Re: UKNM: Communities: Fact or Fiction!

[Clay Shirky]

> This was a bit of a surprise to me.  I had always assumed that aiming to

> create online communities was a sensible aim for building traffic, and

> that therefore it would be a sensible part of any business model.


Unlikely - community is usually measued in the thousands, with the

number of truly active participants numbering in the hundreds. Traffic

needs are usually measured in the millions, with repeat traffic

measured in the 10s or hundreds of thousands. 


Community can be a fine addition for those that want it, but the only

'community' sites that have that kind of scale are value-neutral

homesteading places like geocities.


Look at hte failure of places like Echo and the Well to become viable

large-scale businesses. 


> 1. Can people think of any commercially viable community based sites? 


Geocities et al. iVillage-style sites which seel an idea of community

while remaining primarily publishers is another stab at the

problem. 


> 2. Do they agree that a community site which is not just an online

> version of an existing brand can form a viable basis for a commercially

> successful site?


Disagree.

 

> 3. Are there any commercially viable sites in their own right at all? 


Of course. Yahoo, Amazon, FedEx, slashdot, on and on.


> 4. The million dollar question � Is there any published info on how

> websites make money with real�life�example income streams?  


news.com, industry standard, silicon alley reporter, forrester,

jupiter, ...


-clay 

********************

UKNM is sponsored by Excite UK, visit us at http://www.excite.co.uk.

Email Khalil Ibrahimi

khalilexcitecorp [dot] com (mailto:khalilexcitecorp [dot] com)

 to advertise on Excite.

********************

Change your UKNM subscription use http://www.chinwag.com/uknm.html