Communities

The communities category includes sites that allow people to gather, meet, and identify themselves. Many companies are rushing to develop communities as a way of building brands and competing for market share through customer attention and participation. Participation is one of the driving forces behind communities as it is a key ingredient to both a successful community and a more involved customer. Most companies, particularly those trying to "foster" community, build few, if any, opportunities for their online visitors to actually participate in the community. Most approach community as a "gimmick" or a "hook" to get people to come to their sites -- often with the sole purpose of selling banner ad space. Most community sites fail to build a sustainable community because they focus on selling things rather than enabling communications and fostering discussion and interactions between visitors. Essentially, they only view their audience as potential buyers instead of active participants.

Communities are deeply complex spaces for rich interactions. They develop by chance as much by design. Online communities are usually distinguished from other online experiences (such as marketing/communications sites, commerce sites, intranets, etc.) by the ability of the community members to initiate and control their interactions, information, and the creation of content for the community. A community could be a component of an online venture, coupled with a commerce system or online entertainment. To be successful, there needs to be a reason to participate in the community. Simple availability of community, however, doesn't create the need or desire to actually participate. The success of online communities rests more with an understanding of human communication and interactions than with technological ones.

Some of the likely features and functionality of a community include:

• Moderated and Unmoderated Communication Systems
• Real-time and Time-shifted Communication Systems
• Polling Systems
• Identity-building and Maintenance Systems
• Community -builders and Moderators

Online communities are, in many ways, the most difficult type of online solution to build and maintain. Communities are usually fragile, carefully balanced, and dynamic experiences that rely on human interaction above all else. The few online tools for building communities are usually inadequate without the careful attention and crafting of the experience by content and culture experts who build and feed the relationships within the community.

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