Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities

Top positive review

One of the first books to talk about web community management

ByMr Yannig Rothon February 26, 2013

When Amy Jo Kim wrote the book, she was running Naima, a firm specialzied in the design and set up of web communities. A lot of the communities that she talks about in the book (Heat, Ultima Online, Castle Infinity) are (old) game communities, but she also worked with people from Adobe, eBay, MTV or Yahoo! And interestingly, a lot of the practices that she highlights to build and manage web communities still apply today.

"The focus is on teaching you how to grow a thriving community that will attract and sustain members, and on how to adress the design, technical and policy issues that will inevitably arise"

I know the following is a big chunk of text, but you migh want to skip some points… or you can still read the book :

- Purpose: It’s important to know why people join the community and what drives their participation. Ideally, a virtual community’s design and tools will be adapted to this purpose. Amy Jo Kim has a great adaptation of Maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid adapted to we communities (p.9), but she also highlights that it’s fundamental for a community to be profitable: “A successful community must attract and keep enough members to make it worthwile. It must also deliver a satisfactory ROI to whoever is funding and/or maintaining it. If either one of these standards is not met, the community will eventually fail“. On community websites like patientslikeme, you’ll understand a purpose rapidly, and it also managed to be sustainable.
- Places: It’s obvious that popular venues for communities to gather are websites like social networks, contest platforms or web forums. The book also talks about places that I know less of: mailing lists, message boards, virtual world, chats… Then, Kim gives some about growth management, design and community proximity on these venues, which is crucial to adapt to change.
- Profiles: Since “entering a new web community can feel like walking into a party full of strangers“, communities must include ways to get to know people. People want to present themselves, and similarly they want to discover who they’re dealing with. It’s important to note that not all members will be curiously browsing others’ profiles and communicating with them, but transparency is important anyway. “On the web, full disclosure is good business“, Kim says.
- Roles: Here, Kim introduces the particularly interesting concept of Membership Life Cycle. She argues that “you can help a community flourish by providing features and programs that support [social] roles“. Reserach has also shown that design features can activate community participation in innovation communities, but to my knowledge research on membership lifecycle is not extensively covered. Do you have any thoughts or papers to share on that?
- Leadership: Regarding how centralized a community’s management is, a web community needs people to take leadership roles in both animation and controling. “For games or contests, you’ll need support personnel who can resolve technical issues, and deal with reports of cheating and systems hacking“, Kim says about rather centralized management sites. Also, she has a great table that summarizes leaders’ possible roles in a community (p.163), including both official and unofficial leadership roles.
- Etiquette: When exchange and interaction is the fundamental purpose of a community (like learning-focused communities), it’s important to have a common understanding of the tone people will adopt. One example is the use of the formal you (vous in French, Sie in German, usted in Spanish…). In English the problem doesn’t arise since there is no formal you, but you must know how you talk to members: will they be offended if you have a familiar tone? Or do they expect everyone to show closeness?
- Events: According to Kim, the three types of events are meetings, performances and competitions. These types of events need to be planned thoroughly, but when they’re well-executed and well-attended, they will ty together the community by bringing them together. About contests, Kim says that “the most effective contests contribute to long-term community building [...] by reinforcing a community’s purpose, values, and brand identity“.
- Rituals: As you could see on the Membership Life Cycle illustration, there are rituals. These might mark transitions between stages of the Life Cycle (thus occuring only once), or they can be repeated: making a targetted recommendation, remembering special days, mark holidays… I particularly like Kim’s paragraph The Power of Goodbye (p.281), where she highlights that “leave-taking also offers an opportunity to ritualize the community experience“.
- Subgroups: Particularly if your community is big and has the possibility to organize autonomously, it might be valuable to allow members to form or join subgroups. Since “simply joining a large, general-purpose [...] community doesn’t give someone much sense of community identity“, people might want to be part of smaller, focused sub-groups. However, Kim stresses that this might only be valuable in later stages of communities’ evolution.

