DISQUS

AndyBeard · 1 month ago

I haven't got time for that level of participation - I spend a lot of time in private communities

They should put a pay wall on Friendfeed :)

Jesse Stay · 1 month ago

Andy, Facebook would work well for you in that regard. My suggestion of
creating technology that creates community is more intended for
entrepreneurs, business owners, and technology builders - if you're not in
that category, it's not quite applicable.

Johni Fisher · 1 month ago

Great post Jesse ,,regards

Mel · 1 month ago

Interesting discussion. In my view FriendFeed had the strongest community but its tech was often criticized for being too difficult to set-up and use effectively. The message here is that the geeks could use it but 'the person on the Clapham Omnibus' could not. Without tools that provide usability and accessibility building successful on-line communities is impossible.

Howard Greenstein · 1 month ago

Jesse, you wrote:
>> I argue a community’s growth is not relative to the participation of its founders, but rather the technology’s capability to build community even further. It’s the technology that trumps community any day because it creates and enables that community. Technology that empowers individuals to create their own communities wins any day, and trumps founder participation hands down.

The last sentence is key. I think we both agree that Tech is just a tool. How it is set up to allow people to create community is what differentiates it. I'm a far right on the bell curve geek, early adopter, for longer than I care to admit. I hate Friend feed because I keep not being able to do what I want. Its tech does not allow me to create the community I want.
Twitter Lists? Just about to wade in and figure out how to manage >4K followers. What would make it useful? Create me a list of the people I often tweet to, or who tweet me, automatically. THAT would be a useful list. THAT would help create community.
GeoCites, may it rest in peace, let you easily create pages and find friends. AIM let you easily find AOL friends.
Sites that offer an ability to suck in your entire contact list and 'invite them' are useless - My contact list is already segmented - try letting me import just part of it.
I could go on but the key here is - make it easy for people to connect to the friends they want, in the context of this community (My biz contacts on Linkedin, my real life friends on FB, etc.).
And, yes, having the founder actively involved in the discussion helps a lot. I would point to the early BBS Echonyc.com - where Stacy Horn knew everything going on, and helped you find the right conversations to join. IT was like the Well, but on the East coast. That was a community. (And the fact that it regularly met in person helped too.)

Jesse Stay · 1 month ago

Howard, well said!

Howard Greenstein · 1 month ago

Oh, and I can't wait to see who Google Social Search thinks is my 'friend.'

Lauren Fisher · 1 month ago

Jesse - interesting post and I agree with your points on the technology itself enabling your community. But I do think that what requires more attention is this community-enabling appearing on brand sites. Companies are currently working very hard on creating communities on external tools such as Facebook and Twitter, but overlooking what happens to that community when it's brought to their own site.

If I converse with a company on one platform, I expect that experience to continue when I click through. I'd like to see more brands adding community building aspects to their own sites and hope we're going to see some exciting developments here.

Jesse Stay · 1 month ago

Thanks Lauren - I agree with you - I call that "farming". Be sure to see my
article here:
http://staynalive.com/articles/2009/09/19/fish-...

I do think that should also be an enabling factor of technology enabling
community. Facebook provides Facebook Connect, which to me is one of the
most complete solutions for social networks enabling others to build
community on their own brand and their own websites. I agree - more people
need to take advantage of this - Connect is the most powerful part of
Facebook.