Greg Heist's Library tagged online_communities → View Popular

03 Aug 06

Communispace, a leader in developing and running online customer communities, has launched 15 new communities this summer for clients like Hewlett-Packard, Jockey, Avon, Behr Paint, Cendant, the L.A. Times, and Eons. The firm’s business has grown more than 100% in the past year, now having managed more than 225 online communities.

Encourage community archives. Provide a way to address individual bits of
history (messages, chat logs, event histories) in finely-grained units.
A healthy community also develops a sense of history and in-jokes.
2 more annotations...
- A Shared History and Culture
  
  You'll know you have a healthy community when users comment publicly that
  "this is the best site I've ever used," "I came here because of the goal, but
  stay around because of the people I've met," amd "No other place on the
  Internet is like this."
- Regular users will develop a sense of community ownership. As a whole,
  their content contributions probably outweigh yours. This belief manifests
  itself in several ways. It can produce a high regard for the status quo, with
  some users expressing an almost moral outrage when facing community changes.
  These changes may be as minor as adding a new feature to the Web site or
  broadening the community's focus.