Re: UKNM: Communities: Fact or Fiction!

[lkimber]

I can't give figures but I think there is at least one "community" site in the

UK making money. It's the NetDoctor service running for doctors and medical

professionals out of the Oxford area. Drug companies are a major revenue stream,

which might explain why I hear from it's founders that its existing contracts

will already take it into profit.


It has 10,000 members and 1,000 join each week.


I think "community" is a suspect term - it implies low paid public and public

service. But within business and the wider community there are many niches where

the number of members were traditionally too small to make a profit supplying

them anything other than the tools and products they bought for their trade.

Supplying them with interactive web-sites and being prepared to let those

web-sites go where the members want to take them looks like a plan that will

lead to profitable web communities to me, though communitiy may not be the word

you use to describe them.


Lee Kimber

Technical Editor

Network Week


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