Six Key Features of Web Sites that Work

By Joe Dysart

Innovative Use of Visitor Communication Interfaces

Finding ways to enable people to easily communicate on the Web can get you far in business. Once considered an upstart in the 1990s, AOL has zoomed to No. 1 among Internet service providers largely because of its easy-to-use chatrooms.

Many commercial Web sites provide basic communication interactivity by posting e-mail addresses of key personnel and/or offering mailing lists. Experiment with mailing-list technology for free at online services like Yahoo! Groups (groups.yahoo.com), MSN Groups (groups.msn.com) AOL Groups (groups.aol.com) and Topica (www.topica.com).