Comments on: How an online community is different from a Social Network

By: Who is the best critique for your startup? | Prateek Dayal

Who is the best critique for your startup? | Prateek Dayal — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:50:44 +0000

[...] You are working hard on your startup and you meet tons of new people every week and tell them about your startup. If you are lucky, probably 1% of them would love your startup and show it. This is certainly true in our case. If I go to a barcamp or OCC or other startup events, less than 1% of the people there are excited to hear about Muziboo. Most people dismiss the concept as yet another social network (about which I wrote here). [...]

By: The Virtual Address «

The Virtual Address « — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:54:25 +0000

[...] Virtual Address Read a very interesting argument yesterday here on how an online community is different from a group on a social network, or is [...]

By: Prateek Dayal

Prateek Dayal — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:50:43 +0000

@ashish

Thanks for the comment. When I say neutral I mean … moderating topics being discussed or having an official stand on something (not related to running the place). For example, we don’t moderate the discussions or stop people from writing something that they don’t like about the place in comments etc.

@manuscrypts

We have not really touched base with them because we feel at this point they won’t really appreciate what we are doing. We are welcoming one and all and slowly building the community. Freedom Jam is for most part for “professional bands” and amateurs are at best an audience there.

By: manuscrypts

manuscrypts — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:10:19 +0000

just an afterthought, in the case of muziboo, myspace might be a better fit than fb because of their work on campus bands etc… the other two entities i see a connection with are worldspace and sunday freedom jam, but maybe you’ve already touched base with them :)

By: ashish

ashish — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:38:21 +0000

Good post dude!
To answer ishwar’s point, I’d say that founders need to seed the community..and in a due course of time, find out who is the “influencer”, and most importantly the ‘mavens’ (ref: tipping pt)
I know few community managers in india and its more of an operational role..but startup cant afford to have such roles in their payroll..

PRateek – I dont completely agree with ‘online communities try to stay neutral.” – good online communities are formed only if there is an opinion (techmeme?)
If you meant “neutral” as in platform neutrality, I do agree with you

-ashish

By: Prateek

Prateek — Tue, 20 May 2008 06:33:22 +0000

Wow .. thats an insightful comment .. very true .. probably the reason why most of us try to have some presence in facebook .. in the form of an app .. because getting noticed (coz of newsfeeds etc) is very easy …

By: manuscrypts

manuscrypts — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:46:22 +0000

i think social networking groups can serve as online communities, especially in cases where user involvement is a lot to do with passion (photography, music, films etc).. While orkut is a lot about saying hi to your school crushes :), i think fb offers a lot more thanks to the different applications which i can use to relate to other people – on one more level of association for existing contacts, and perhaps getting to know people with similar interests… the key thing here is how much interest the ‘founder’ takes in seeding conversations…. one very active community that I’m part of in fb is ‘I love trashy hindi movies’, where participation is amazing….
the other point is users – communities operate in niches, and rely a lot on WOM, but if the same community is in a mass space like fb, think of the WOM it would generate by simply ‘pulling’ people with a newsfeed mention… the point being ‘I am anyway in (say) fb, let me enjoy one more layer of interaction while i’m there’… for me its a classic case of shelfari vs a shelfari app on fb….. so, in essence they should be made to work in tandem… either start with a group, get enough participation to spin off or, make an application on a mass portal to get more participation… damn, that could’ve been a post :D

By: Ronak R.

Ronak R. — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:37:21 +0000

First, I liked the new neat look of your blog.

I think Ishwar has put forward an interesting question, and you’re ready with a justifiable answer too. :)

By: Nithya

Nithya — Fri, 16 May 2008 11:04:08 +0000

Yeah I cant agree more. Social networks are way different from online communities and with reference to Ishwar’s question above, I feel, anybody who understands the spirit and passionate about the service can be a community manager. This can even be users sometimes, owning the place and taking responsibility for the culture. Heres my post on online communities and what it takes to build them

http://www.nithyadayal.com/blog/2008/05/16/building-online-communities/

By: Prateek

Prateek — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:58:01 +0000

Hi Ishwar

Great point you have raised. There are lots of people who can be community managers and in fact be great community managers. You can sometimes find these people in the community itself. They have to be very passionate about what you offer and have the patience to talk to others

The community managers can come in pretty early I feel. That said, I feel the founders should still keep interacting with the community every now and then just to get a feel for where things are headed. You can sometimes get great ideas by seeing how people are using your service

Hope this answers your questions

Regards
Prateek