Communities without faces

By Tjipto Ramuni

JAKARTA (JP): Roy Sembel is a financial and investment expert. He assigns himself to educate people so that they will have a better understanding about money and investment. Hence, almost all of his writings are influenced by this "personal" assignment.

Last year, he traveled across the country to speak at seminars. The topic of the seminars were, of course, about money and investment - how to build a business or make an investment so that they would yield maximum profit.

He wrapped his talk with a catchy phrase, "Planting and taking care of the money tree."

Most people who attended the seminars, which were held in major cities, were interested in Sembel's idea of planting and taking care of the money tree. Sembel then created a website (www.roy-sembel.com) for people to discuss, exchange information, share experiences or simply read about what others did with their money tree.

Sembel does not just let visitors to his website discuss without direction. As an expert, Sembel comments and answers questions asked by members of the community.

The money tree community was established by Sembel unintentionally. His task of educating the people about investment has been made easier because people interested in the subject are in one mailing list and can receive Sembel's education by accessing his website.

The community which Roy Sembel has created is a virtual community on the Internet. However, it was built in a different way. Virtual communities are usually formed by launching the website first, then inviting people to join them. In Sembel's case, he traveled to several cities in the country, first to seek out people interested in investment, then he created the website and a mailing list.

The BCA community has actually been formed a long time ago. Its members are the some 7 million people who have a BCA savings account.

This is an extraordinarily large number. These people have something in common: they trust their bank with their money.

Although it has not been officially launched, BCA's website www.klikbca.com does not only function as a "brochure" for BCA, but also allows clients to make any kind of transaction usually done at the bank. Everything can be done here, except withdrawals.

What BCA is yet to do with the website is maximally use its clients' common interest. A special channel can be created in the website for the community to discuss or share their experience. It can even disseminate information about the bank or its new products. It would also be easier for the bank's management to introduce new policies to its members.

The money tree and BCA communities described above are very different from communities created by other websites in the country. Detikcom, which is visited by some one million people a month, is among those who build their virtual communities by only using the Internet.

It means the website invites people to join Detikcom. On the website, people can choose which communities they want to join, according to their interests. The communities are about, among others, entertainment, finance and politics.

Another website which built virtual communities in a similar way to Detikcom is Kompas Cyber Media (KCM)(www.kompas.com), which is one of the oldest website in the country. Only in the last two years has KCM been more serious in building its community.

When ties among members of virtual communities are not strong enough, their members commit "treason" by moving to other communities they consider more beneficial. It is arguable if visitors to this kind of website can be called a community.

However, the ties among members of the money tree community and klikbca.com are strong because it is difficult for members to find other communities which can replace their current communities.

Another virtual community which is effective and has strong ties among its members is at www.globalsource.com.. This virtual community of suppliers and buyers from all over the world is the most effective community on e-commerce in the country.

Another virtual community worth mentioning is the radio community, radioklik.com.. The website cleverly makes listeners of radio stations members of its community. The website pays the stations to air commercials on the website everyday. So subconsciously listeners click onto the website if they want to buy a CD or electronic appliance.

However, two question can be raised: Is this a real community? Can communities be used for commercial purposes?

These questions are worth asking for several reasons. First, the number of people who have access to the Internet is still relatively low. Internet users in the country amount to only three percent or about six million people. Some of these people do not have high purchasing power, and they access the Internet from their offices, from other people's computers, or from Internet kiosks, and not from their own homes.

These people do not have computers and do not intend to buy one as they want to save on their telephone bills and Internet Service Provider subscriptions.

However, people's curiosity of the Internet deserves two thumbs up. But again, do they really have the purchasing power to be included in a virtual community? Furthermore, these six million people may not be interested in the community in which they have become members since the Internet is still a new phenomenon here. So these people will only add to the number without "actually being" in the community.

Nevertheless, there is no better or effective way to grab the Internet market in the country than to rely on this community segmentation. However, this kind of community is not as solid as the ones in the real world.

Take a community of perkutut bird lovers for an example. Its members clearly have something in common i.e they are perkutut bird lovers. Their needs are predictable and their monthly spending on perkutut are measurable. Virtual communities, on the other hand, are like communities without faces. We do not know who they really are, what their needs are and how much they spend every month.

However, someday when the Internet becomes a daily necessity, as in developed countries, virtual communities can be used maximally to target a segmented market.