How to Grow
Vibrant Virtual Communities
Presented to:
The Social Media Club of South Florida
January 19, 2009
David Hinds, Ph.D., P.E.
Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences
Huizenga School of Business, NSU
dhinds@nova.edu

Outline
• What is a “virtual community”?
• Types of virtual communities
– Why should we care?
• How to grow a vibrant virtual community
1) Identify population needs
2) Design the host platform
3) Provide seeds
4) Facilitate and guide
2

“Social media”
• Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools
for sharing and discussing information among human
beings.[1] The term most often refers to activities that
integrate technology, telecommunications and social
interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos
and audio. [2] This interaction, and the manner in which
information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives
and \"building\" of shared meaning among communities, as
people share their stories and experiences. Businesses also
refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or
consumer-generated media (CGM).
• URL accessed 20jan09: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
What is a Virtual Community? 3

What is a Virtual Community?
• A virtual community is a population of
individuals with shared or complementary
interests who interact across a host platform.
• Not all social media, user-generated content or Web
2.0 initiatives are virtual communities
• The key defining feature of a virtual community is the
presence of collective feedback in which both
contribution and use are open
What is a Virtual Community? 4

Collective feedback process
Virtual community
Open
Open use contribution
Host
platform
Facilitator &
core group
What is a Virtual Community? 5

Types of Virtual Communities
1) Socializing – Facebook, Second Life
2) Gaming – Everquest, Full Tilt Poker
3) Content Sharing – YouTube, BitTorrent
4) Knowledge Sharing – Wikipedia, Slashdot, SMC…
5) Activism – MoveOn, ImmigrationVoice
6) Development – Linux, InnovationJam
7) Exchange – eBay, Craigslist
By defining types, we can learn from others!
Types of Virtual Communities 6

Why Should We Care?
• Strategic opportunity (and threat)
– Facebook and YouTube
– Industry disruptions especially in media, entertainment
and computers
• Marketing opportunity (and threat)
– Alli weight-loss program (Alli Circles)
– Dell Hell
• Management approach
– IBM InnovationJam
Types of Virtual Communities 7

Some Valuations
• Facebook - $15 billion (in 3.5 years)
– Presently about 300 employees
– $50 million per employee (Microsoft minority purchase)
• YouTube - $1.65 billion (in less than 2 years)
– In 2006, had 67 employees
– $22 million per employee (Google buyout)
• Compare with (as of March ‘08):
– Microsoft @ $4 million per employee
– eBay @ $3.6 million per employee
– General Electric @ $1 million per employee
– General Motors @ $76,000 per employee
Types of Virtual Communities 8

World of Warcraft
• December 23, 2008 - Blizzard Entertainment,
Inc. today announced that World of Warcraft®,
its award-winning subscription-based
massively multiplayer online role-playing
game, is now played by more than 11.5 million
subscribers worldwide
@ Subscription cost: $14.99 per month
= $2 Billion annual revenues
Types of Virtual Communities 9

Suppliers of Web Server Software – Market Share
(Source: Netcraft Web Server Survey, November 2008)
Types of Virtual Communities 10

Virtual Community Technologies and Hosts
Arpanet www Web 2.0
Technologies
3D-avatar
environments
Enabling
Wikis
Text-based User profiles
Source code
forums
repositories
Weblogs
(blogs) Tagging
The Well Wikipedia Second Life
Hosts
Linux
Usenet
eBay
newsgroups SourceForge
YouTube
Everquest MySpace
Del.icio.us
Host types
Individuals Corporate
Corporate
marketing
strategic
Non-profit Corporate
organizations management
1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Types of Virtual Communities 11

Growing a Virtual Community
1) Identify population needs
2) Design the host platform
3) Provide seeds
4) Facilitate and guide
Like “growing a garden”
How to Grow a Vibrant Virtual Community 12

1. Identify Population Needs
1) Socializing
Seek approval, support, friendship
2) Gaming
Need for competition, entertainment, fantasy
3) Content Sharing
Need for specific content, desire to express or promote
4) Knowledge Sharing
Require knowledge for a purpose, desire to build reputation
5) Activism
Desire for specific action (e.g. political action)
6) Development
Need for specific artifacts, desire to build skills, need to feel accomplishment
7) Exchange
Buyers and sellers, service providers and service users
1. Identify Population Needs 13

SMC: Population Needs
• “…to help people find all the relevant
communities of interest in which they want to
participate. We want to help you explore your
personal and professional passions by helping
you connect with a community of your peers
based on both geography and areas of
interest.”
• URL accessed 19jan09: http://www.socialmediaclub.org/about/social-media-club-
a-short-history-a-long-and-bright-future/
1. Identify Population Needs 14

