ... and yet in that time spent under $500,000. Juno, however, spent around $20m on advertising and marketing, gaining a fraction of HotMail's subscribers.
There are other important differences between the systems, of course. Juno originally began as a system providing free email-only access to the Internet, for instance (so their costs are much greater than HotMail's!). Nonetheless, those figures really say something: $500,000 versus $20,000,000, and the smaller number won (Juno currently claims 7.2 million subscribers ... HotMail now has over 30 million). _That's_ the power of viral marketing.
Anyone considering marketing online should at least understand and consider the idea of viral marketing ... which is essentially "word of mouth on steroids." In some way you should get your users to tell other people to use your products or services. The article discusses what viral marketing is all about ... check it out at: http://www.drapervc.com/viralmarketing.html
Web Site Fraud a Major Problem? No
Many people are shopping online these days ... but many aren't. They're connected, they have credit cards, and they could find good deals online, but still they don't buy. Why? The number one reason these people give is the fear of handing over their credit cards online.
For several years now I've been writing that this fear-of-fraud is grossly exaggerated. In fact online transactions are safer than offline. The funny thing is that it's not the buyer at risk, it's the merchant. It seems to me that it's the merchants who are at more risk than the buyers.
But it turns out that even for most merchants, it's not a major issue. ActivMedia Research surveyed Web merchants, and found that less than 1 percent believed it was a "substantial" problem. A little over 4 percent found it to be "somewhat" of a problem; 10.6 percent said that it was a problem of "minimal impact"; and 85 percent didn't regard fraud as a problem at all.
I have found fraud to be a problem in my publishing-company sales. Not substantial, probably "minimal impact." It's there, it's annoying, but it's not enough to have a substantial effect on business. There are people out there buying online using others' credit cards. A buyer in Singapore, for instance, may purchase a product in the U.S. using a U.S. credit-card number. Later the owner of the card will find out and contest the billing.
Address Verification Systems
In the U.S. there's a system called AVS; Address Verification System. When you transmit data to a credit-card network, the network looks at the zip code and the first few digits of the street address, to see if the information matches the card's billing address. It doesn't actually block a transaction if the information doesn't match. Rather, it sends back a code, information about the _type_ of match -- perhaps the street number matches but the zip code doesn't, or vice versa, or perhaps they both match. Or perhaps neither matches. In any case, the code is passed back, and it's up to you -- or your software -- to decide what to do. Unfortunately, in most cases Internet shopping carts simply process the transaction without regard to the AVS code.
A partial answer, then, is to watch those AVS codes, if possible. If you only get a partial match, perhaps you should contact the buyer to ask for clarification. Long term, Internet commerce software needs to be smarter, and provide merchants with a way to decide how AVS codes should be handled.
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What can you do with MP3? Copy from your CDs to your computer ... create customized playlists (that run for hours or even days) ... play music from your computer through your stereo ... cut your own customized CDs and tapes (include just your favorite tracks) ... promote your music or band ... record MP3s from vinyl, tape, the radio ... and plenty more.
Find out all about MP3 in "MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution." The book includes a disk with WinAmp, MusicMatch, and over ten hours of great MP3 music! Visit http://TopFloor.com/mp3/ for more information!
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Graffiti on Your Web Site, Part II
In the last issue I discussed software programs such as Third Voice, which allow people to post notes at your Web site, without you knowing about it:
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/032.htm#graff
I received e-mail from several readers. Nobody told me that they had found any notes on their site, but several pointed me to sites that were taking action to block Third Voice, or that explained how to do so.
There's the Simply No Third Voice page ( http://www.kallbackafrica.com/simply/notv.htm ) and an unidentified page at Michigan State University ( http://www.cse.msu.edu/~bowersj2/ ). And the Scientologists (at http://www.scientology.org/ or http://www.scientologists.com/ ) are already blocking Third Voice users from entering their site; if you know how to use JavaScript you might want to take a look at the main page's source code, so you can see how they're doing it.
And one reader sent me information about another such program, esgear: http://www.esgear.com/
Yet another mentioned Alexa, a system I'd forgotten about and that has been around for quite a while. Alexa allows members of the service to post reviews and "rate" Web sites, though in more "formal" manner than Third Voice (no notes splattered across the Web page). For more information see http://www.Alexa.com/
ClickTheButton to Price Comparisons
One reader told me about a service called ClickTheButton, comparing it to Third Voice. And in some ways there are similarities, though users can't post notes. It works like this. You install the software, then go shopping online. When you find a product you're interested in, you click a little "target" button that appears in the Windows taskbar, and in a few moments you see a list of price comparisons -- prices for the same product at a variety of Web sites.
