Online Communities – What are they & How

Online Communities - What are they & How to get involved Frank Arrigo [email_address] http://blogs.msdn.com/frankarr Group Manager, Technical Communities Developer & Platform Evangelism

Agenda
What is an Online Community
What is a blog
Why is it important
How can you get started
Tips to help

Definition: online communities
A virtual community is a group of people communicating or interacting with each other by means of information technologies, typically the Internet , rather than face to face. Virtual communities are also known as online communities or mediated communities .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_communities

Definition: Blog
A blog is a website for which an individual or a group frequently generates text, photographs , video , audio files , and/or links, typically (but not always) on a daily basis. The term is a shortened form of weblog .
Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called "blogging".
Individual articles on a blog are called "blog posts," "posts," or "entries".
The person who posts these entries is called a "blogger".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Blog basics
A blog is typically made up of the following components:
Title - main title of the post
Body - main content of the post
Trackback - links back from other sites
Comments - comments added by readers
Category - category the post is labeled with (can be one or more)
Permalink - the URL of the full, individual article
Post Date - date: time the post was published

How are Blogs different?
A blog provides many advantages over a standard web page, including these:
It allows for easy creation of new pages: new data is entered into a simple form (usually with the title, the category, and the body of the article) and then submitted. Automated templates take care of adding the article to the home page, creating the new full article page (Permalink), and adding the article to the appropriate date- or category-based archive.
It allows for easy filtering of content for various presentations - by date, category, author, or other attributes.
It (usually) allows the administrator to invite and add other authors, whose permissions and access are easily managed.

Plus you can subscribe!!!
3 rd wave of the web
Browse, search, subscribe
RSS
Really Simple Syndication
Information comes to you
Lots of ways to represent this
Need application to read feeds

Why is this important?

It’s all about having a conversation

Case Study : Learn Dog
Venture by former MSFTee, Mike Seyfang
Mission
Help kids through recognition
How
Join lots of dots
All happening online
http://www.learndog.com
http://learndog.typepad.com/learndogpup/
http://spaces.msn.com/members/mikese/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeblogs/friends/

So, what has been the result?
Personal support through connections via personal blog
Growing community of supporters around the learndogpup blog (including advisory board)
Connections to professional development support networks (e.g. the edTechTalk community)
A 'loud/strong' voice that has achieved a high level of PR exposure for free (local, national press, 7news TV)

How to get started
Spaces
http://spaces.msn.com

Control Panel
Posts & Comments
Add/Change/Delete
Change layouts

Add a Post
Web based
WISYWIG
Easy to use

Cool integration
Little Star (gleam) added to MSN Messenger contact when their space is updated.
Always know when there is new stuff to see.

How to read blog feeds
Browser
Windows live : http://www.live.com
Bloglines : http:// www.bloglines.com
Standalone News Reader
Sharp Reader : http://www.sharpreader.com
RSS Bandit : http://www.rssbandit.org
Integrated into Outlook
Newsgator : http:// www.newsgator.com
Integrated into Internet Explorer
Pluck : http://www.pluck.com
Many Many More alternatives….

Some tips

Building Relationships on Your Blog
Don’t scoff at small audience size…
Suppose you knew Steve Ballmer read your blog? What if Bill Gates did? Steven Levy from Newsweek? The CEO or CTO of your best customer?
Consider the relationships real

Promoting Your Blog
Find blogs you like and subscribe – and read the blog rolls of those bloggers until you have 25-50 you feel you’d want to read every week
Comment on their stuff and only if relevant, link back to yours

See what’s the blogosphere saying
Blog search tools
Technorati : http://www.technorati.com
Feedster : http://www.feedster.com
Pubsub : http://www.pubsub.com
General search tools
ninemsn : http:// search.ninemsn.com
Google : http://blogsearch.google.com

Building Momentum
Study techniques for getting more readers – aim for 40 influencers
Figuring out how to get them to talk about you
How to use other people’s comments
Using your referrer log to find people who want to engage with you

Blog Credibility
Real person, not FLOG (Fake Blog)
You are judged by the conversations you keep
Link to and praise others, even enemies
The only comments you delete are porn and spam

What are you waiting for?

Final Word

Some of My Blogs
Work
http://blogs.msdn.com/frankarr
Personal
http://radio.weblogs.com/0124955
http:// spaces.msn.com/members/frankarr

Online Communities – What are they & How

by Frank Arrigo

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