Internet as life support

There is growing interest around niche communities on the internet. People are seeking them out, and publishers want to be the ones, who harbour these niche communities in an ongoing effort to find new business opportunities in a harsh environment.

So far little thought have been given - at least publicly - to the importance of these niche communities and the need they serve with their end users. A need I think its crucial to understand, if one hopes to find the right community for one self or a niche to build a business on.

A sustainable community is basically about shared interests and goals. The shared interest is what gets you interested in the community. The shared goals are what keeps you in the community for the long term.

Lets take interest first. Shared interests are not only about some distinct hobby or about being the fan of some sports team. Shared interests goes a lot deeper than that (even though I’m sure a lot of people think of their relationship to their favourite sports team as being of a profound nature). For some its litterally about developing offline identity through the presence in a virtual world, where their physical environment perhaps won’t easily allow for that kind of thing. Think homosexuals as the obvious example here.

Shared goals is a different thing. It’s about what drives us. It’s about the whole reason for why we’re together in a community. It may be an explecitly stated goal (i.e. we need to reach B after starting from A), or it may be more process related (i.e. we all need to loose some weight here). It’s shared goals that warrants group pressure (i.e. if I can do this, you can do too), and it’s shared goals that keeps us in the flock (i.e. we’re all a part of this together).

In that sense, the internet suddenly becomes a sort of life support. The internet through communities enable people to always more or less easily to find someone else who understand them or at the very least experiencing some of the same painpoints. Viewed from this angle community building becomes a lot more interesting and rich on potential than sharing a hobby, a fancult for a sportsteam (sorry again) - or just for the sake of having fun.

I wonder whether the companies engaged in community building have really grasped this? I’m sure some of the smaller, dedicated niche players have, but what about big corporations with aspirations to build community? Have they really fathomed the depth of potential and the subsequent potential to fail by not taking this seriously enough? I doubt it.

Vad NU! is a consultancy company owned by Mads Kristensen and specialized in helping clients take advantage of the business opportunities created by new media. Click to learn how I can help you and your company.