Prepared by Lee LeFever, MHA | Contact: | mobile | Lee LeFever 11/08/2005 COM 546 Evolution and Trends In Online Communities
About Me Online Community Manager Common Craft- Social Design Blogger Travel
Online Community? Community First, Online Second One Channel of Many I’m Using Generic Form of “Community” Prefer “Social” Web 2.0
Trends in Online Communities Lowering of Barriers Power of Voice Shared Personal Bottom Up
Evolution: Technology as Barrier Access to technology governed membership Message Boards (BBS) List Servs ( ) The Well
Hosted Services Lowered Barriers Yahoo! Groups List Servs GeoCities AOL Power to the People! Connectivity and Understanding - a Barrier
What Now? Business Starts to Notice Know-how a Barrier Few Best Practices What is “Community”? Growth in Small, Technical Niches
The Bubble Discovers Community 4 C’s of the Web Net Gain New Community Providers Community Gets Bad Name ClueTrain
What Was Missing? Community Not a Product Community IS a Strategy and Culture Community is Not a Technology Community IS People Community is Not an End Community IS a Means
New Tools Change the Landscape Fast forward to post- bubble Social Networking Blogs, Wikis Folksonomies Less Ickiness Move to Publicity
Businesses See New Opportunities New Tools for the Web Site –Internal and External Cultural Transition Need to be a Part of “The Conversation” Communicate Like a Person Gain Ability to Listen More Effectively Cost of NOT Doing Community Activities
Blogs are HUGE
Platform for Being Human Personal Voice Becomes a Priority Creating New Relationships Risk of Mistakes Value of Transparency Community Without “Discussion” Microsoft’s Blogs and Being “Evil”
Blogs w/in Community - My Back Porch Biggest New Feature to Community Platforms All About Me and My Backporch Different Social Environment
Quote “I think, for a lot of us, it is the first time we feel like we have total control of something. We can blog to vent, we can blog to declare some great news, we can blog just to babble. I think this is particularly important for our SHARE population who are parents that feel so isolated from the "real" world.” ~Melissa Middleton
Trends Review Biggest Barriers: Technology, Connectivity, Understanding Web 2.0 Lowered Multiple Barriers New Perceptions Fueled Interest and Growth These Ideas Will Be Disruptive Just Getting Started
The Future Community Integrates with Business Culture Mobile Multimedia Gaming, MMOGs Community as Cloud
Cool Tools I Heart Flickr 43 Things/People/Places Tagging, Folksonomies Technorati Ning
My Sites Share TwinF Del.icio.us Flickr Mobile
Social Networking Who You Know Your Bio, Interests Your Reputation Business Uses Too Many New Type of Participation
Publicity is the Point Community Participation as Expression Openness and Freedom Transparency Risk