 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Editorial Ash Nallawalla ash@melbpc.org.au |
 |
Electronic Commerce (eCommerce) has been around for many years,
depending on one's definition of eCommerce. Most people encounter it as consumers, so their
definition tends to describe "B2C" (business to consumer). There is a fair degree of "B2B"
(business to business) taking place but we hear less about it.
We are slowly coming to grips with B2B and B2C. The B2C model caught the fancy of consumers and the
"dotcoms", and Amazon became a household name, at least in the wired community. When I last
checked, it had yet to turn a profit but has survived the dotcom crash. In the main, eCommerce
companies without a bricks-and-mortar outlet or a delivery mechanism, particularly the ones that
sold electronic bits have struggled or failed.
A year ago, I used to drive through San Jose and see billboards luring employees with pre-IPO
options. Today, my stock options are worthless. In late May I may well be driving to Centrelink in
Werribee, as the economic downturn closed down my employer's local office and I am winding up its
affairs as I write.
Yep, job-hunting is a lot more difficult now than it was in November 1998, when I wrote in this
magazine about my experiences (http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/9811/9811article7.htm).
The recruitment agencies are now all Internet-connected and their staff are computer literate.
There are job search engines, but they contain mostly stale advertisements where the client has
decided to freeze hiring. Unfortunately, you don't find out unless you monitor the same agency for
several weeks.
I don't like online application forms, because some of them ask irrelevant questions such as one's
high school marks. The vacancies in the newspapers are more likely to be real - see, the electronic
medium has failed again.
This time around, I am tracking every job application in an Excel spreadsheet, noting whether or
not I received an acknowledgment, names, times, interviews, comments, etc. I have also turned my
home page into a virtual resume. If you are in the same boat, you should think about doing the
same. See mine at http://www.nallawalla.com.
If you previously subscribed to our job search network e-mail list (a rather low-key bunch), please
check your profile to see if it is up to date. The address is melbpcnet.listbot.com. I would
also like to hear from people who want to write about job-hunting in general or about their recent
experiences. Obviously the article must be relevant to our members.
If You Build It, They Might Not Come
Four years ago, I toyed with the idea of an online RSVP business. It was a great idea, so I built
it. But they did not come. I advertised (paid, of course) in PC Update, but nobody came. As
Editor, I get a few invitations from PR firms where one has to email back an RSVP, so they'd need
an online RSVP service, right? Wrong. Not one of them came and they still ask for emailed RSVPs.
Actually, my site did get some paying customers, but they were all for weddings; the business
customers just did not "get it".
The answer, of course, is selling to the right person but I did not have the time or money to go to
Sydney, where most IT PR firms reside. In hindsight, it was a bad idea after all. I saw at least
two American "free RSVP" companies come... and go. They probably had a lot of fun in the process,
as venture capital once flowed freely in the Valley. It would have been nice to have some of
that.
I tried banner ads for three years, mainly through LinkExchange, being free. I don't recall how
many (few) times my banner was displayed by some site, but it was in the low hundreds and I got
just two clickthroughs.
Selling domain names is becoming another electronic commodity. Someone offered to buy my domain
name and the business but I was too greedy and missed out. More recently, I have had a string of
offers to sell me a similar domain.
No doubt, once this electronic dust settles, we will find some new ways to spend money over the
Net.
Banking
I must have been one of the last people to use Internet banking and wish that I had tried it
earlier. It is great when your credit card is issued by your bank, as you can pay it off, along
with other bPay-compatible bills. I know that I lost a few customers because I did not have credit
card facilities, which is now a lot easier and cheaper to obtain. eBayers will know of a company
called PayPal, which has only recently allowed Australian users to pay for auctions with a credit
card, but we cannot accept a payment into the same card. That restriction does not exist in a few
countries.
Reprinted from the May 2001 issue of PC Update,
the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
