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Virtual Community Real People

This article explores the challenges of building virtual communities filled with real people. It discusses the importance of considering the needs and desires of community members, making contribution easy, and providing engaging content to encourage participation. The article emphasizes that the success of online communities lies in creating an environment that encourages real interactions and opinions.

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Virtual Community Real People

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  1. Virtual Community Real People Stephen Downes September 27, 2001

  2. Intro: Communities • Real communities are filled with real people • Virtual communities are filled with… virtual people? • Of course not, the experts all agree: • Figallo, Turkle, to name a couple • Real communities are filled with real people, and that’s why they’re hard to build

  3. First Rule of Virtual Community You are dealing with real people • This rule is sometimes lost in the pursuit of good design or community objectives • The services of any virtual community need to be directed first toward the people using the community • That’s a good thing, right?

  4. Wrong. • Because of real people, virtual communities are a lot more difficult to design than, say, toasters • And it’s not something the technology can fix… • Software doesn’t care that the users are real people, and real people are almost impossible to reprogram

  5. One Approach: Usability • Usability studies are useful, don’t get me wrong… • But if you follow the usability experts, your community will look like Yahoo! • … and that’s where your members will go • What’s more, even Yahoo! has dead communities • Thus: it takes more than great design

  6. What do People Want? • The technology matters, but people will struggle through if they find something of value… • Like content, for example… content they are looking for now • And they are looking for the personal touch • And they will take the shortest possible route to find find it (that’s where technology comes in)

  7. What Will People Give? • The experts – people like Rheingold or Hegel and Armstrong – say that a community must value members’ contributions • But in so many communities, members don’t contribute anything • Why won’t people share? Hint: it’s not because they’re greedy, shy, or incapable

  8. Second Rule of Virtual Community Make it easy for people to contribute to the community • Mailing lists are vibrant, busy communities • This is because contributing is as easy as sending an email • That must be the standard for virtual communities

  9. How to Make it Easy Lessons I’ve learned: • Send the community to the user (as, say, an email newsletter) • Fill the newsletter with stuff they’ll read (satisfying the content now criterion) • Add a ‘reply’ function embedded in the email

  10. Third Rule of Virtual Community Give people something interesting to respond to • People won’t comment if there’s no topic • They won’t get excited about press releases • You have to express a point of view • Be honest

  11. What Makes Communities Rock? • In a word: people • Real people • Expressing real opinions • This isn’t simply the best way to build a successful online community – it’s the only way

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