INTEREST COMMUNITY 2

According to the survey of Jupiter Media Metrix , online music sales in America had increased markedly by 2001, namely: from 520% or 6.2 billion U.S. dollars; in 2001, only 1 billion U.S. dollars; and estimated annual growth of 43% over five years. Online music purchases were made through digital download or online orders. Jupiter Media Metrix estimated that online music sales were taking a market share of 7% of all music sales in the U.S. and increased to 32% in 2006.

In Indonesia, the interest community related to music can be found at musikamu.com, which provides information about singers, musicians, musical instruments, the collection of songs, artist images, fan forums, new albums, music industries, song lyrics with chords, chats, web radios, cafe information, and quizzes. The interest community associated with films covers Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), the site of film research; Film Wise (www.filmwise), the site of film quizzes; and MRQE (www.mrqe.com), the site of the best film study. The interest community related to games covers Gamespy, which constitutes a technology company and a leading online entertainment; and Nexia (www.bolehgame.com), which is a modified, Korean game, and the latter has the most visitors although still in beta, and they can interact like in daily life; for example, they can engage, get married, or die even though they can be made alive again. This game can perform smiles, tears, angers, sleeping, and singing activities. The average players in this game were about 800 people.

The interest community that has something to do with health care is WebMD, which contains information concerning the health itself, diseases, medical library, medicine, family genetics, symptoms, health guide,  medical tests and examinations, e-health tools and clinical trials, including food and nutrition, old people, women, men, sports, fitness, and lifestyle. Besides, WebMD is also to facilitate the exchange of information, communication and electronic transactions among the participants who are interested in the health care. The best site of the interest community relating to the health care in Indonesia can be found at www.pdpersi.co.id, which provides information about medical devices, the people recovering from a particular disease, and the doctor community information about health regulation and hospital accreditation. Ar last but not least, the facility of  the site is that of finding a doctor only by entering the name of the doctor who is practicing with a specialist area. In conclusion, the segmentation of interest communities is a promising segmentation in the future.

THE ACT OF STARTING A BUSINESS

When I went back to my birthplace on Id holiday, I happened to see my friend who aspired to become a businessman. A year later, I met him again, asking "Have you become a businessman", and he replied "Not yet. I don't have enough capital to start a business". However, he told me that he still aspired to become an businessman. On the following Id holiday, I met him again, and he had not become a businessman yet.

What my friend had aspired reminded me of the story of Abu Nawas, who said in front of  King Harun Al Rasyid that he would fly in spite of the fact that he had no wings or equipments. Hearing the remarks of Abu Nawas, the King said to himself, "Well this is my opportunity to defeat him". Then, the King said "Oh, what did you say?". "Your Majesty, if you make me a high stage, I will fly from the stage without any wings or any other equipments", replied Abu Nawas. "Well, I have to make you a high stage soon, and after the next Friday prayers, prepare yourself for flying", said the King . "I'm ready, Your Majesty", replied Abu Nawas. A week later, soon after finishing Friday prayers, people gathered in the square to see Abu Nawas , who would fly from a high stage. Soon after, the King arrived in the square, being hailed by his people, who then all approached Abu Nawas, who was waiting for them under the tower platform with the height of about 12 meters. "Are you ready, Abu?", said the King. "Yes, I am, Your Majesty", replied Abu Nawas. Then, Abu Nawas climbed up to the top of the high platform and stood up, being greeted with anticipation. The people muttered to themselves, "How Abu Nawas will fly from the stage without any wings or any other equipments, and if he falls, he must die". Furthermore, Abu Nawas kept on lifting one foot, replacing the one foot by lifting the other, swinging and waving his arms as a bird that will fly. Abu Nawas did such actions repeatedly, so the people became bored and annoyed to see what he was doing, and they impatiently shouted, "It is time you flew, Abu, as we heard you said that". "No, I will not because I did not say that but just said I will fly", claimed Abu Nawas. What we can infer from the story is that you will never be a businessman if you think to be a businessman but do nothing.

The law of starting a business is like the friction law of an object.  A still object tends to have a relatively greater  friction than a moving object. The greatest friction occurs when the object is about to move. Similarly, we have major obstacles when we are about to start a business, and after running the business, the obstacles get relatively smaller. The biggest obstacle occurs during the first day of running the business. A neighbor of mine once told me that before he began opening a shop, many people looked down on him by saying  that it would be impossible for him to succeed in running the shop because he did not have sufficient capital to do so. In fact,  they said nothing after he had managed to do so. That is the law of starting a business.

