22 Dec 08 Keys to Building a Successful Online Community

A short guide to what makes an online community work

The convenience and ease of the net has eliminated the need for most people to go out. We now do our shopping through the net. We don’t need to fall in line in the bank to perform business functions. In some cases, people even work through the World Wide Web.

This however doesn’t stop us from being social beings. We need to interact with other people. This is not an efficient activity by any means, but you have to remember that we are not machines and we need to have human contact. This is where online community sites come in. When you look at today’s web world it is dominated by sites like, Facebook, MySpace, and other online communities. This is because of the need for humans to connect. You can set up one, too. Here are some simple steps to help you build your own online community:

Encourage them to join. It is important that you know what is encourages other people to join your community. After all, Members are the life blood of your community. Find a common thread, this is especially true because people tend to mingle with people they share common interest with. As communities go, your community should be able to offers benefits that outweighs the hassle of signing up. Some other reasons for a person to sign up for a community includes gaining “street cred”, as a hobby, to learn something new and others that are personal to the new member.

I recommend: take a look at the community sites Second life. It brings people with common interest in gaming together as an online gaming community. Flickr does the same thing wit people who love sharing photos. Of course, YouTube achieves this by presenting videos. These communities provide the benefit of communicating with other people while pursuing their interests.

Keep it going. It is important to get members to join but that is only half of it. You also need to keep their attention in the community. One way to keep the community alive is by encouraging participation. You could grow your community by allowing members to express themselves, making them contributor instead of just plain vanilla members. Like any community, recognition counts, so, give members the ability to rate other peoples work, encouraging them to discuss, improve as well as commend. It is also good to place fresh content every day or every other day.

I recommend: Sites like YouTube enjoys much success through this initiatives. They encourage rating and commenting. They feature new posts everyday through their editors. Of course they also encourage casual viewers to post their own videos by promoting contests through their sponsors. Another example of a community that works well with this is Craigslist.

Recognizing obstacles and dealing with them. It is not enough to know how to encourage people to join and keeping them interested. Much like any endeavor there are hindrances that stop you from enjoying the benefits of it, online communities are no different. Most common excuse is being busy and having no time. You can deal with this by being giving incentive for participation. Hostile, narrow minded or even boring, low quality conversations can discourage people from participating in communities, so, you have to be mindful of maintaining a respectful environment without cutting into the freedom of participations. Some other barriers include lack of interest and lack of knowledge on the subject matter.

I recommend: You can see sites like MSN Live-searchwhere they offer points for every game you play. These points can then be exchanged for merchandise. You can look at communities like craigslist where inappropriate behavior is policed by the member’s itself. After several flaggings of your post, the system will automatically remove the said posts. Lack of knowledge and interest is dealt with by Yahoo! by having a wide variety of content. With its wide array of content it is hard not to find something that is particularly relevant to you.

Get the best. A lot of the potential members of online communities look at how these online communities work. They look at the best user interface; how fast it loads, all the features it provides; and a thousand more little things that they look at. If you are not adept at web 2.0, then it would be best to get some professional help because unless you get the best interface, graphics and features in your site you don’t really stand a chance.

I recommend: There are countless businesses out there that can provide you with the best internet related services providers out there, including http://www.gossimer.biz/. Gossimer is a domain registration and web hosting company that offers great assistance in getting your web 2.0 site up and running (I am CEO of Gossimer). Companies like this offer a long list of services, customized to provide you with the best website out there.

Tips and Tactics

Maintaining respect and movement is important in any community. If things start to become stale, time to start stirring the pot.

Recognize holes early. Online communities are popping up everywhere so it would be best to recognize holes in your strategy faster than you competition.

Take your member’s pulse. Being a community, your most valued assets are your members. That is why it is best to ask them what they want to see in the community. If it is viable, why not give it a try.

Encourage discussions. The main advantage you have over other forms of media is its interactivity. Unlike TV, Newspapers and magazines, online communities have the aspect of sharing. Make good use of that advantage.

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10 Dec 08 Beware of Phishing

Phishing is a new model cyberspace attack, in which the attacker masquerades a genuine entity and tricks you into providing important user information such as credit cards, account user names, passwords, etc.

Usually phishing starts with an email or an instant message, appearing to be from the genuine entity, asking you to furnish important details or to ‘verify’ your account with the genuine entity to supposedly avoid a “disciplinary action” or on an “unforeseeable emergency.” The email will also have a link that points to a website copy of the genuine party’s website.

