Whitehatmedia News

29/08/2004  |  Community sites, useful or a waste of time?

As the development partner of two community websites at www.letstalkmusic.com and www.forum4business.com it is clear that there are those who love them and those who shun them. With the recent growth of web-based communities it's worth taking a look at some of the dynamics behind these.

To grow a successful community based website although obvious you need a common interest that people are passionate about and then a way of telling them about your community. In the case of www.letstalkmusic.com we were lucky in that recently a site called Tonos had gone down and many of its members were looking for somewhere to talk about their passion.

After setting up the forum and other features we quickly realised that it was vital to regularly change the site, add new features and keep things very upbeat. The site launched with the facility to upload tunes and submit these to opportunities so there was a real pull to independent musicians to join.

It's clear though that there is a core of dedicated members and these often post every day and certainly help drive the direction of the site. Like any community characters develop and roles are fulfilled and we look forward to seeing how things unfold.

In the case of www.forum4business.com it's a tougher proposition. People don't seem to be as passionate about business as hey are for music. The growth has been slower but nonetheless steady.

There are other business sites out there such as Ecademy, which I personally find a it spooky. The people who are keen members come across as a little religious in their fervour for the site and I do wonder what the term 'trusted networks' actually means. Having said that I do know people who have done business together through it and so it had its place and each to their own.

Coming back to www.forum4business.com though, it's clear that we have to take a different direction in growing the community. The key element is to make the site genuinely useful and then market it properly on the web. As this is what we do and know about are experts in we are confident that the swww.forum4business will go from strength to strength.

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