STARTING A BUSINESS BY REASON OF CONCERN

There are a lot of reasons to start a new business. One of them is because of the concern for the occurrence of environmental changing. Henri Nestlé, a German chemist who lived in Vevey Switzerland, was concerned about the high infant mortality rates in the late 19th century, precisely in Switzerland in 1866. Then, a few pharmacists were trained to begin carrying out  an experiment on various combinations of milk, flour, and sugar, in order to develop alternative sources of infant nutrition for mothers who were not able to breastfeed. Because of the concern, the business opportunity was created. Nestle eventually created "Farine Lactee", sumplementary food for the babies who did not get enough milk of their mothers. There were so many babies  who were saved by means of the food by then that Nestle was trusted by public.

Nestle's first customer was a premature baby who could not drink its mother's milk. After plenty babies had been saved by means of  Farine Lactee, Nestle could sell these products throughout Europe. Henri Nestlé also gave the initial understanding of the brand and ownership. He used his name, Nestle, for the symbol of the company. In 1874, Nestle began producing condensed milk. The product competed with condensed milk products from Anglo-Swiss firm. Then, Nestle produced chocolate milk products in 1875. A friend of Henri Nestlé, Peter, who was the leading chocolate manufacturer in the world, joined Nestle, and even the Anglo-Swiss, his main competitor, eventually also joined him 1905.

Quality is the philosophy of Nestle. Millions of people around the world have trusted Nestle products. Trust is the image of quality and reputation for high standards from year to year. Products, services, and customer contacts help form the image. Nestle is the product trademark which constitutes promises to customers, and its products which are safe for consumptions ,  and which are not conflict with the regulations, are in accordance with the high quality standards, and customers want it to keep its word every day.

Quality is a tool to increase competitive advantage. If the customers are not satisfied with the quality of Nestle products, they will leave and consume other brands. Therefore, Nestle gives awards to each category of products in markets where the other companies compete with each other. Quality is not a guarantee of success, but it is one way to achieve success. The competitive advantage in the long-term is the quality that has an optimum value in the minds of consumers, and high values can lead customers to satisfaction, which ultimately makes consumers remain loyal to its products.

Communities in the world have been impressed by the company with the motto "Good Food, Good Life" as a positioning strategy. The food company which was the greatest in the world in 2003 is the most admired company in the world with the 39th rank according to Fortune magazine.

STARTING A BUSINESS AFTER TRAVELING

Among successful entrepreneurs, Raymond Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s Corporation, got a good idea of starting a new business when traveling from his home near Chicago to southern California to see two biggest clients of his, the buyers of Prince Castle Multi Mixer (milk shaker instrument).

His client told him that in San Bernardino, there were restaurants that used machines to mix forty glasses of milk simultaneously while other restaurants were only able to mix five glasses of milk. Then, Kroc went to San Bernardino to see the restaurant. Arriving at the two gates of the golden arches of glittering restaurants, which lit up the sky at twilight, Kroc saw the queue of people winding like a snake outside the restaurant with its octagonal form.

Through the walls of the building made entirely of glass, Kroc saw that the male employees wearing paper hats and white uniforms at a very clean restaurant were busy serving burgers in a dish, fries and milk shakes to the families of the working class who arrived by car. “Something must have happened here. This must be the most amazing business operation I have ever seen, ” said Kroc to himself. The restaurant is owned by Maurice and Richard McDonald, who offers a menu of nine types of food, including burgers, fries, milk shakes, and pies by removing seats and paper utensils, glass instead of glass or porcelain. This restaurant is designed with a reliable service and is able to serve the orders less than one minute. “This is my future. I feel like a modern-day Newton” he said to himself.