2a. Select platform technology
• Technology design for collective feedback
– Threaded discussion (SMC Blog?)
– Personal space
– Virtual landscape
– Text-based repository (SMC special projects wiki)
– Other repository (SMC)
– Others …
2. Design the Host Platform 15

Threaded discussion (SourceForge)
2. Design the Host Platform 16

Personal space (MySpace)
2. Design the Host Platform 17

Virtual landscape (ESPN Poker Club)
2. Design the Host Platform 18

Text-based repository (Wikipedia)
2. Design the Host Platform 19

Other repository (Epinions)
2. Design the Host Platform 20

2b. Set the policies and design the
procedures and processes
• Host platform includes both technology and
policy/process
• Key policy decision: who is authorized to do what?
• The platform defines the “protocol of interaction”
• The platform also enables the collective feedback
process to occur
2. Design the Host Platform 21

SMC: Policies
“In looking at what is most important to us, it would seem most
appropriate to focus our efforts on the four areas of our core
mission:
1. Expand Media Literacy
2. Share Lessons Learned Among Practitioners
3. Encourage Adoption of Industry Standards
4. Promote Ethical Practices through Discussion and Actions
From here, it is important to note that anyone in the advisory
group (and any member of the community) may propose
projects for the club to support.”
• URL accessed 19jan09: http://www.socialmediaclub.org/projects/
2. Design the Host Platform 22

Collective feedback in Wikipedia
Community of
“Wikipedians”
Submitted Submitted
change article
Posting Repository
Articles
Anyone
Moderators
only
Prior versions Revert to Abusive or
prior version Yes
are saved inappropriate
contribution?
2. Design the Host Platform 23

Collective feedback in Slashdot
Community of
Threshold
filters
“Nerds”
Initial
submission
Comment
Posting Repository
Initial
posting Comments Contribution
Anyone
Portal
Moderators
only
Ratings Troll
attached filters
Moderator
review
Facilitator (sponsor)
only
OSDN
review
2. Design the Host Platform 24

3. Provide Seeds
• Initial postings to public forums by key
contributors
• Early game players
• Seed source code provided by founders of
open source software projects
3. Provide Seeds 25

SMC: The Founders
• “SMC is Chris and Kristie’s labor of love. From
day one, they focused on growing the
organization organically as there were only
two of them working on the organization on a
part time basis …”
• URL accessed 19jan09: http://www.socialmediaclub.org/about/social-media-club-
a-short-history-a-long-and-bright-future/
3. Provide Seeds 26

4. Facilitate and Guide
• Focus on attracting and motivating participants
– Pay attention to community needs
– Make it as easy as possible
– Recruit key members to minimize cost
• Provide just the right amount of structure
– Do not command and control
• Respect the norms and culture of the community
– Beware that virtual communities tend to set their own
direction
• Be aware of specific legal considerations
4. Facilitate and Guide 27

SMC: Facilitating Collective Feedback
• “SMC has fallen short on some of our goals - primarily, not
connecting the groups as well as we would have liked, and we
need to ensure the knowledge shared at SMC chapter events
is then pushed back into the system so all can utilize … when
groups are talking about a certain topic, we need to ensure
there are digital scribes in the room who are then responsible
for bringing that info back into the SMC ‘portal’ so other cities
can then use it for their events or members can read up on
what is hot in that community. ”
• URL accessed 19jan09: http://www.socialmediaclub.org/about/social-media-club-
a-short-history-a-long-and-bright-future/
4. Facilitate and Guide 28

Relevant publications
• Armstrong, A. G. and J. I. Hagel (1996). \"The real value of online communities.\"
Harvard Business Review: 134-141.
•
• Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: how social production transforms
markets and freedom. New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press.
•
• Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: homesteading on the electronic
frontier. Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley.
•
• Tapscott, D. and A. D. Williams (2006). Wikinomics: how mass collaboration
changes everything. New York, NY, Penguin Group.
•
• Timmers, P. (1998). \"Business models for electronic markets.\" EM - Electronic
Markets 8(2): 3-8.
29

Thank you!
David Hinds
dhinds@nova.edu
30

Team vs. Virtual Community
Microsoft Apache
(team) (virtual
community)
Types of Virtual Communities 31

Threadless: a creative hybrid
• Users can submit T-shirt designs and rate submitted designs
– 800 designs submitted weekly
– 200,000 design reviews weekly
– Design tools available on web site
• Weekly design winner gets $2,000 and IP rights to the design other than for T-
shirts
• Threadless produces and sells T-shirts with winning design
• With only 25 employees … a highly profitable hosting model
• Combining aspects of 3 markets/models
– Gaming: competition
– Development: design tools
– Exchange: content sharing
• What if YouTube sponsored a video production competition?
32