Historically, Most Online Communities Haven't Stuck

The following is cross-posted on a new blog I am contributing to called Authenticities. It's the official blog of my employer, Edelman Digital, which we officially unveiled yesterday.

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We're barely into the second decade of the the Net's development. Unlike the first ten years when corporations built the web, over the next decade the Internet will largely be created by the people for the people via online communities.

This means that the phrase "public relations" is (finally) taking on a literal meaning. It is our industry's charter to help clients navigate online communities and build authentic, meaningful relationships with their stakeholders. However, the challenge is if you blink, the entire vista will change.

Most marketers prefer to gravitate to the big hubs. These include Edelman clients like MSN Spaces and MySpace, as well as Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn and a host of others that have lots of eyeballs. Any of these sites can serve as strong venues for marketing programs.

What we take for granted, however, is that they will be around in the long term. On the Internet, churn is constant.

Historically, online communities have perpetually come and go. The Internet Archive amber is littered with fossilized communities that once dominated, much the way the T-Rex roamed during the Mesozoic era. These include former stalwarts such as Angelfire, The Well, TheGlobe.com, GeoCities, Tripod and Friendster.

Only a handful of community sites over the last dozen years have had staying power. If you study them you'll find moats to protect them from competitors and fickle users. These barriers to entry include peer-to-peer commerce (in the case of Edelman client eBay), robust user reviews (Amazon.com) and deep entrenchment in vertical markets (BlackPlanet.com).

The online universe is about to grow even more complex, making it harder for some sites to maintain their dominance. Over the next several years social networking and community will become less about specific venues and more of a river that runs through the entire web. As Cisco's Dan Scheinman says, community will define not only how content is created, but also how it is consumed.

This means that although it will get harder for marketers to achieve scale, community engagement will become a much more efficient and effective way to engage an audience. This requires a shift in thinking though as community becomes like running water. The takeaway here is never bet against change - it's constant on the web.

Comments

[B.L Ochman]

The communities of the past and the ones we have today are part of the evolutionary process of communication, online and off. You're so right about change being the only real constant on the Internet.

[David Binkowski]

Your post should differentiate between communities meaning "those driven by specific web sites or technologies" and communities meaning people. There are a lot of communities still around from the 1990's; whether they use the next big social media platform to communicate, are still using message boards or have moved from URL to URL, the platform isn't what makes the community. In fact, it's exactly the opposite.

[martha R. Matteo, PhD]

What are some of the most effective ways for "communities of practice" to establish themselves? This would include, for example, sub-specialties within a profession, across industries and companies?

[Allan Jenkins]

David Binkowski's point is spot on. While community "meeting spaces" are wiped out regularly by new technology, a robust, reslient community using the wiped-out space simply moves on.

I was active in CompuServe's PR-SIG from early 1993. Probably the first large online community in the PR/Corporate Communication sphere. While CompuServe died years ago, our community still thrives: Hobson and Holtz are still out there, Robert Holland is a frequent commenter in the PR/comms space, as is Craig Jolley (just read a comment of his on David Murray's blog), Les Potter is blogging -- and those are just friends who populated a small subsection of the PR-SIG.

In 1993, I communed with these people on CServe; today, it's Twitter and blogs; in 2017... who knows where. But the community will be there.

So you are right that it will be harder for marketers to achieve scale, but that's a 15-year old trend that's going to continue. As for "community engagement" becoming a more efficient way to engage an audience -- that's really going to depend on the community. I see no silver bullet for marketers there -- many of us adhere to our communities because they are marketing-free.

[Gen Kanai]

I agree with David Binkowski. This is confusing "community" sites with ecommerce sites that have community functionality. People go to Amazon or eBay for a transaction. Sure they look at the reviews/comments, but the goal is not to communicate.

If you look at the real communities which have lasted over the years, you won't find "barriers" because they don't need them. The community itself is the draw. No walls are required.

[Greg Andrew]

While I agree somewhat with your overall point, a lot of places that have called themselves online communities simply haven't been that. Specifically, the 3 free web page sites you mention - Geocities, Angelfire, and Tripod - simple weren't communities in any real sense, because communities require regular interaction between members, not just a service given out to members. For that matter, I don't see Amazon.com as a real community site either.

I also think the failure of a lot of services such as The Globe.com was the result of the site leaving its users because of commercial failure, not the users leaving the site. Building a viable business around a viable community is much harder than keeping a community together

[Ben Rowe]

I don't think you can rule out that some websites, primarily based around an e-commerce store - have developed into full blown communities.

Threadless, Etsy and Amazon all spring to mind.

Don't think Amazon is a community - I disagree. There are plenty of people on Amazon that spend hours reviewing books - effectively 'giving something back' to other Amazon users. That's essentially what a community is, isn't it?

[Mark Ivey]

Maybe the reason communities "don't stick" is that, by their nature, they are fluid and fleeting; trying to make them permanent--or even long term--is like herding cats. We'd like to think of communities as something more stable, fixed, predictable, and judge them that way. But is that truly the right measure--or perhaps something else? It is all part of an evolutionary process, ever changing. Maybe we need a new way of looking at and measuring the community site for what it is--a temporary platform for people with like interests to engage, communicate and connect. "Temporary" could be five weeks or five years.