On visiting this website, you will be amazed to find its thorough resemblance to the genuine entity’s website; unsuspecting individuals may be fooled to believe that it is the original website. Unsuspecting users, thus, may provide the original user name and password in this website and make themselves victims of the phishing attack (and may still remain unsuspecting). Once given, the phishing entity has a direct door opened to your personal information and your identity. It can do anything with this information.

Online payment systems like PayPal, eBay, and online banking entities like Bank of America, Citibank are very common focus of the phishing attackers.

If you receive an email in your inbox, with subject line asking you to “confirm your email address,” “verify your login,” “log in to prevent disqualification,” etc., you should be wary. The spam detector of your email address may not catch these crooks all the time. If the genuine financial entity you depend on doesn’t usually ask your password or ask you to confirm any personal information, then the email you received must be from fraudulent entity.

You should check the email address it comes from (not the header information alone, the exact email address). Latest phishing mails on PayPal actually come from an email address, support@paypal.com while the genuine PayPal email address may be different (like support@intl.paypal.com). So, you cannot rely even on the email addresses of the senders. However, so many attackers use public email addresses provided by Yahoo, GMail etc. The header may tell you something such as “Bank of America Online Banking System,” while the sender email address would be “bankspoof@yahoo.tk.” Smart people quickly see this anomaly.

Always make sure, when you log in to your financial institution website, that you open a new browser window, type in the address on the address bar, and log in. Never click on any links you get on your emails.

Spot Phishing

Most or all of the professional organizations do not ask for your private and personal information over an email. They won’t ask you to “verify email” or “login to confirm” over an email anyway. So, any such mail you receive is phishing email and report it right away (see below to know how).

Look for promotional or intimidating diction in the emails you receive. If it tells you something like “We have no other means but to close down your account unless you verify now,” then remember it is most likely a phishing email.

Another type of phishing attack offers you large sums of money, telling you a short fiction about a bygone legacy (from which you get paid a percentage), asking your help to set records straight. On proceeding with the correspondence, you will be asked to submit bank account information, or even send small sums of money to enable successful funds transfer.

If the email contains image instead of text (to find out, try selecting the text on the email), then discern that it is an attempt to elude the spam filter of your email software.

Most of the phishing emails, owing to be from uneducated lot trying for quick bucks, may contain loads of grammatical and punctuation errors interspersed in awkward wording and spelling mistakes. Also, they would lack that quality and politeness of a polished professional email.

Another giveaway is the presence of attachments. Phishing emails may contain them while genuine entities never send attachments over emails. Make sure you don’t open any of the attachments received. They can be such potential threats as adwares, malwares, keyloggers, etc.

If you don’t find your name in the greeting in the mail, then it may be a phishing mail. Generic greetings like “Dear sir,” “Dear user,” “Dear subscriber,” etc., instead of “Dear Tom,” “Dear Sarah,” etc., clearly tells you that the sender knows not who you are. So, suspect such mails.

Check out the link provided. A link text of the URL of the genuine entity itself, like “Bank of America,” with underlying original hyperlink of the phishing website, may evade your eyes. So, always check which address it actually links to. Don’t open the hyperlink unless you are sure. Deceptive URLs can take many forms. Some URLs will be subdomains with the subdomain name that of the genuine organization. Like “Paypal Spoof” Be wary of these addresses.

Fight Phishing

Legally fighting phishing is very easy for you. A way to report phishing attack is through US-CERT, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Report phishing to US-CERT through their email address, phishing-report@us-cert.gov. Report phishing with the Antiphishing Organization email, reportphishing@antiphishing.org. Spams may be forwarded to spam@uce.gov (Federal Trade Commission, FTC email address). Also, alert the Internet Crime Complaint Center of FBI (www.ic3.gov).

Most of the online entities have their own designated email addresses for you to report phishing. For instance, PayPal has spoof@paypal.com, eBay has spoof@ebay.com.

Conclusion

To be on the safe side, always make sure you have a current antivirus and firewall application in place. Do not give your personal information through any links you receive in emails. Email is not a safe medium of communication at all; do not communicate with anybody you don’t know. Make sure you forward any spam or spoof you receive to the above-said entities. These simple steps will keep you secure in the cyberspace.

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