These principles are, as I think, very true today! If you think it’s too old to be true!

Top critical review

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3 people found this helpful

Outdated. But the general principles still apply.

Bybit2biton November 17, 2014

Great book to take as a foundation to bring it back up to date. The basic ideas are still valid, but their understaning and implementation have changed substantially. Definitely needs to be remastered.

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Showing 1-8 of 8 reviews(5 star, Verified Purchases). See all 32 reviews

Glad I read this; lots of good info

Byhagaron February 12, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

an intelligent, thorough snapshot of community building in corporate and business environments in 2006. While dated in some ways, many of the principles for designing and building communities are evergreen, being rooted in the multiple realities- social, political and financial- that control the philosophy of communities.

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Awesome.

ByJeff Pon April 1, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The best book ever written on the subject. Should be required reading for anyone creating, managing, or contributing to an online community.

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Good resource for building community in virtual spaces

ByTamara Suttleon February 4, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This wasn't exactly focused on building a community on a blog but it had lots of great ideas and examples for anyone working on creating a virtual community.

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Best book by far for online community building

ByS. Lichtmanon June 7, 2001

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I'm an independent consultant on interactive technologies and web community building. I've read a number of books and articles giving advice about online communities, and none comes close to matching Amy Jo Kim's. Her book is the most exceptional in integrating human and technical considerations; describing how sites can launch, expand and evolve; giving lots of first-hand examples; and being an easy, fun read. I get the sense from her Naima company site that she's on the leading edge for design and technical approaches.
I'm personally working now with communities for performing artists and software developers. This book is the only one I'm willing to carry with me on all my customer consulting visits.

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Extremely helpful -- shame it's out of print

ByE M Daltonon November 27, 2005

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I borrowed this from my local library and found it so helpful that I hunted down a used copy. It's not a technical reference, but it provides a great overview of the elements of online community, with authentic examples from existing communities (some of which, sadly, are now gone, but this was written before the bubble burst). Highly recommended if you are responsible for developing and supporting an online community, or if you are just interested in how thinking in online communities has been developing in the early days.

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Classic book, a 'must have' for serious web entrepreneurs.

ByBruce Horston June 6, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I've heard this book quoted at numerous conferences. When I started quoting it myself I knew I needed my own copy. The book is 10 years old, yet its principles are just as relevant today. In the fast changing World of the Web, what does that tell you?

What fascinates me about this book is the fact that so much of it applies to offline community building as well.

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It really is a must-read

ByA customeron February 26, 2001

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

When I read the glowing reviews of this book on Amazon I was dubious; thought perhaps they were posted by the authors' friends. But this book is very, very good. It's caused me to change the way I think about my website and redefine my goals. I was only thinking in terms of chat and message boards, but this book made me realize there's a lot more to a good online community than that. The author clearly knows what she's talking about; the book is well written, informative, and fun to read. Worth every penny.

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Applies across the board with good, practical advice

ByAmazon Customeron June 20, 2000

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Amy Jo Kim has collected many online community learnings and turned them into a practical, readable, and useful book. She has distilled things down to a level where they make sense for the smallest online community, as well as for the mega-commercial sites.
So what's to like about this book? It is well-organized. Kim has built the book around her nine down-to-earth community design strategies with specific elements on how to execute those strategies. She stays on track.
It uses examples from both large and small sites which take this book from the realm of theory to one of practicality.
You can read all of it or one section and it makes sense. Chapter divisions and subheads make for a pleasant browse for inspiration or to get a specific tidbit. Graphics are used generously, but my "old" eyes had to strain a bit on the screen shots.
From a content perspective, I found myself repeatedly nodding my head in agreement with her assessments and suggestions. She pays attention to what I feel are the three main domains of a successful online interaction space: purpose, design, and social structures or interactions.
While the business models of online community may not yet be clear, the mechanisms are becoming more visible. You can save a lot of wasted time and effort by using the guidelines, pulling what is relevant, and leaving the rest for when your needs grow or change. Good book. Worth the price!
Nancy White