Neomeme

Update: The final, much-revised post has been posted at Found|Read.

This post is written for Found+Read and is targeted primarily at entrepreneurs working on social websites. But the same principles could apply to your blog or forum.

When building a social application in the Web 2.0 style, it is absolutely essential to develop a strong community, right from the outset. By “application in the Web 2.0 style” I do not mean fancy Ajax effects or a state of perpetual beta. I define Web 2.0 applications in their broadest sense- application that enable the sharing of ideas and create unprecedented connections between people. It is the creation of those connections, the forging of bonds between individuals and their ideas that I believe defines community.

As your community first develops, it is absolutely critical to shape it to your liking. Like a newborn baby, the first shaky steps your community takes will play a crucially important role throughout its development. It may seem counterintuitive, but it is often not the wisest choice to simply throw the gates open upon launch and let everyone who wants to register. By carefully managing your growth and your userbase, you can ensure a strong foundation to expand on, and develop a specific focus for your community.

Google’s social network Orkut, which you might be surprised to know is one of the most popular social networks in the world, dwarfing Facebook took off after a few hundred Brazilians began to actively use the site during its closed beta. Facebook became successful through tight control of the demographics of its community. By limiting its user base to college students, it created a community that other college students would want to join. Technological controls like only allowing those with .edu email addresses to register are not always necessary- often, on community-driven websites like Found+Read, a self-selecting community will emerge. One only has to look at the demographics of MySpace to see a self-defining community with its own mores, customs and expectations. Specific communities growing up around a site are not always a good thing- witness Digg. From the moment it was first advertised on TechTV, Digg has attracted a core community of tech-savvy geeks, who in turn shaped the site in their image. No matter how much Digg tried to diversify its categories and grow its userbase, it will always remain primarily a tech news site. This severely limits Digg’s options for acquisition for the price Kevin Rose wants. Digg has become locked into its own community, and unable to break out. But for most of us who do not run sites with 1,000,000+ registered users, exhausting the population of the target demographic is hardly an issue.

Simply driving x users to your site will not suffice except in the simplest cases. Unlike ticket-buyers for a movie or purchasers of a video game, the customers you attract to sign up and hopefully actively use your application are not just eyeballs- they are people, people with friends, likes, dislikes, goals and expectations. Community building, like business networking, is more than a simple numbers game. The community of your site or blog determines its personality. Every site that depends even in part on user participation benefits from a strong, active community, fueled by a core of active users that drive the site.

Here we invariably arrive at a truth that may be hard to swallow: some users are more important than others. And if you want to generate a strong, self-sustaining community, you need to enable those users who you value most. And no matter how democratic your site is there will always be users who create more value for your community than others. A top user list or karma system that encourages and rewards participation is an enabler(and Digg, by removing its top user list, sparked widespread outcry by the users who built up the site in its early stages). The ability to create something that will impact or be seen by many members of the community is an enabler(like the top blogs list on Wordpress.com). But the most important enabler for power users, who can make or break your community is…other power users. Cumulative advantage readily applies itself to community-building. A dynamic, active, user-driven community will draw in more active participants.

And here we come full circle. It seems to be an impossible catch-22- a vibrant, active community is needed to create an active community. One way to do so is to start off with an exclusive closed beta. By the time you open your site to the public, the rudiments of the community will already be in place, bringing in more active users. But to sustain growth, you need to enable meaningful communication and connections between your users. This could be anything from the ability to post a basic profile with a picture to full-blown debates. Either way, a successful community engages its users, and presents opportunities for meaningful, important involvement. Construct a culture of engagement and a community with a distinct personality, composed of people with personalities and not just numbers. These are the hallmarks of a living community that truly transcends the sum of its parts and becomes more than just a place for people to participate.

I remember attending a launch event for Halo 2 a couple of years ago, one that drew a diverse group of people. I asked the standard question of the people I met there: “What’s your name, and where are you from?”. One guy responded like this: “My name is Joe, and I’m from the SomethingAwful forums”. 94,000 people have paid $10 just to be a participant in the SomethingAwful community, in a landscape where the ability to post comments is taken for granted. Create a community your users can call a home, and the community itself will pay you back in spades.

If you would like to talk more about creating living communities, don’t hesistate to email me at silent.watcher at gmail dot com.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 6:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.