Building Online Communities

July 1st 2010

Jon Keefe CEO KMP Digitata

Community Memory 1973Community Memory ’73 1st Public BBS – Berkeley San Francisco experiment to understand how people would react to exchanging information via computer

History of Communities online• Usenet ‘79 – organised into topical categories called

newsgroups– Usenet resembled Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) which were

precursors of today’s internet forums• MUD (Multi-User Dungeons)

– multi-user real-time virtual world represented in text• IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

– a form of real-time Internet text messaging (chat) or synchronous conferencing

• Chat Rooms• BBS

– SysOP home-hosted systems• Today’s Threaded Internet Forums

– www.biofind.com• Community 2.0

• Web 2.0 technologies plus a community

Definition• When people carry on public

discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships

Howard Rheingold Author- Virtual Communities (1993)

Other Leading Lights• Mark Granovetter

– American sociologist at Stanford University

– Theories on the spread of information in social networks known as "The Strength of Weak Ties" (1973).

• Malcolm Gladwell– “The Tipping Point” where he talks of

“the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”

What makes up Online Community• An enabling technology

– Ning, wordpress• A core topic• Passionate contributors• Background crowd• An unwritten social contract of trust• Moderators (sometimes)

Examples of the purpose of online communities• Activism• Clan (gaming)• Research test bed

– Technology Strategy Board 30,000 representative UK onliners www.innovateuk.org

• Support Groups

Examples of the purpose of online communities• Ethnography• Hobbies

– www.flickr.com - photography– www.redbubble.com - poetry

• Answers– www.blurt-it.com

• A highly networked individual’s social graph

Biofind

Mercedes forum

Second Life

Make up of a community• Peripheral (i.e. Lurker)

– An outside, unstructured participation• Inbound (i.e. Novice)

– Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation

• Insider (i.e. Regular)– Full committed community participant

• Leader (i.e. Champion)– A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers

interactions

Make up of a community• Peripheral =1000

• Inbound =100

• Insider =10

• Leader =1

Community participation• Lurkers don’t readily participate because they

don’t believe they need to and in not doing so they are being helpful

• Leaders participate because they believe that their actions will have positive outcomes

• Member participation is not based on hierarchical needs or goals-driven theories but desire planning and they environment

Increasing participation in online communities: A framework for

human–computer interaction:Jonathan Bishop

Dynamics of Communities

Host

Leader 1

Leader 2

Leader 3

InsiderInbound

Lurker

Insider

Insider

Inbound

Inbound

Inbound

Lurker

Lurker

LurkerLurker

LurkerLurker

Lurker

Value of Community

Host

User 1

User 2

User 3

£ ?£

£ ?

£

£

£ ?

Monetisation summary• Good Old fashioned cpc mechanisms• Subscription or freemium models• Relationship commissions

Other value in community• Conversation/dialogue• Sentiment• Influence• Co-learning• Collaboration

Qualitative Signs of success• Signs of ownership within the

community• Self-policing• Rituals• Off-line actions begin

Quantitative success metrics• Number of new members• Number leaving members• Member satisfaction• Number and type of content items created• Number of connections / relationships

created• Time on site• Frequency of visits• Recommendations & Referrals

Building a community• Don’t let technology drive the community• Seed content with known champions in the

topic• Inaugural members act as roll models

– Define code of conduct• Beta• Keep participation simple

– Initially all content open unless as part of a reward

Building a community• Politely provoke and reward

participation• Track strangers/lurkers and try to

promote them through desire• Be active and part of the community

yourself• Set an example• It takes time!

Summary• Online communities have social

structure just like the real world because they comprise real people!

• Online communities have a voice and an opinion

• Online communities can be valued in many ways

Summary• Be careful, you don’t want to be

thrown out of your own community.

Because the lunatics will take over the asylum

Thank you, any questions?