Thoughts on Community - Part 2

This is a continuation of Thoughts on Community Part 1

Putting together a community is really not totally true for successful sites. The communities already existed. These communities were just like bad neighborhoods (a lot of loners and no way to clearly communicate). They gave the communities a way of expressing and communicating with each other more effectively.

Let’s look at some examples:

Dogster – Dog lovers already existed. Dogster didn’t create a community of dog lovers. They just gave dog lovers the ability to effectively communicate and express themselves with one another and to the world.

MySpace – They created the venue and tools for ‘anyone’ to express their self and the communities in which they belong to. The physical world collided with the digital world giving them and their peers the ability to connect to other communities.

Another thing to take into account from a technological perspective is that people in a community do not tend to care about how something works; just that it works. RSS Feeds, XML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript = a big ‘who gives a #$#t” to most people. How can I use it to effectively communicate and express myself is what matters.

In all this lies the opportunity. The opportunity for the people who understand the technology to give the power to people who don’t so that they can turn their bad neighborhoods to good ones.

Websites focused on specific tools for specific communities seems to be a big thing. Lots of techies have communities because they understand how to use the crap. However, there is a need for these “tools” across the board in different industries and fields like legal, medical, sanitation, government, etc.

All you developers out there please remember to think outside the box. How effective could a community of doctors online REALLY be? They could talk about past experiences. Read each other’s articles / ideas and post comments on an article. Arrange events, conferences, and meet-ups. They could all talk about a product or a new medicine that is out and vote on it sucking or being the greatest thing every created. They will all be able to remain individuals and keep their identity while making life better and more fun for each other.

All this is possible now, and even more tools are coming. If the community site was built off a mashup of services that accomplish different tasks – then there is still value there.

However, there seems to be such a focus on the technology by the people who can build this stuff that it feels sometimes as if they miss the point. How do you take that technology, put it under a topic, and then glorify the community and not the tools the community uses.

People with focused products and services, like a medical tool of some sort have a place to go and market their product directly to the community. They’ll pay for the opportunity to reach the community. The perspectives of the people would keep the site neutral, unbiased, and a great place to be honest.

All this IMHO :)