The 3 C's of Online Success

The net is no longer a wide-open frontier. Chances are if you have an idea, it's already been done - probably several times over. The web's winners and losers are starting to shake out, but that doesn't mean that there's no chance for new web companies. It's just a little harder to make a dent than it was back in 1995. Given the steep chances of failure, how does a company turn a great idea into a successful web venture? Ancestry.com and MyFamily.com's Curt Allen has turned an analog publishing company into the world's most popular genealogical database. Allen says web success all boils down to the three C's.

1. Content

A successful site will provide content, which is timely, lively and unique. Web surfers will return again and again if you provide the kind of content they can't find anywhere else. Allen says that both MyFamily.com and Ancestry.com post new content each day.

"We are committed to content in both of our sites," Allen says. "In the case of Ancestry.com, it's through the acquisition of databases that we've posted on our site every business day since we went live almost two years go."

MyFamily.com adds tools that allow members to create their own content, producing a community that is heavily and personally invested in the site.

"We try to provide the best content and the best content creation tools to allow our communities to add value themselves to the stuff that we do," Allen said. "Our goal is to provide the core content and to negotiate agreements for third party editorial content which we post on our site. We also think it's important to provide really great tools to allow our community members to add value to that content and to share content of their own."

Allen said that web companies would be wise to focus on issues, which really affect its community.

"Start thinking about more than loosely affiliated affinity groups of people that have a common interest," Allen advised. "Really focus on things about which people care and care at a very deep level so that they're going to want to come and come back and share their thoughts and opinions with people they care about."

2. Community

Allowing users to create their own site content is a great way to make them a part of the site, Allen said. No longer passive viewers, users are more motivated to stick around.

"We believe that content leads directly to the creation of community," Allen said. "For example, visitors can upload their family trees to the Ancestry site. They include their e-mail addresses and can discuss their family's history on our message boards. Our community results directly from the uploading of important family photographs or news items or calendar events."Of course, many sites look to community as the Holy Grail of the web. You can put software up on a site, but how do you make sure people use it?

"Community doesn't just happen," Allen said. "We believe that it ties directly back to the 3 C's. The community results generally because there's great content. At the core is content. Community results, we believe, because people want to come to see the content and they want to talk about it."

3. Commerce

All right, you've got users coming to your site to take what you have to give. But on the web where most everything is free, how do you make money off this community?

Ancestry.com includes a subscription area, but much of its content is free. MyFamily.com is also free, Allen said, but efforts are funded by advertising and e-commerce deals aimed directly at site members.

"We make deals with sellers of family friendly products or services that families would want to buy," Allen said. "The key category right now is gift giving, with more than $100 billion a year spent in the US on gifts. Most gift giving occasions are family related. So we enable families to keep track of family events. We provide a reminder service that's tied back to their calendar, then we have a wish list that's kind of a gift registry. We provide a mechanism whereby family members can automatically purchase and ship those gifts to family members based on their birthdays or anniversaries or other important family occasions."

Curt Allen has found a way to work with his three C's - will you be able to do the same? Success and fortune awaits those who can. There are a million good ideas in the world, but far fewer businesspeople who can turn those ideas into a successful business.