Wiley :: Hosting Web Communities

HOSTING WEB COMMUNITIES

Chapter 1 - Defining Community on the Ever-Changing Web
In this chapter I listed 20 sites from among those that showed up in a search for the words "online community" on the Web. I used them to demonstrate the breadth of interpretation of the term "community."

Chiropractic OnLine Today - an information exchange site for practioners and clients.
Cupid's Touch - a gathering place for singles looking for dates is no longer at its former URL.
Defense News - an information resource for contractors and professionals sharing information about the defense industry.
Diabetes.com - a community of patients and relatives of patients sharing information about treatment and prevention.
Healthlinks - a place for health care professionals to exchange information.
Innovate Online - this site, supported by Silicon Graphics for collaboration among its developers' community, no longer exists.
LiveWorld - describing itself as "a virtual community," this is the corporate home for Talk City and OnNow, two sites that support realtime interactivity.
Molson Breweries - an example of a business building a site to host a community of customers and potential customers.
Neighborhoods Online - not a virtual community, but an information resource for those trying to rebuild real life urban communities.
Nonprofit Online News - a news clipping service for nonprofit organizations.
Outside Online - an online extention of a printed magazine with areas where users can interact with the site.
Poplar Bluff's Online Community - a site that supports geographical community in south-east Missouri.
The Grateful Dead Community Page - one fan's contribution to keeping the band's lore accessible.
Space News Online - for scientists and enthusiasts alike, an updated source of information.
Utne Online - the Web-based extension of the paper magazine, "The Utne Reader." The site includes Cafe Utne, one of the most active discussion sites on the Web.
Vietnam Online - an information resource for people from that country now living in America.
The Virtual Community of Associations - not so much a community as a directory of associations working in and around Washington, D.C.
Webstock '96 - this site, which no longer exists, was built to serve a weeklong event for raising community consciousness for young people.
Who's Who Online - not really a community, but a list of luminaries from the Net.
Women's Web - a site devoted to the interests of women.

Thom's Vintage Bus site is used as an example of an affinity group brought together by one person's dedication to an interest -- in this case it's vintage VW buses.

Cafe Utne provides a diversity of discussion areas and topics where people show different aspects of their personalities.

Talk City is a huge "chat hub" where people entertain each other with the quick wit required in realtime chat interaction.

The WELL shows the "gift economy" of communities where people find that they receive benefits from participation.

Chapter 2 - Identifying Group Styles and Needs

Thrive demonstrates that even when a community has a focus, such as health, it can contain much diversity of interest within that focus.
The Contact Consortium points to most of the avatar-based group interaction interfaces on the Web. In many cases, people are drawn to these sites more by the interfaces than by the subjects of conversation.
Salon Magazine is a Web-based cultural interest magazine with a popular discussion community called Table Talk. It presents a variety of reading and discussion interests, serving many communities with the common bond being a sense of sophistication.
Parent Soup's Expecting Community brings expecting parents together with those who have gone through the experience. Strong experiences make for bonded communities.

Chapter 3 - Establishing and Maintaining Key Relationships

GeoCities encourages its members to contribute by giving them exposure and chances to demonstrate their talents.
ThirdAge.com is a good example of a site provider identifying its audience and catering to their needs.
The WELL's conferencing manager, Gail Williams, introduces herself to her community and the world. This give a personal feeling to the relationship between site and members.
The Motley Fool took the experiences of its two founders and expertly transferred them to its users.
Salon Magazine uses "teasers" to link readers of its articles and stories to relevent discussions in its Table Talk area, thus enticing more users to participate.

Chapter 4 - Involving Your Staff

The Gate represents the San Francisco Chronicle and KRON-TV on the Web. Like Salon, it links from content into conversation, involving users in the creation of new content.
The Globe is, like GeoCities, a Web World where users are allowed to build simple home pages and share the use of chat and message boards.
WBS, the Webchat Broadcasting System, shows part of its selection of user-initiated chat rooms. Some chat rooms have greater needs for hosting than others.
OnNow points to many realtime Web events, some of which are moderated interview presentations rather than open chats.

Chapter 5 - Designing the Comfortable Interface

The Mining Company provides a template for building interest-based communities by its expert "guides."
Ultimate TV is an example of an index-type interface to meet the needs of the general TV-watching population.
Tom's Xena Fan Page exemplifies a more specific TV-watcher's page, for users only interested in Xena - Warrior Princess.

Abbe Don is a highly-regarded site designer who understands the need to match the interface with the community.
Web Monkey by Wired Digital is a great teaching site not only for the fundamental tools of site construction but for the elements of efficient site design.
Builder.Com by C/Net is, like Web Monkey, a How-to resource for site construction. It also includes special features such as how to build a Web community.

Chapter 6 - Tools That Enhance Group Interaction

Talk City's basic chat interface is a good example of the bare-bones features necessary to carry on chat on the Web.
Worlds Away is a 2-dimensional avatar-based chat community that allows users to easily play with the designs of their graphical characters.
Lundeen's Web Crossing software, in its uncustomized form, provides the basics of the asynchronous linear discussion platform.
Proxicom is an example of a basic threaded discussion interface.
Mirabilis's ICQ Web paging client (now owned by AOL) is the most popular realtime buddy-list software available. And it's free.
The List Foundation is a mail-list-based community of resource and contact traders which is expanding from its orginal home in San Francisco to other cities with robust Internet professional populations.
eBay's online auction activities combine with social relationships between the dealers and buyers to help regulate its exchange culture.
Votelink is mainly a technology for taking online polls and instantly reporting their results. But the editorial content of the site provides a constantly-changing selection of polling questions.
NetNoir serves the African American community, aiming its content at that broad demographic. Its site invites users to suggest polling topics.
Sportsline pipes sports radio program through the Web and combines the broadcasts with chat where users can discuss what they hear.