[Mark Ivey]

Maybe the reason communities "don't stick" is that, by their nature, they are fluid and fleeting; trying to make them permanent--or even long term--is like herding cats. We'd like to think of communities as something more stable, fixed, predictable, and judge them that way. But is that truly the right measure--or perhaps something else? It is all part of an evolutionary process, ever changing. Maybe we need a new way of looking at and measuring the community site for what it is--a temporary platform for people with like interests to engage, communicate and connect. "Temporary" could be five weeks or five years.

[Alexander van Elsas]

Hi Steve, I think you are right about your observation. Things keep changing. But what's interesting to me is that marketeers just don't seem to get that they have no place in social networks. Their merely trespassing social interactions there. Everyone seems to think the holy grail lies in the social graph. It certainly has a lot of valuable data in it, but the value of it lies outside of the network in places where I search and buy stuff.

http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/the-future-of-social-advertisment-lies-outside-of-social-networks/

[Jacob Morgan]

Hi Steve,

I think we are going to see an even greater segmentation of social media platforms. If you consider how many web 2.0 networks are being created and how targeted they are to a specific niche then the "verticalization" trend is apparent. I wrote about this on my blog and discussed 2 scenarios. Glance at it if you have a chance.

Jacob

[Jacob Morgan]

Hi Steve,

I think we are going to see an even greater segmentation of social media platforms. If you consider how many web 2.0 networks are being created and how targeted they are to a specific niche then the "verticalization" trend is apparent. I wrote about this on my blog and discussed 2 scenarios. Glance at it if you have a chance.

Jacob

[Scott Germaise]

I'd also like to disagree in this case. Historically, communities have stuck. They've stuck just fine. They do, however, sometimes change venues.

First, let's define communities. Then again, let's not. It is, after all, psychotically confusing to do so right now. Is a social network a community? Sure. To a degree. But, for example, consider LinkedIn. My contact list is arguably a community of sorts; but it's more an address book or contact list. At the same time, I'm probably more active in communicating with folks in my LinkedIn contact list than I am with the many neighbors I have in my condo complex. Which, clearly, is a very stuck in place community. (Excepting movers of course.)

As to online, well... Scuba Divers that hung out in a Prodigy outdoors forum circa 1992 - 1995 migrated to USENEt once Prodigy had a UI for it. Then maybe to AOL later, (or CompuServe), and now to one of several message boards on the Web. They were always SCUBA divers. They just changed venues. Go ahead and pick your "community" be it pilots, or cancer survivors or whomever, they're finding each other. And continue to do so whatever the platform. They remain a community.

So where are we now? Historically, the community venues that happened to be computer mediated via online shattered due to changing technology. But now, arguably, the web has become so ubiquitous that even when it fundamentally changes, the venues in question will be able to move to whatever platforms come along. The premise that historically, communities haven't stuck may be true. But, as I've heard it said, "The Past is Under No Obligation to Mimic the Future." (Though of course many times it does.)

The point is that it's perhaps wrong to think of large aggregation social media services such as Facebook or MySpace as strong communities. Communities, yes. But strong? Maybe not. On the other hand, pilots using the private board at AOPA will likely stick together whatever the next technology platform. Those suffering from some orphan disease which happens to have a real world organization and an online component; be it a vBulletin Forum or a Yahoo Group, will stick together online. Even if they change venues.

If, for some reason one wants to choose to look at this from a marketers segmentation perspective; yes, they seem splintered and changing. And will probably continue to do so for some time longer. But perhaps a bit less so going forward then in the past.

Scott
Twing.com <-- Community Search & Discovery Engine

[Joshua Zeidner]

I wrote a somewhat relevant article recently on subjects related to your post.

http://www.joshuazeidner.com/2008/03/night-of-living-marketing-blogs-closer.html

[Wilder]

Agree that there is a difference betw online communities and ecommerce sites with ccommunity functionality. Interested in knowing what people think will happen with Answers (Yahoo Answers, Yedda, etc.) type of functionality. Here to stay or another fad. And what about discussion forums. They seem to stick around ...

[Santosh Maharshi]

Hi Steve,
A very valid point, the site which I point regularly is Slashdot.org - according to me it's the best example of a community. I agree with Ben Rowe in the comments, I think he clearly stated what community means.

I think the sites that we see huge surge are example of 'Novelty' the connections there can easily be transported to some where else and there is no strong need or a no unbearable loss to shift from that community and hence there is no reason to stick and that's why people keep on switching.

Santosh

[Serge Cornelus]

Interesting discussion. Something to be added to the Karine Johannes presentation here at Euroblog 08? :-)

[ed yagi]

Interesting, I was thinking about this issue this past weekend. The content internet is definitely fleeting along with communities, but there is a community that started in 1979 that still exists and is active today: Usenet

Granted, its not the community environment of choice for most people, but you have to admire its longevity and vast peerless archiving technology thats made available by its distribution method.

So, if NNTP protocol could be leveraged into existing forums, communities as a method of distribution, even just as a basic replicating backend, they can live on way beyond the life of the website community they are dependent on.