I've be longing to share this incredible content with you for what seems like months now. After a lengthy review process- most of which was just waiting for an open publication date- my whitepaper on "community 2.0" has been published on the popular AspAlliance website. This whitepaper grew out of an internal effort at Telerik to effectively understand and describe what it takes to build a strong, thriving community. The research in the paper was so compelling, though, that I couldn't resist making it available to the community for broad consumption.
What is community 2.0? I assure you I am not out to create yet another "2.0" version of a common word (Business 2.0, you'll be missed?). Rather, this paper methodically examines the elements of many popular "web 2.0" sites that have thriving online communities. What did Digg and Wikipedia do correctly to grow their communities that others like Netscape failed to do? Through my research, three simple and easy to understand principles emerge that connect the success of online communities, and by these principles you'll have the best chance at creating your own successful online socials.
If you have a site or business and you want to create a community, this paper is a must read. Check it out on the AspAlliance site, tell your friends, and then let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy my latest publication.
2 comments:
Thanks for this posting -- very informative. I have asked myself the same question quite a few times in relation to one of my sites:
http://www.filehurricane.com
(Telerik AJAX Manager, and Upload Progress Monitor!)
I am still at a bit of a loss as to how to effectively get people interested in contributing content that isn't necessarily discussion based. Moreover, it's media based with descriptive tagging.
I do have a contest going on right now, so perhaps that is a step in the right direction.
Thanks again for the article.
Josh-
Your site definitely compares to one of the profiled sites, CSS Zen Garden. It asked users to upload CSS designs applied to a standard piece of HTML and featured them in a gallery. While successful, it never garnished a community anywhere near the size of "the big guys".
Zen Garden largely failed, in my opinion, due to a lack of tools that cultivated that all important sense of community. Once you posted your media, your interaction with the site and its users was done. Adding comments, friend favorites, or other community generating tools may have helped that site do better.
A contest is a good way to motivate people to get involved. I'd also encourage you to look at your tools for fostering a sense of community and make sure you're providing good methods for active users to connect. If they can't make "friends" on your site, it is unlikely they'll stick to it long term.
Good luck on the hurricane! It looks like a well designed site.
-Todd
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