Sometimes catch phrases can replace real meaning but, taken with a grain of salt, this site's underlying theme of, "there are three coms in dot com," may help us understand the potential of the web as well as get a firm grasp on the building blocks of a successful site. The three coms are communications, community, and commerce. I'm willing to bet that there won't be many successful sites that do not touch on all three of these coms.

Communciations

Public relations professionals, ad copywriters, novelists and journalists share one big thing in common: they use words to share ideas with us. In fact, most of us do this every day. We also share ideas in non-verbal ways: through music, pictures, body language and even in the way we dress. First and foremost the web is about sharing ideas and no site will succeed if it doesn't do this well. We will focus heavily on this aspect of site building.

Community

In some older media the concern is with an audience: who they are, how to reach them, how to please them. Many media are one-way streets when it comes to expression though. Sure newspapers have a letters to the editor section, and a negative letter can influence programming decisions at any TV network. However, the Internet, like no other modern media, enables the audience to participate in the narrative. It's a multiplex conversation with people pooling around topics of individual interest and concern. Empowering an active community round your ideas is a key strength of the Internet and business ignores this at their peril.

Commerce

An exchange of dollars for goods or services is what we mainly consider commerce. That's not wrong, but for our purposes it can also include buy-in by a site's viewers to one of its value propositions. Take a look at political candidate web sites—especially the current US presidential hopefuls. There the value proposition is not just donations to support the campaign, but volunteer networks to build support, and votes at the polling booth. We'll explore various forms of value exchange and their role in the success of a site.

idea exchange

Humankind is a tool-making species and, while many of think of tools as physical or mechanical objects, language, the means of expressing ideas, is also a tool. It may even be the tool that's needed before any other tools can be developed. As the technologies available to us for spreading ideas have changed, so too have the modes of expression. Iambic pentameter is no longer popularly used as a means of remembering and performing historical epics; instead we get Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings trilogy on film. Heck, Jackson was working from another tool: the book.

Our communications tools have evolved, changed and expanded throughout our history: the Internet is the latest and still has potential yet to be discovered.
So, what is the Internet? At its most basic: Just another tool enabling humans to exchange ideas . Like every other medium of communication it has several key elements not found in previous media.

Throughout the course of our discussions we're going to explore these elements and differences with the goal of bringing an understanding of them to the task of building effective web sites and services.
I don't think it's possible to provide a definitive guide to effective use of the Internet. We'll try to note important signposts to answering that question beginning with the recognition that our success depends on three coms —communications, community, commerce.

This site is primarily intended to support the explorations of students in St Lawrence College's Internet marketing course (MCOM-30). Given the nature of the exploration and the topics discussed we may be lucky enough to include broader participation.