Killer Content: Strategies for Web Content and E-Commerce [Paperback]

Mai-lan Tomsen (Author)

Book Description

Series: Addison-Wesley Information Technology | Publication Date: April 5, 2000

For thousands of e-Business sites, hard-goods sales and advertising won't be enough: success will depend on building Web communities that deliver exceptional value to sophisticated, Net-centered customers. That means delivering outstanding content -- and Mai-Lan Tomsen has helped clients like TheStreet.com and Morningstar Mutual Funds do precisely that. Now, she has authored the definitive guide to Web content and community building for profit. This book covers every key value strategy for building and profiting from Web communities, including advertisements, subscription, line item transactions, syndication, and beyond. Mai-Lan Tomsen demonstrates how to merchandise content, showing how Web publishers can enhance and monetize content exchange -- and transform casual "fly-by" visitors into repeat customers. From start to finish, she offers practical techniques for creating, aggregating, and delivering quality content -- and for managing it profitably.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

It occurred to me one day, as I was reading the morning news online, that I had turned into quite the creature of habit on the Internet. This surprised me. I always thought that I would be the first one to try something new on the Web. I am what analysts call "a technology optimist," which is just another way of saying that I'm prone to trying out the latest cool digital toy or service.

My interest started back in the early days of e-commerce when I worked on the first versions of Microsoft's Site Server Commerce Edition. I have used the Internet for at least one hour a day since 1995. I hand over my credit card to online merchants on a regular basis for books, airline tickets, pet supplies, and far too many plants for my city garden. I have come close to but have not quite arrived at using digital subscriber lines (DSLs) for high-speed Internet access from home. And, when our 1990 Honda Civic hatchback finally sputters to a halt, we will probably buy our next car online. Yet despite my familiarity with the Internet, I do not idly browse for new content or sites. No, I actively use the Web in what I realized is a structured manner.

I use it for two purposes. My first goal is to increase my free time by truncating the effort involved in household errands such as buying food for the pets. My second objective is to maximize my ability to understand the world around me, both in personal and professional terms. Underpinning both reasons is the assumption that I can find what I need quickly and easily through a Web site. If I can't, I move on to another site that gives me what I want in price, selection, information, or service. No ambiguity about it. I don't have time to spend on out-of-date information, slow online services, or byzantine page flows through a Web site. So I don't return--or at least I have never returned--to a Web site that doesn't immediately provide me with enough value for my time and money.

I am part of a Web community of experienced Net users. We want more than just a good price and three-day delivery. We're looking for a user-centric experience. When I visit a Web site, I'm subconsciously thinking, "In exchange for my time and potentially my money, I want content and services that are relevant to me." We are part of a growing trend among Net users who look for something beyond price point or brand in our Web-browsing experiences.

This book is a primer for Internet content business models that address Net users' demand for additional value and services. In Part One: Concepts, I explore the definition and real-world implementations of value exchange, premium content and services, and the emergent value exchange selling and payment models on the Web. As new business models develop, the line between content and commerce blurs. Merchandizing content allows publishers--companies and organizations that have, or plan to set up, their own Web sites--to explore new revenue streams generated by their core competencies.

Part Two: Strategies focuses on what Web publishers can do to enhance and monetize value exchange. These strategies help publishers evaluate the practical steps for implementing added services for their own Web sites. Taken as a whole, this discussion looks beyond the world of retail transactions to an Internet economy where a Web publisher's "product" can be a book, an auction environment, an expert opinion, or an Internet radio broadcast.

This book has two audiences. On one hand, I provide content and commerce Web site publishers with concepts and strategies to help improve business-critical conversion rates (i.e., the rate at which a casual visitor becomes a loyal visitor, a loyal visitor turns into a first-time buyer, or a first-time buyer becomes a repeat customer). There's always talk about the next Internet "killer app"--a concept or product that has a revolutionary impact on the online world. The first commercial browser was a killer app, as was e-mail. Improved and monetized content-- a site-specific concept that galvanizes the growth of revenue and traffic--constitutes a killer app in its own right. "Killer content" satisfies the goals and objectives of visitors in exchange for loyalty or buying power. This value exchange between publisher and visitor drives conversion rates and viable business models for the Web. Without the ability to enable and monetize successful value exchange, Web sites bleed money without gaining the Net user base on which to build advertising and commerce revenue.

This book is also for Net users who are interested in learning about new types of Web content and commerce. As premium content and services become more available, Net users leverage the different types of value exchange to make the Internet more valuable at work and play. An enhanced awareness of high-quality content and services for users might galvanize a switch to a Web site that offers personalized profiles for quicker purchasing, a bid in an online auction, or a first purchase of premium content.

