Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge [Paperback]

Cliff Figallo (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471282936 | ISBN-13: 978-0471282938 | Publication Date: September 2, 1998 | Edition: 1

A detailed, easy-to-follow recipe for planning, developing, and maintaining a successful Web community.

With a refreshingly practical perspective, this book explores the principles and techniques of hosting a Web community that allows your business to interact and build relationships with more customers than ever before. The book lays out a step-by-step plan for getting the project off the ground by showing how to define purpose, establish member profiles, incorporate custom site features, organize marketing events, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Former director of the Well, recent consultant to America Online, and current director of community development for Salon Magazine, Figallo knows what it takes to create a true community in cyberspace and what kinds of mistakes will torpedo the effort. Figallo believes that community comes from people, and so he begins by focusing on the human element. He writes about the groups that form online communities and how a community builder can foster the process. Figallo includes a great section on building a quality online staff. While he keeps technical aspects in perspective, Figallo doesn't shortchange them--he fully discusses types of interfaces and technical tools.

Figallo's discussion of the business side of a community is refreshingly hype-free. He provides excellent information on revenue models and support strategies. He further shows the advantages businesses can gain from creating or supporting online communities, plus what types of expectations are unrealistic. He believes, for example, that creating online communities is not a reasonable way to directly boost sales or provide a highly profitable income stream. He does show, however, that it can offer major corporate advantages in the same way that good public relations or other indirect marketing activities do. And while Figallo never claims that there's an easy formula for building the type of online feeling that brings people back again and again, he demonstrates with both theory and real-world examples how dedicated community builders can pull it off. --Elizabeth Lewis

From the Publisher

Cliff Figallo knows more than anybody about hosting a great online community. Now in this nuts-and-bolts guide he shares his proven experience and vision for planning, developing, and maintaining a successful Web community. He also explores the many ways that hosting a Web community can benefit your enterprise.
Cliff acquaints you with the basic tools and technologies involved and offers
step-by-step explanations for everything you need to know to:
* Define and describe the community that's appropriate for your needs
* Establish effective relationships between your organization and its online community
* Select the right technology to keep users active and involved
* Find, choose, and train great discussion hosts for your community
* Match your community with the right revenue and support models
* Plan your community's development as the Web expands and evolves
* Build and maintain the trust that makes community relationships last

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471282936
• ISBN-13: 978-0471282938
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,064,309 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good history book, July 27, 2000

By 

Lars Aronsson (Linkoping, Sweden) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge (Paperback)

This is a good history book for those who feel a need to read up on the roots of Internet communities as we know them. The author was head of The WELL.

For those who need practical advice on how to create an online community today, the book by Amy Jo Kim is more useful.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Relationships are Key, November 3, 2001

By 

A. McFarland (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge (Paperback)

Figallo appears to be providing his own model for web community success, which is built on building meaningful relationships... between "you" (the site owner/designer/manager/maintainer) and the people who visit your site, as well as between the site visitors themselves. "Meaningful relationships, far more than size, determine the success of online communities." He provides a lot of practical advice, and it's an easy read. My only complaint is that his WELL experience seems to have biased him toward WELL-like communities...he focuses mostly on the social, relationship-building aspects of web forums, chat and the like, as if everyone looking to build a web community should be striving to create a Salon/Cafe type place.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, April 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, Increasing Customer Loyalty, and Maintaining A Competitive Edge (Paperback)

Cliff writes an excellent book for those who are truly looking to build and Host (yes, Host is the correct term as in being the Host of a party!) an online community. This book takes you through all of the scenarios of building, growing and managing an online community. This is not a technical book about building the backend of community systems - it is a book on the human/social side of online communities. Congrats to Mr. Figallo on writing a book dedicated to the subject.