Chapter 7 - Platform Alternatives for Chat

MIRC is an interface for using Internet Relay Chat (IRC). The site is also a resource for learning about IRC resources.
WBS allows users to display graphics next to their postings. It is constantly adding features to its chat interface.
ichat provides services and software to many major Web sites and bundles its chat platform with paging and asynchronous discussion capabilities. The platform also includes "auditorium" features for producing realtime Web events.
Talk City has a choice of chat interfaces depending on the level of hardware and net connectivity being used.
The Palace is an avatar-based chat interface that is marketed as "servers" which any Palace avatar user can visit, depending on the membership stipulations of the Palace site.

Chapter 8 - Community Forum Environments

WebCrossing's home forum is a good place to check out a linear discussion system with a threading option in operation.
ForumOne tracks asynchronous forum activity on the Web. You can subscribe to a monthly email newsletter to keep you up to date.
David Wooley gives his expert opinion and perspective on the world of online discussion on this site.
David Strom is a software consultant who keeps an updated comparative list of group interactive software platforms on his site.
HyperNews is one of the original threaded discussion interfaces for the Web. On its site you can find out all about it and use it to ask questions about its abilities.
The Ultimate Bulletin Board System or UBBS is another site that uses its own discussion software (which is good and inexpensive) for customer support.
Motet is a powerful linear interface that incorporates the real needs of habitual conferencing participants in its feature list.
WebBoard by O'Reilly is a bargain and takes a creative approach to the use of the threading structure. It's platform also includes chat.
Well Engaged has its roots in the conversational experience of the WELL. It offers a "service bureau" implementation where the discussion software can run on servers hosted and maintained by Well Engaged.
Caucus is another well-designed and powerful linear discussion interface that too few have heard about.
Delphi allows subscribers to build their own "home pages" with asynchronous discussion capabilities. Like Web Worlds, it encourages individuals to build their own communities.
ForumHost provides a forum interface that you can integrate with your own Web pages for a reasonable price, saving on the cost and time of setting up your own.

Chapter 9 - The Practice of Hosting Discussion

Howard Rheingold's take on hosting is available here. Having written The Virtual Community and founded Electric Minds, Howard has looked at hosting from many angles.
Cyberspace Innkeeping written by John Coate, manager of The Gate, is a good description of the interpersonal priorities of hosting a community.
The Moderator's Home Page is provided by Berge Collins Associates as a resource collection for online forum leaders. It leans toward the academic and structured community rather than toward grassroots interaction, but includes many good ideas and observations.

Chapter 10 - Web Worlds

GeoCities is probably the largest of the Web Worlds.
Tripod aims at the young adult market.
The Globe - another home page mothership.
WBS now lets its users build home pages.
Talk City has jumped on the bandwagon.
America Online is reported to be rolling out a home page building/hosting area on its Web site in Fall of '98.
The Mining Company invites specialists to build special interest Web sites on its site and shares ad revenue with them.
AngelFire is another Web world worth checking out.

Chapter 11 - Support Strategies and Revenue Models

The WELL has charged its members for access since 1985 and is still around, though small.
The Wall Street Journal is a subscription-based service that comes with handy financial management resources.
Slate Magazine is Microsoft's experiment in charging for access to original content.
Business Week offers some content for free, but charges for access to all of its content and resources.
The Meta Network hosts online events for which it charges entry fees and invites paying sponsors whose products are of interest to the audiences.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is an example of a non-profit organization whose Web site serves its member/donors and attracts new member/donors.
Diabetes.com is sponsored by one company as a do-gooder act and by one company as a low key advertiser. Its site allows diabetes sufferers to exchange information and gain access to new information about the disease.
Autodesk provides message boards on its site for users of its graphic design products to help each other and to provide a channel for customer service.
Berkeley Systems entertains its visitors and expands on the cult following of its products.
REI sells outdoor recreational gear and its site is used by outdoor enthusiasts to share their experiences with each other.
The Magician's Corner is a hobby site, supported by its host and creator.
Virtual Storefronts not only provides the tools to build Web sites on its server, but it provides easy-to-use e-commerce tools for small business users.
The Wax House is a supplier of candle making supplies.
Kaleidoscope is an e-commerce area provided by Utne Reader on its Web site. It offers products that it believes its readers would be interested in buying.

Chapter 12 - Trends, Hopes, and the Future

WorldsAway may be an example of the combination of graphic avatars and conversation that will be usable by today's bandwidth realities.
@Home is the largest system using high bandwidth infrastructure today. It may breaking new ground for interaction with faster connections.
ZDTV is experimenting with the use of 10,000 "Web cams" as a realtime communications tool between its users and its cable TV content.
Blue Barn Interactive subcontracts hosting for special events and startup online communities. Hosting is becoming a paid profession.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation deals with the rights of online users. Its site contains a library of resources regarding privacy and free speech information.

ISBN 0-471-28293-6
464 pages
October, 1998

Wiley Computer Publishing
Timely. Practical. Reliable.

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HOSTING WEB COMMUNITIES

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