It always sends shiver down my spine when I heard people making a big fuss of online community (as well as ‘web 2.0’; ‘engagement’; and ‘ROI’). Not that I am against online communities, but when businesses start to consider how can they ‘harness’ ‘online communities’ to drive ‘revenue’, they lost me there.
Not that I am against company making money, either, since after all, I am also a pin of this corporate system.
BUT…
- Users who CHOOSE to use your services are not just passive consumers of information; they are people who read, and write. Lawrence Lessig made a clear case of the read-write culture (highly recommend it if you haven’t seen Lessig’s classic presentation yet):
- Users who CHOOSE to be part of an ‘online communities’ are not necessary air-heads. In fact, many are not.
Such as Opensource software development that drives not just the technology, but a manifesto, an ideology, a belief, that information should be open, and we should stand on the shoulders of each other, so that the sum is bigger than the whole. AND – we are all mini giants. Don’t you forget that.
Such as Creative Commons, now built into major commercial search engines (such as google [see user rights] and yahoo), that units little creative minds so that people can share, remix, be creative, be respective, be fun, be global…
Today we talk about myspace, facebook. But remember what online communities were for at the dawn of the internet – (dark force aside, such as pornography and cracking activities) it’s for sharing knowledge, facilitating innovation, connecting you to the like-minded so that you know that the sky is the limit, and you can make your dream come true if you try hard enough.
Think firefox – since its launch in it has exceeded 50 million active users with more than 600 MILLION add-on download. Do they need hiring a ‘marketing department’ – yes, and no. What they did was to create a kick-ass browser which was so good that users invite all their best friends to try out (and fall in love..) and at one point most IT professional CHOSE to install Firefox as default browser in companies. And you know the story – Firefox Spreads like wild fire.
Now that’s real ‘marketing’ – not by having fancy ads campaigns, but by creating a product that with USER NEEDS in mind.
- Finally – only MEANINGFUL communities last. Such as Opensource, such as creative commons, such as Wikipedia. Not only do they last, they grow stronger day-by-day, it is because they are driven by people who have strong vision, who believe in precious qualities of humanities.
Think friendster, think myspace, think bebo, think facebook. Yes maybe it’s fun to see what your friends are doing, but what happen when you grow out of it? These ‘social networking websites’ are just tools, an extension to our mobile phones, emails, or weblogs. But phones get out-dated, better email services emerge, user switch, you switch.
Only meaningful communities with strong visions last – even if someone leaves, other joins, because they are driven by faith, not hype. And faith doesn’t get outdated. Remember that.
Avar Pentel | 07-Feb-08 at 7:41 pm | Permalink
Hi Cathy!
Sun nin fy lok!
Some thoughts aroused again while reading Your post.
All products – artefacts that humankind had made during the history -from stone axe to cellphones – they all represent mixture of material and information. In these days we use less material and more information but the principle is basically the same.
Wikipedia and stone axe, both are products of collective creation. Even the simplest stone axe contains the great amount of (generation to generation) human knowledge transfer between our ancestors. And of course, when nowadays we have better information exchange facilities, then evolution of usable artefacts is more accelerated. But speaking of evolution, despite it makes illusion of coal directed development of all species – actually there is always bigger pool of species and branches that not last. Similarly unusable artifacts that do not last long have been always around in the history, but we don’t remember them because in conditions of slow technological evolution they were unnoticed (time gap between idea, final product and forsaking was bigger than human lifetime); however in conditions of accelerated technological evolution we can see in our lifetimes a lot of dead branches – unusable artefacts that not last.
Open source and free software development model is similar to evolution. There is no big plan, no central direction, there is no clear definition of desirable final state – but there are gradual improvements and gradual adoption to environment (i.e. user needs). And from developer point of view – there is no deadlines for specific software releases, there is no list of requirements and all developers have coals of their own for making their contribution, although this model works and some self-organisation happens.
I think that making money on information is not necessarily evil thing.
But what I find evil – it is the marketing model, which is based on multiplying the same artefacts in millions of copies and selling it. In Middle Ages in Europe such a multiplying was prohibited. For
example, when an artist finished a sculpture (using cast moulding) then he broke the mould demonstrating with it that the act of creation has to be unique and restricting making other copies.
What I like in this Middle Age model, is the fact, that the creator always get paid for creating new value, but not for selling old one repetitively.
I think that today when artefacts are more and more constituted by information, and information is ever- more easily accessible, then we are forced to come back to this Middle Age model and value act of creation more than marketing.
Regards
Take Care!
PS
I sent this comment to my personal gmail address for spell check, and when I opened it, then in the right column where sponsored links reside appear a link to China Decorative Moldings. Google does not stop to surprise me – yes, I know, in the letter I mentioned molding but relation with China feels a little bit Mystical:) There was no word about China in my letter.