Kroc was convinced that the operation of McDonald brothers could succeed if it was expanded. So the next day, he filed a proposal to the McDonald brothers. These brothers objected, because it sold franchises in Phoenix and Sacramento with low prices and did not get any profits. But, Kroc was a veteran salesman with thirty years experience, and finally he was able to convince Kroc McDonald brothers to sell franchises with a low price, which is 950 dollars. In return, the McDonald brothers would get 1.4% of all sales and 0.5% return. With approval in hand, Kroc began to fulfill his dream of McDonald’s restaurants that exploded from coast to coast. He started by building the first chain restaurant partnership with a model in Des Plaines, Illinois, outside Chicago, which used a low price strategy with the same, limited menu and fast service like a restaurant in San Bernardino. It was the first milestone of the success of McDonald Corporation, and the idea to build it was gained when Raymond Kroc was traveling.

DO NOT MAKE THE SCAPEGOAT IN BUSINESS

When people fail in opening and running a business, most of them tend to blame the environment, subordinates, competitors, all associated with the failure. We prefer making someone else the scapegoat to correcting ourselves by learning from the faults we have made, and then with hard work, we try to succeed in what we want to achieve. We can make use of a failure as a valuable lesson to see the positive side of the failure itself.

When Steve Jobs was thrown from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Apple, he did not blame the corporate environment, which he also co-founded. "Put all the power, and set up a new and more sophisticated company" said Steve Jobs, who just graduated from Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, and he only lasted one semester at the College of Oregon. Later, he founded the NextStep Inc. company. Besides, Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas in 1986. When running this animation studio, Jobs, with all of his assistants, was able to produce some software, including Reyes (Render Everything You Ever Saw), CAPS (with Disney), Marionette and the Ringmaster. With Marionette, animators can not only create models and characters, but also add optical effects and lighting. With Ringmaster, it is possible to manage computerized animation productions. Almost all of Pixar's software is an Academy Technical Award (Oscar) in the field of film making. Furthermore, Jobs, cooperation with Disney, successfully launched the Toy Story, which became the best-selling movie in 1995, and it was followed by Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters Inc. (2001), and Finding Nemo (2003) . The success of the films which were made by Pixar made Steve Jobs persuade Apple to acquire NeXTSTEP with the value of U.S. $ 400 million and appointed him as CEO ad interim. After successfully doing new business for the iPod and iTunes for its electronics consumers and for its retailers, Apple in Nasdaq could severely increase the income from U.S. $ 13 to U.S. $ 22 within 10 months until early February 2004, which made Steve Jobs CEO with the highest salary in California. Apple shares were (6.2%) and Pixar shares were (55%), which  made Steve Jobs had riches of U.S. $ 2.5 billion.

When Steve Jobs was deposed from the CEO, he was not offended against Apple, and he remained loyal to Apple, and even later on he was able to make Apple rise from adversity. Steve Jobs tried hard to establish new more sophisticated companies and did not blame the environment, or in other words, he did not make the environment the scapegoat.

FANTASY COMMUNITY

A fantasy community is a forum in which participants create an imagination environment. The customers of AOL (American Online) are provided with various facilities. The AOL of UK includes the latest news about celebrities, events around the UK, topics, and the best information. The AOL of France  provides holiday facilities in France for meeting someone before flying, planning to spend the night in Paris or in the desired place in France. The AOL of Germany provides facilities for easily meeting someone in the group @ aol, easy shopping, news and current reports. The AOL of Brazil provides  facilities for creating home pages for free, meeting Brazilian people through home pages, obtaining the best place to find love on-line in Brazil, getting news and links to the Brazilian football team. The AOL of Japan provides facilities for downloading the software of Japanese version. The AOL of Canada provides free upgrades through AOL 7.0. The AOL of Australia provides facilities for discovering the Great South Land, and you can get in touch with your Australian friends through the AOL. The AOL of  Mexico and Argentina provides facilities for downloading AIM (AOL Instant Messenger). Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and putting advertisements on this site.

PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY

A professional-community segmentation is an established community to support professional communication,  the exchange of professional work, or research information; for example, Analog Devices (www.analog.com) creates chip-design engineer communities for their technical experts; Linux Documentation Project (www.linuxdoc.org) gathers variuos articles related to Linux; Tom's Hardware (www.tomshardware.com) provides information on computer hardware, including motherboards, hard disks, and so on; Tom's Hardware supports the components of personal computers. Besides, another facility is also to help not only reveal CPU, bug chip sets, new processors, but also test motherboards, graphics cards, or RAM. At last but not least, Ofoto (www.ofoto.com) is provided for the professional photographers who can obtain free photo software, free shipping for the first order, exchange photos, store images, and perfect images online.

