Invisible Communities

Dave Mee, dave@TANDOT.co.uk

Before we talk of the invisible…

• What do we mean when we say community?

• What do we consider to be a community?

What do we think community is?

In a nutshell… community is

• communication between • like-minded people about • common themes

What have been our assumptions about

communities?

Then we all moved online

…Communication costs are falling

Price each Preparation Delivery

Press Flat rate, £000s Days Days, or weeks

Mail 27p plus print costs

Days 2-3 days

SMS 7p None Instantaneous

Email or RSS Negligible None Instantaneous

IP has made communication (and participation)• Cost-free (or very cheap)• Disposable• Casual

18 YEARS IN 5 BULLET POINTS

How did we get zero-cost community infrastructure?

Emergence of free community infrastructure

Discoverability changes

Critical mass takes effect

A pile of one in a millions

Niche community, arise!

YOU PROBABLY NEED THE TOILET BY NOW.

It’s about time…

Where does this leave us?• Geography replaced by experience• Community definitions are abstracted• Casual participation can be valuable• Membership sources are hugely expanded• Engagement is pervasive• Community space creation is mechanized

and content can be scraped

Virtual, Real world, and Invisible – Let’s draw some

boundaries

Invisib

le

EMBRACE THE INVISIBLEDo not know thy neighbour

Visible Communities

Invisible communities?

RateMDs.com

• Communities defined by ‘having the same doctor’

• Usually would never meet or converse, but the forum provides a neutral space where communication can flourish

• Has grown to become a major influencer in US healthcare

Last.fm• Community participation primarily through

listening to songs• People never meet but are represented by

metadata; location, timezone, listening habits

• Creates microcommunities at different levels – song, album, artist, genre

• Passive or active engagement – use your normal MP3 player or visit the forums

EveryBlock• US Site – builds a community record

without needing to engage the community

• Builds the framework for an (invisible but defined) community to engage with

• Content is entirely machine gathered• Participation is not an expectation of

the site

flickr

• An aggregation of micro communities• Each community features members

only united by themes of their imagery

• Abstract community qualification• Discovery through search, both

bottom-up and top-down

CONCLUSIONS

They’re visible in their own way…

Thanks!

• I appreciate your time and attention• Further information will be relayed

through smc_mcr• Or dave@tandot.co.uk • Twitter “davemee”