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, says in his essay "The World Wide Web: A Very Short Personal History" that "the dream behind the Web . . . is dependant on the Web being so generally used that it becomes a realistic mirror or in fact the primary embodiment of the ways in which we work and play and socialize" (7 May 1998, w3/People/Berners-Lee/ShortHistory.html). For Net users, the value lies in "milking" Web sites for maximum benefit, whether it's a live broadcast feed of the ball game or insight into the hidden charm of an undervalued stock. This book illustrates the ways that the Web is evolving toward that "realistic mirror" that Berners-Lee prophesies.

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From the Back Cover

"This book is an excellent primer on competitive business strategies for providing value to your customer on the Web. If you're new to the world of e-commerce, or looking to expand on an existing set of Web-based business strategies, this book is for you."
-- William T. Radcliffe, Director of Technology, Corbis

In just a few short years, the World Wide Web has turned traditional retail business models upside down. Killer Content describes how to adapt your business, application, and network topologies to meet the needs of the most important new breed of customer--the online consumer.

A well-rounded guide for IT professionals and system architects, this book defines the changing models for Web-based commerce and shows you how to correlate the demands and rewards of digital commerce and adapt them to your own business environment. Killer Content explains this important value-added information for maintaining your content-driven business.

In addition to providing details about the emerging digital assets and consumer communities, the author examines a series of case studies from Internet groundbreakers such as Priceline, TheStreet, Salon, Yahoo!, and Amazon. The book explains how these innovative companies generated revenue by understanding the needs of Net users. Killer Content also examines the emerging services and issues around digital commerce, such as personalization, privacy, and payment.

Other key topics include:
* The business models in digital commerce that generate real return-on-investment for content sites
* A profile of the business problems and personal goals that drive the online consumer's browsing and navigation patterns
* A synopsis of the different technologies available to implement and manage digital commerce
* An in-depth summary of the technical challenges of delivering products ordered over the Internet
0201657864B04062001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (April 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201657864
• ISBN-13: 978-0201657869
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,117,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Right question, astonishingly bland answer, August 20, 2000

By 

David Walker (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Killer Content: Strategies for Web Content and E-Commerce (Paperback)

Killer Content is a killer dud. If it were posted on a Web site, you'd be surfing away within seconds. And that's a pity, because its topic - using content to drive transactions - cries out for examination.

Just what do you put on a Web site to make people transact? The answers run all the way from "an email address" to "a $2 million personalisation system". The range of Web sites out there and the scarcity of profit-makers suggest most people are doing something wrong.

But Mai-lan Thomsen takes the opposite approach: every new technique and technology is worthy of praise. So Killer Content takes you on a long, dull, uncritical trip around every idea that ever rated an article in some fat business-technology magazine. "Relevant" articles, "targeted" banner ads, "usable" navigation, and a hundred more - all of these are equally worthy of a few paragraphs. All, says Thomsen, will help you create a successful "value exchange". Do everything that everyone else is doing, and you'll be fine. The subject cries out for good data, vigorous analysis, strong opinions. Thomsen offers only pap, written in the prose style of a second-rate technology vendor white paper.

As other reviewers have noted, Thomsen's lack of critical judgement has been exposed by the collapse of the tech stock boom. Sites like Salon and TheStreet, lauded in Killer Content, have run into difficulties precisely because they couldn't marry excellent content to a decent business plan.

I manage and write about content-rich transaction sites for a living. Yet no other Amazon order has moved from my mailbox to my don't-read-again pile faster than this sad tome.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction, but no clear decisive answer., October 30, 2000

By 

Water Monkey "Marc B." (Santa Clarita, Ca.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Killer Content: Strategies for Web Content and E-Commerce (Paperback)

This was a good introduction into the exploration of how content is organized for the consumer on the Web. I consider it a introduction because the depth to which the author takes us is a little shallow.

This is not meant to be a definitive answer book. The author does not claim to give you a step-by-step guide for you to follow in order to learn how to create "killer" sites. Rather, once you read his book you will understand your options as a web designer and be able to choose the best way to display a sites content given any circumstances. This book is designed for business to user content management, not B2B.

I have used this book in my classes when I lecture to my students regarding web design techniques. It is a good book for someone just looking into content management, and worth trying out.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Overview, August 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Killer Content: Strategies for Web Content and E-Commerce (Paperback)

This boook gives a good overview for web based content business models. While there is no internet strategy that can enssure success, this book does a good job of presenting several strategies that have been employed by some of the bigger sites out there. Granted, some of these sites are struggeling and may ultimately fail, but knowing what they are doing and why they are doing it is still very valuable. This book is a good place to start for information about developing web strategies.