RELATION CUMMUNITY

A community relation is the organized community of the same life experiences; for example, the Cancer Forum, which constitutes a forum to exchange information and opinions about the cancer disease that can be found at (www.cancerforum.com). In addition, the Cancer Forum also sells and rents out domain names related to health, namely: arthritis, asthma, birth control, cancer, dentistry, diet , disease, drug, eyes, fitness, foot care, forum, genetics, hair care, heart, hospital, media, medical care, medicine, pediatrics, pet / animal, physician, resource, skin care, specialty, vaccine and virus. Unlike the Cancer Forum, Parent Soup is a forum on sports information for old people, and they can visit SeniorNet, and Women's Wire and iVillage, the well-known on-line community for women. Furthermore, the community relation of African-American descent can be found at Bet.com; the Latin community relation at www.elsitio.com; the Asian-American community relation at www.click2asia.com; and the community relation of disabled people at www.wemedia.com.

TRANSACTION COMMUNITY

Transaction community members constitutes a community providing facilities for buying and selling. The members of the community are buyers, sellers, intermediaries, and so on. The companies that perform segmentation according to this transaction community are Yahoo Shopping, Amazon, MSN Home Advisor, and Wizard.

The members of the community of Yahoo Shopping can shop with four ways, namely: "Shopping", "Used", "Auctions" and "Classified". In Yahoo Shopping, there are a few companies that put banners, and the companies are Dell, Spiegel, Bobbi Brown, Sony, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, LLBean, FTD, Gap, Eddie Bauer, Compaq, CDNOW, Bluelight, Gateway, and Intel.

Amazon.com is the best online store in 2002 according to the version of Yahoo magazine. Amazon provides not only books, magazines, and gifts, but also a variety of products, namely: products of beauty, health, raveling, VCDs, DVDs, music instruments, electronic goods, toys including dolls, housewares, and so on and so forth. Amazon community members are getting reductions in the shopping and free shipping.

MARKET SEGMENTATION ON THE INTERNET

Based on its characteristics, the market segmentation on the Web can be grouped as follows: comfort creatures, connected suites, country clubbers, credit checkers, detail divers, electrons, explorers, gear heads, geeks, gift boxers, knowledge workers, novices, surgical shoppers and look-loos.

Comfort creatures constitute a group of feeling-oriented customers; for example, they want to know if certain colors, or the designs of ergonomic chairs with particular skin types are offered. Connected suites are very much found in the Net environment; for example, the customers who belong to this group look for a lot of data in a short time or several times a day, always use sophisticated search features, and tend to be good customers. Country clubbers are status-oriented buyers; for example, he or she drives a BMW and carries a very expensive bag, and looks for discount for a very expensive item. Credit checkers are young buyers whose credit balance is more or less adequate, and they tend to derive from the sites of youths and are inclined to shop with their credit cards. Details divers are the visitors who want to know how something works. They are like look-loos but they can also recommend a purchase even if they do not give a final decision. They tend to come during working hours and are inclined to derive from technically oriented search engines. Electrons constitute a group of the visitors who tend to move rapidly to all parts of certain sites without clear paths. Such visitors have great interests but their minds are not focused, and they buy different products. Explorers constitute a group of the visitors who do not leave certain sites before visiting all parts of the sites, and such visitors love merchandise, promotions, product reviews, and recommendations. Most of the visitors are pensioners, children, or employees who have too much time to do so. Gear heads are the visitors who tend to be not very interested in the technology of products but rather in gizmo (a new, trendy device), or in rare products. The customers who belong to this type are prospective customers when the offers given to them are appropriate. Geeks are those who frequently use the Web more than others. They should be given a special offer, or they will turn to a direct source offline. Gift Boxers are those who shop online for others; for gifts, for example. Their shopping characteristics are not consistent with their shopping histories. Knowledge workers are the visitors that collect user information for use in their work. Novices are those who are less knowledgeable but very enthusiastic. These users are often the very good customers. They will love a certain site because they can ask stupid questions without any fear of embarrassment. Surgical shoppers are those who know exactly what they want, and they want the buying process be done quickly. When they are given what they want, they will come back again. Looks-loos constitute those who are only interested in the attractive banner and clicking, but they do not do so for a long time. They are happy hunting customers on the Internet.