Stories about: Web Crossing

If malware were insects, botnets would be termites -- they burrow in behind the walls of your security perimeter, lie dormant for a period of time, then attack.

Jive Software is retooling its discussion forums collaboration software to support clustering and tout the program's ability to integrate with other systems using its available source code.

It is common knowledge that if average Web surfers cannot find what they are looking for on a Web site within three to four mouse clicks, they are off to the next site. But with an e-community built with Multex.com Inc.'s BuzzCompany BuzzPower 4.0 Portal Edition, you can enhance the quantity of click-throughs astronomically while increasing your site's stickiness. BuzzPower lets you add message-based forums, surveys, and other customer grabbing tools to your e-commerce site.

It's May 1995: You're using browser-based chat, available only at online community Theglobe.com, to chat with a friend in Australia. You submit a message to the public chat board, then hit reload about 20 seconds later to see if she's responded. Of all the posts made in that time, you see one near the top with a purple cartoon icon. It's her reply. You come back often. You become part of a valuable asset - an audience Theglobe.com and the few other dedicated community sites can sell to their advertisers.

For business-to-business and business-to-consumer Web sites, online customers are becoming not only more plentiful, but also more demanding. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity. With the competition only a click away, the pressure is on every e-business to distinguish itself with better customer service. You can't take days to respond to e-mail inquiries and expect customers to keep coming back. At the same time, the Internet can help companies reduce service and support costs, because it provides ways to help customers help themselves and enables customer service representatives to serve more customers in less time than they ever could over the phone.

I never really had a lot of fun at the "community" pool. There was too much noise, too many rules, and patches of yellow water. I had little in common with screaming children and panicked mothers, and even less in common with the adults wearing pink floral swim caps. Sure, we all had the desire to swim and stay afloat, but that wasn't enough to bring us together in any sort of "community" or cooperative spirit. Such is not the case on the Web. We're all swimming around looking for something to connect us. Community forms that connection, and it is a fundamental building block to most serious sites.