Does the Internet Have Holidays?

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in America (in case you hadn’t heard). Between the people traveling to grandma’s house and those frantically checking in on the turkey, many regular ‘net surfers were offline for the day, some even electing to go internet free for the entire long weekend (brave souls).

But does the internet stop? Oh no, my friends. Never.

As easy as it is to slip down that ethnocentric slope, there’s a big ol’ world out there that were online as they would any other Thursday. Companies overseas were (and are, for you Americans off today!) still bustling, aware that a multitude of holidays and the end of the calendar year are drawing closer quite quickly.

Now this is what makes the internet biz great, in my mind. The various opinions and viewpoints melded to make one universal practice in cyberspace, lending itself to the illusion that we are one group, one culture. Maybe in some broad, everyone hold hands sense we are, but it makes me wonder how different this internet business culture is from “real” variety. There are holiday/geographic/time zone differences that are obvious, sure – but what else is there?

In the face to face business world, there are several commonplace practices that I just don’t see performed online. Take for example the standard practice to quote high, leaving room for negotiation and still get the price wanted. Then to be fair, the customer has been trained to never take the first offer. It’s an archaic cat and mouse bit, but also a great way to get a good feel for the people you are working with.

On the ‘net (and particularly with blogs), however, this practice runs into difficulty. With rates cards and numerical stats available to anyone, there’s not much room for movement. Quoting too high for a job could easily send a potential customer to the company listed after you in the search results.

Or what about asking for donations? There may be the occasional charity box in the kitchen of an office, but overall people don’t go to their co-workers and ask for donations just because they do good work. Yet, we see these “Buy me a [insert a drink here]” pleas throughout the blog-o-sphere. Is this the internet equivalent of tipping? Or like asking the boss for a raise?

Tipping is a tricky subject, too. In New York, I expect to tip basically everyone I come in contact with – to not do so would be in poor form. Yet in other places around the states and world, tipping could be considered an insult, a condescending practice. But what about tipping in a more general sense?

Caroline Middlebrook, a fantastic and really nice “make money online” blogger, recently posted about how an article encouraging thanking those who support you on social media sites triggered a nasty backlash. Now I get plenty of messages from a multitude of sites each day, but I would never be angry that someone took the time to say thank you, as long as it seemed sincere/personal. It’s just good business sense, as you see the same people on your climb up as you do on the way down. But evidently even thanks have been automated on the world wide web, and something that should be a sincere token of thanks has become effortless in a way that a thank you in the real world never could.

Now I know I can’t be the only one noticing these differences. If you have any articles/posts/observations about the differences between internet v. real world business strategies, please feel free to share in the comments. I’d love to put together a solid list to serve as a good reminder that not all business situations are equal, and this internet culture of ours does have some business etiquette of its own.

And heck, maybe as this cyber business culture continues to grow, we’ll have an universal internet holiday one day.