lift11: invisible communities

Invisible communities.Chris HeathcoteLIFT 2011

Whilst everyone talks about Facebook as the largest community, I want to talk about some other communities that are overlooked.

Usenet.

The history of the Internet is the history of communities.Usenet sprang out of bulletin board systems - the first notion of Internet communities of strangers with shared interests, dialling into a shared space

2001 - 500 million messages (google buys Dejanews)

still going, but not really used for talking any morethe best Usenet groups either met in real-life, or did something together - both things that kept the groups as real communities - if you want to see the extent of this google for alt.fan.lemurs - not only one of the funniest groups, it raised a lot of money for the Duke University Primate Center..

Mailing lists.

at the same time as Usenet grew in popularity, so did mailing lists - these were often private and sometimes invite-only.

1999 - egroups alone - 13 million users - 1.3 billion messages a month

Web forums.Vbulletin, phpBB & discuz.

web-based message boards took over from Usenet and mailing lists

vbulletin is 1.4% of all websites on the Internet - bigger than bloggerphpBB is 0.4% - bigger than Typepad and TumblrDiscuz is 0.4% (Japanese forum software)(blogger is 0.7%, Typepad 0.1%, tumblr <0.1%)

Gaia Online, an mmorpg, has a forum system to talk about anything - not just the game - 23 million members, 1.9 billion messages.

These communities are where an awful lot of knowledge is stored on the Internet.

On the web, but sometimes invisible.

No central index, ofter content is limited to members- invisible to Google, and therefore invisible to the web.Boards are often shared by word-of-mouth, and thereʼs no central identity system - you are a different identity on each.

Mobile games in Japan.Gree & Mobage-town.

Japanese sites offering mobile phone games - have become large communities themselves - 22 million users each - these are considered the biggest barriers to Facebook

Not the typical homepage of an online community.

The New York Times wrote “One trait those sites have in common is crucial to Japanʼs fiercely private Internet users. The Japanese sites let members mask their identities, in distinct contrast to the real-name, oversharing hypothetical user on which Facebookʼs business model is based.Japanese Web users, even popular bloggers, typically hide behind pseudonyms or nicknames.”

iPhone communities.

Now weʼre seeing communities based around apps on smartphones

Korean messaging apps.Kakao Talk & WhatsApp.

some of the most popular apps in Korea - person to person and small group messaging - free - (and cheaper than SMS)KakaoTalk - 4 million users in 9 months

on these, your phone number is your identity

pretty similar feature sets, but WhatsApp started charging 99c for the app - so the userbase is moving.

These 3rd party messaging apps spring up in every country and language - mainly because theyʼre cheaper (ad supported) - these are not the universal ubiquitous messaging systems like the Internet or mobile phones.

Group image sharing.Path & Instagram.

Path and Instagram create small group sharing for photos - with little presence on the web, other than when shared.

Instagram in particular feels more private than it actually is - they leak into other social networks, but feel private as theyʼre just on your personal device

Of the Internet, but not of the web.

these communities exist on the Internet, but not how weʼd traditionally view it - through a web browser

Unexpected communities.Grindr.

communities can emerge in the strangest places

Grindr is a gay dating app for iPhone and BlackBerryover 1 million users - 75,000 in London

(as an aside, itʼs oddly prudish - to conform with Appleʼs terms and conditions)Itʼs location based - and thatʼs the extent of the UIyou turn it on, and it displays the closest 100 peoplethereʼs no ʻnormalʼ login, your phone is your identity (contrast with gaydarʼs app)thereʼs no way to change where you are and the people you see - itʼs using your actual location as the only input

The founder says that it should minimise the time to meeting in real life.Its limitations in functionality are part of its success....

almost no profilea picture, a few lines of text, a few stats - thatʼs alland the actions are limited - favourite, block or chat

A community despite its original intentions.

What struck me was that people stay on grindr all day, every day. People use it when theyʼre bored to chat as much its original purpose - even though itʼs designed not to facilitate long-term communication.It also gained enough momentum, at least in the UK, in a really odd way - Stephen Fry demoing it to Jeremy Clarkson on Top Gear - over 30,000 downloads that nightMy question is - whatʼs going on, what can we learn from it?

To try and get a sense of whatʼs going on, I did some data spelunking, taking a sample of data from London. Just because things arenʼt on the web, doesnʼt mean theyʼre really private. My first thought was to map it, in some way. A map is the hello world of data.This is a map of London on a Saturday night (the tube stations), showing the average disclosed weight of users near each point. Maybe not that interesting, but even here thereʼs some stories.

And this is taking all the words in the profiles... One odd word that sticks out is ping -

PingChat.

this refers to another iPhone community/chat app - itʼs easier to manage long-term chats in Ping than in grindr itself (and itʼs cheaper than SMS).People find a way round problems or limitations to let them talk, and keep talking.

Even dating becomes a community.

so even dating, supposedly a solitary endeavour, can become a community

Gaydar.

Gaydar started as a dating site, now operates several communities, radio stations, bars... its website gets as much traffic as Tesco, with 5.2 million registered users. The radio station has a listenership of 2.2 million - but struggles on mobile, both because it has a legacy of standard logins, and it charges more for mobile use.

So how do we create interesting communities?

People will talk about anything.

weʼre lucky - people like to talk, especially about their interests and experiences, hobbies and niches.

Go where the people are.

In fact, chances are, people are already talking about what you want to talk about. Does creating a new community make sense? How can you use existing places better?And on the flip side - if you have a place where a lot of people are doing something - does it make sense to create a community around this?

People don’t want their identities tied together.

the ease and showing-off of Facebook may be appropriate in some cases, but not alleveryone has some slightly uncool hobby or interest...So separate usernames, profiles and avatars are key needs for many people - even using Google or Facebook Connect as part of the sign-in process will keep people away

Let people communicate in private.

As well as the conversations in public, people need to be able to split off and have side conversations - most web bulletin boards allow private messaging as well as forum posting.

Moderate with personality.

the forums that succeed are often run by someone whoʼs passionate about the subject and wants to know more. theyʼre a known face, with a real name, and their management is considered in good faith.Forums like metafilter can keep going because of the strong identity of moderators.

Watch what’s happening.

Most communities havenʼt got a Danah Boyd or a sociologist to tease out whatʼs really going on and look for interesting stories. Itʼs also hard for those outside to gain a large enough view of the community. Pointing at interesting stories shows the community that itʼs alive and kicking, and worthwhile continuing to contribute.

“Get them to like each other.” - Rushko!

This applies especially to commercial entities running communities:Douglas Rushkoff in his book Program or be programmed says“Where there are people, there will be conversations.... Instead of looking to monetize or otherwise intercede between existing social connections, those promoting networks should be looking to foster connections between people who are as yet unknown to each other yet potentially in need of each other. And then let them go about their business—or their socializing.”

This has to be the key idea when creating and managing a community - “The content is not the message, the contact is. The ping itself.” - If people like each other, theyʼll keep on talking.

In conclusion:

People like to talk.

Anything can and will be used to communicate.

People don’t have one identity.

Public, semi-public and private conversations.

Watch what’s happening.

Let people like each other.

Thank you.@antimegaanti-mega.comdentsulondon.com