Post on 01-Sep-2014
description
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?