Why do people create online communities?

There are many reasons and here are just a few;

• 
  Anonymity - not always a given but in many cases online communities offer their members opportunity to have a profile that they create themselves with no validation - hence the opportunity to create fictitious - and therefore anonymous - identities. So why is this important? - It helps people to express themselves in ways and on topics that otherwise they may feel uncomfortable with due to social 'normalisation'. (A bit more on this topic sometime later perhaps!)
• 
  Passion - at the heart of a community is a topic - a topic of interest to all the members - and given that for many online communities members give their personal time it's crucial to allow them to be passionate through forums, discussions, polling opinions etc
• 
  Reach - linked with passion is reach - for many topics there may not be huge numbers of fans on the same bus, train, road you live on etc - the physical boundaries just don't work for all communities and the web, extranet or intranet open them up
• 
  Sharing - members like to talk - to each other - they share knowledge, skills, understanding at a rate we can't imagine - more people knew about Michael Jackson's death through Twitter (a social network of 'short message' people!) than the BBC could reach - in fact the BBC were over an hour later than the response of Twitter people - BBC is old news ! - that's not good news for the Beeb
• 
  Yearning - an interesting phrase - and one possibly covered above in passion and sharing - but just to be clear - members of an online community like not only to contribute - they like to know that they are being heard - and perhaps even more importantly - being responded to! Large companies have cottoned on to this so Giant.Co.com have started establishing 'communities - of suppliers, buyers, stakeholders etc in order to influence development, innovation and communication - and no doubt a few other things this brief blog may have passed over.

This is definitely not a comprehensive list - just a few pointers to think about if and when 'your' group start to consider an online prescence and to think about the nature of members being 'online' rather than - just down the road!



So .. the big question is what does all this mean for me?, you? and for all of us engaging in Community Development - answers on a postcard to d2 or Yes at graham.mallinson@d2digital.co.uk or amanda.mcdonald@yesagency.co.uk

Graham Mallinson September 2009