Online communities

[piccolomondo]

A map of online communities,
with country areas shaped by the estimated community size behind them.




To the north, you’ll find “Practicals” (like Classmates.com, AOL chat rooms),
the east has a “Focus on Web” (like Digg or Fark),
the south inhibits “Intellectuals” (Wikipedia, blogs),
and the west has a “Focus on Real Life” (Orkut, YouTube).

[piccolomondo]

Terrorism, protests, boycotts. You might think these terms only apply to politics and current events, but massive upheavals can also occur in the world of online communities. Facebook is suddenly growing like crazy despite the fact that users initially hated the news feed feature, and Digg survived a revolt that looked set to undermine the entire system.



Digg out of control

Digg played host to the most notable recent cyber revolt, where the removal of stories that included an HD-DVD encryption key prompted nearly 48 hours of non-stop reposting of the number. At one point the key, which allows you to unlock copy-protected high definition movies, was referenced in nearly every story on the homepage.

In response to the flood of stories, Digg CEO Jay Adelson posted to Digg the Blog at 1pm on May 1st that “in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law,” implying that stories containing the encryption key would continue to be removed, because they infringe on copyrights and create a massive liability for the company.

However, the firestorm continued, and at 9pm the same day, the company officially changed course. This time, Digg founder Kevin Rose posted to the company blog, declaring “… we hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.”

Over the next few days, postings of the encryption key subsided, and users returned to digging stories they felt worthy of the Digg homepage.



A day without Facebook

Current social networking darling Facebook experienced a backlash of similar proportions when it unexpectedly launched a set of new features last September. The News Feed, which allows users to see what their friends are up to, such as a change in relationship status, new friends, or additions to their profiles, had users up in arms over a perceived violation of their privacy.

While all of the information included in the News Feed could be accessed previously by directly visiting approved friend’s profiles, the highly visible aggregation of this data created a community relations nightmare for CEO Mark Zuckerberg and company.

In the days that followed, users setup hundreds of Facebook groups protesting the News Feed feature, which thousands of users flocked to join. One user went so far as to start organizing a one day boycott of the service. Left with little choice, Facebook responded with a variety of member communications and round-the-clock updates to the controversial features.

On September 6th, Zuckerberg defended the new features on the Facebook blog, writing: “This is information people used to dig for on a daily basis, nicely reorganized and summarized so people can learn about the people they care about … We didn’t take away any privacy options.”

However, user angst continued, and two days later, Zuckerberg changed his tone. “We really messed this one up,” he wrote. “I’d like to try to correct those errors now … We have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls.”

In addition to adding privacy options to the News Feed feature, Facebook created official groups for users to more actively participate in testing and provide feedback on new features before they are launched publicly.

Subsequently, the boycotts were called off, most users felt at ease, and Facebook has since continued on its torrid growth trajectory.

[piccolomondo]

Ironically, the most popular social network, MySpace, might be the leader when it comes to user discontent.

In addition to a history of bugs and service outages, the company frequently blocks third-party widgets, which users often see as restricting the creative freedom that helped the site gain its initial popularity. While MySpace has blocked and then restored widgets from the likes of Revver and Stickam, their new approach seems to be buying the companies that are profiting most from their community – most notably the recent $300 million acquisition of Photobucket.



Civil disobedience

While the protests in response to MySpace, Facebook, Digg’s questionable decision making were carried out in the digital version of civil disobedience, in the virtual world of Second Life, users have found another way to show their displeasure – online vandalism.



Online vandalism

Recently, ABC Island, a commercial venue within the game, was largely destroyed and littered with graffiti. The motives of the perpetrators are not entirely clear, but in a game that attempts to simulate real life, parent company Linden Labs will surely face an increasing number of complex community management issues going forward.



The buzz and the lesson learned

If you believe in the old adage that any press is good press, it could be argued that Facebook and Digg actually benefited from their respective controversies. Not only did they generate a tremendous amount of buzz in the blogosphere, but their responsiveness showed that they listen to users and have not become faceless corporate entities.

However, if you like to play it safe, the lesson learned from these virtual uprisings is to always engage your users in the decision-making process and be transparent in your policies.

