Zoltan’s Business News & Blog

I hate MySpace. Probably because I never had the time to use it… or I am too old. + The content created by the vast majority of members is so ugly.

As the owner of a software company, we were also involved in creating a niche social networking site. It was a great experiene, however, I was not involved in the project directly. So, I knew we were working on the site but haven’t checked the website too many times. But… the guys from the company definitely did a great job. This was about 1 - 1.5 year ago and at that time I never thought about building something similar as a publisher. But things are changing quite fast on the internet and although we are not the first on the market, I believe we could have success with a specialized business networking site. Yes, I know there is already a Xing.com but I believe there is still growth potential and if you change a few things, you can actually have a great product. And, if it happens to be mainly free and mainly supported by advertising, this might be even better. We all know that Markus is making a fortune from his free dating website, so the AdSense supported business model might be a good one. My only concern is that I would depend too much on google….

Some related sites I use about 1-2 times a month:

• www.xing.com
• www.del.icio.us
• www.digg.com.

I am still collecting the ideas on what to include on the site, features, complexity of the forms, software & design, etc. But, sooner or later it will be launched. I already have a killer domain name for it but let this be my secret for now.

According to Jakob Nielsen, “Many business-to-business (B2B) sites are stuck in the 1990s in their attitude toward the user experience. Most B2B sites emphasize internally focused design, fail to answer customers’ main questions or concerns, and block prospects’ paths as they search for companies to place on their shortlists. These sites haven’t realized that the Web has reversed the company-customer relationship. Most online interactions are demand-driven: you either give people what they want or watch as they abandon your site for the competition’s.

The result of poor design on B2B sites? In our user testing, B2B sites earned a mere 58% success rate (measured as the percentage of time users accomplished their tasks on a site). In contrast, mainstream websites have a substantially higher success rate of 66%.

Considering that there’s immensely more money at stake for B2B than for business-to-consumer (B2C), it’s astounding that B2B sites offer a much worse user experience.”

But, what exactly is a B2B Website? A B2B website is a website of a company that mainly deal with other businesses and not with the end users or the final consumer. Most of the time, it is only a company presentation website and no direct e-commerce is involved (like ordering directly through the website and paying with a card).

Yes, some of the B2B websites are poor in content and sometimes the presented information is not enough to generate a business contact. So, if you are running a B2B website, it is advised to get in details and lead your visitor to the desired task. This can be an “additional info request”, an “order” (prices and volume discounts are a must here), a “survey”, etc.

Reference:

http://blogs.bnet.com/smallbusiness/?m=20060604

It looks like Alibaba and Jack Ma are determined to beat eBay, at least in China.

Alibaba’s new acquisition unit has targeted classifieds as its first area of investment, causing new competitive concerns for eBay. Alibaba.com has entered into an agreement for a strategic investment in Koubei.com, one of China’s largest classified listing and community websites with over two million registered users. Alibaba’s C2C online-auction site TaoBao has posed a major competitive threat to eBay Eachnet since its launch in 2003. Alibaba is extending the competitive playing field with its Koubei investment, as eBay operates its Kijiji.com classifieds sites in thirty-two cities in China.

So, it looks like after the massive investment that come from Yahoo ($1 billion), they have started to invest in more and more sectors.

Alibaba consists of Alibaba International (alibaba.com), a B2B marketplace for global trade; Alibaba China (alibaba.com.cn), the largest online small- and medium-sized enterprise community in China; Taobao (taobao.com); AliPay, China’s leading online payment service; and Yahoo China (yahoo.com.cn), a leading search engine and portal, acquired from Yahoo Inc. in October 2005.

Considering that eBay has / had plans to sell its China division (? http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m09/i26/s00), it looks like in China a local player can compete better in China than a multinational company. At least a local player as big as Alibaba…

http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m10/i30/s00

It looks like the Chinese are not satisfied with their oversaturated exports. They try to focus on imports as well. Just read on People’s Daily Online that “The 50-year-old Chinese Export Commodities Fair, which used to be the only international showcase for Chinese products, changed its name to the Chinese Import and Export Commodities Fair on Sunday evening.”

“The fair will also become a major platform for imports into China to achieve an equilibrium with exports,” said Zhang Yansheng, director of the Institute for International Economic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission.

The export-oriented economic policy since the 1980s has resulted in huge trade surpluses and foreign exchange reserve.

The question is: how will Chinese accept the imported goods?

According to the World Factbook, in 2005 China imports were: $631.8 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.) and exports were $752.2 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.).

 Links:

• The Canton Fair
• Trade Shows in China