For more information, visit http://www.ClickTheButton.com/
Build a Virtual Store
I recently ran into a system that helps Web site owners build "virtual" stores. Let's say you have a "content" Web site related to some particular subject. You don't sell anything yourself, but you'd like to make some extra money from your site. Using Affinia you quickly build a store using products from various different companies. You'll provide some keywords related to the subject of your site, select a few categories (apparel and accessories, automotive, books and magazines, food and drink, etc.), and click Continue ... and the system finds products that match. You can then build a store using all the products that exactly match your keywords, or using products that more or less match the keywords, or go through the list and pick just the ones you want. And that's it, the store is created. At least in theory. It's beta software, and I had trouble getting it to work.
Once your site is created, you can link to it from your Web site, and if anyone buys a product from the store, the merchant has to pay you a fee, which you'll share 50:50 with Affinia.
Of course if you have products to sell, Affinia wants to hear from you to. You can allow Affinia to add your products to those it's already providing to people building virtual stores. I don't know the details -- I've only just requested information, and there are no details at the Web site -- but I'll let you know in a later newsletter.
If you'd like to create a store, or get Affinia to include your products, visit http://www.affinia.com/
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What book did ZD Journal's Daily Buzz column describe as "an invaluable resource to better understand how the new 'networked economy' works"? What book did InfoWorld call "a pleasing mixture of practical technical advice and business guidance"?
"The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet." Learn how two kids in a basement beat MCI and Tower Records to build the world's largest online music store.
Visit http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
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Protect Your Images With Digital Watermarks
A reader asked me recently how to protect photographs that he had pasted at his site; he was tired of people "borrowing" them. By coincidence I recently ran into a system called Image Protect, from a company called Gamacles Software.
I was skeptical. I figured that it would be pretty difficult to stop theft -- if someone wanted an image, they're probably be able to find some little browser trick to make it easy to take it. What I discovered, though, was that images were not easy to steal ... but then they often weren't visible.
This system used a Java applet to display the images in the Web page. And because the images are going through the applet rather than displayed as normal in the browser, the viewer cannot simply right-click on the image and copy or save it.
The cost is just $30 for a non-commercial Web site, $50 for a commercial Web site of up to 100 images, and $150 for an unlimited number of images.
But there's a catch, of course. When the system displays images, it seems to protect them reasonably well. The viewer won't be able to save the images directly (though remember that he can still do a screenshot -- PrintScreen or Alt-PrintScreen in Windows, for instance -- and paste it into a graphics program).
But the problem is that images won't display in some browsers. For instance, when I visited the Gamacles site using Internet Explorer 5, I saw the Internet Explorer Install on Demand dialog box, asking if it could download a 4.4MB Microsoft Virtual Machine component. When I clicked on Cancel the page loaded, but instead of images I saw a message saying "This image is protected. Please enable Java in your browser to display it."
Even when I reloaded the Web page, I couldn't get the Install on Demand box to reappear. So I closed the browser and reopened. This time I clicked the Download button ... but saw a dialog box asking for the Internet Explorer 5 Setup CD. I was able to select "The Internet" from this box (Microsoft has an irritating habit of providing messages in their message boxes that don't make a lot of sense). But, to cut a long story short, I never did get this version of Internet Explorer (on my laptop) to display the images on the Gamacles pages.
With Netscape I _was_ able to view the images ... on my desktop machine, but _not_ on my laptop. If a browser has Java turned off, or if it's simply a non-Java browser or perhaps is having software problems, the viewer won't see your pictures.
For more information, see http://www.gamacles.com/
Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
Top Floor Publishing now has five books in print:
Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/email/
Poor Richard's Web Site
http://PoorRichard.com/
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions
http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet
http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution: Turn Your PC into a CD-Quality Jukebox
http://TopFloor.com/mp3/
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%, 1-Year Guarantee. If you feel the book wasn't worth the money, send it back for a refund!
And remember, these books are discounted at the Web site, and you pay just one shipping cost regardless of how many books you buy!
Book Reviewers Wanted -- Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
Do you review books for newspapers, magazines, newsletters (electronic or paper), Web sites, or other media spots? If so, perhaps you'd like to review Top Floor Publishing's latest book, "Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing." Or perhaps you'd like to review one of the other books I mentioned above?
Contact my Marketing Director, Missy Derkacz, at reviews@TopFloor.com. Include your full mailing address, the name of newspaper/magazine/whatever in which the review will appear and the probable date of publication, and the editor's contact information.
Reading Back Issues
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter -- and search the archives -- you can find them at the following location:
http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
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