Regardless of your strategy, it is clear that fortunes can be won and lost in a matter of minutes in the world of online communities, so you best pay attention to the users that roam your virtual streets.

[source]

[amalgamate]

hey, piccolomondo- why have you barred yourself from communication on a.com??

[piccolomondo]

I'm here, ONline and Alive.

[piccolomondo]

Different social media, such as wikis, MySpace, Flickr and various forums have different ways for people to give and receive gifts, according to Swedish scientists. To fully understand online gifting and the successes and failures of online communities, we need to consider the question

"who gives what to whom, how and why?"

Gifting within online communities

Every day, more and more people join online communities, such as MySpace, FaceBook, and Second Life, and use file sharing systems like BitTorrent. In these virtual spaces they can reinvent themselves, make new friends, and share information and resources with others. Understanding how people give and receive digital gifts online is key to understanding the successes and failures of these communities.

Now, computer scientist Jörgen Skågeby of Linköping University in Sweden writing in the International Journal of Web Based Communities, explains how there are five dimensions to the way people give and receive gifts online, whether those gifts are information, mp3 files, photos, or illicit file shares.

"Different social media, such as wikis, MySpace, Flickr, and various forums have different ways for people to give and receive gifts," Skågeby says, "To fully understand online gifting we need to consider the question "who gives what to whom, how and why""

Gift giving and receiving is a collaborative activity that pulls together social groups. However, little research has been done outside niche anthropological studies and the studies of "gifts" given or exchanged by animals in feeding and mating rituals. Skågeby says that gifts provide one type of social membrane so understanding what makes a strong membrane and what might cause it to rip are crucial to studies of online life.

There are five dimensions to gift giving among users of online communities, Skågeby explains. These are "initiative" in which an individual decides spontaneously to give a gift to another member of the community. This can be active with one person giving a piece of advice or a useful link in an online forum or passive where community members download something from a specific user automatically through a peer to peer network. In this case, the gift giver plays no role other than making the digital goods available online.

The second dimension is "direction" and tracks the path of a gift. For example, a public gift might come from an individual or organisation, a musician say, who loads their mp3 files on to their MySpace page, or a photographer who shares her photos using Flickr.com. Direction can also apply to gifts given to small communities or groups or given among online friends. An entirely private gift would be a single individual giving a gift to another or a very select group of friends.

The peer to peer networks, including the BitTorrent approach exploit another dimension of gift giving, the "incentive". Incentives can be enforced or voluntary. In the case of BitTorrent file sharing, users can only download a given gift, or file, if they simultaneously share that file as it downloads with other users, so the incentive process is often bidirectional.

Incentive gifting is exploited in illicitly distributing copyright materials such as movies and music, but also has a legitimate use in distributing large files within businesses and other communities. Voluntary incentive involves a points system so that users who share most, gain kudos or better access to additional gifts.

The final two dimensions of gift giving online are "identification", knowing who is giving or receiving a gift, or remaining anonymous. In some systems, such as BitTorrent, gifting is essentially anonymous, while users are known on MySpace when they share digital gifts. Another dimension is "limitation", which controls the level of access to gifts, either giving or receiving can be open to all or restrictive. An open gift system might be the free software available for anyone to download on the free software network sourceforge.net, whereas a private BitTorrent or other network would be considered a restrictive gift network.

Gifting is a central human activity in many communities, both offline and online, explains Skågeby, "As more and more of human social activities will be copied or migrate entirely to online, we need to consider what dimensions are central to these activities, so that we can analyse their long-term impact on individuals and society."

Details of the research
"Analytical dimensions for online gift giving: 'other-oriented' contributions in virtual communities"
can be found here: http://www.inderscience.com

[piccolomondo]

Seven tips on how to run a successful community
by Matthew Haughey (*)

1. Take emotion out of decisions

2. Talk like a human, not a robot

3. Give people something they can be proud of

4. Bring users in during community decisions

5. Moderation is a full-time job

6. Metrics spread the work out

7. Guidelines not rules

Read details @ mathowie's blog "fortuitous"

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(*) Matthew Haughey is an American programmer, web designer, and blogger best known as the founder of the community weblog MetaFilter, where he is known as mathowie.