Virtual Place

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Virtual Place
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People Are Talking

• Amy Jo Kim
• Conference
• Hollywood executives we have large communities
  watching star trek episodes each week
• To them communities are only numbers figures
• AJK
• People need to communicate to have communities
• People need places where they can communicate

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Choose your tools

• Create gathering places
• Questions to ask
• What types of communications are available
• What types of applications that software is best
  suited for
• What it takes to build maintain gathering
  places using this software
• Examples are When should you use them??
• Mailing lists
• Message Board
• Real Time Chat
• Virtual Worlds
• AlsoCommunity Aggregators MSN Groups
• Also license existing software package

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Choose your tools

• Make your own community from scratch
• Maximum control
• Expensive / time consuming

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Mapping your territory

• How do you plan your community
• Think of how a neighboourhood is built
• Important compare checking out a new
  neighbourhood when planning to move
• Your visitors need certain cues to to get a
  sense of what your community is all about
• Structure need to be flexible extensible
• First tasks is to choose a theme
• Categorical theme a hierarchy of categories
  (Ebay)
• Geographic Theme refering to familiar models
  like houses, neighborhoods cities (Geocities)
• Media Theme build on peoples familiarity with
  existing media
• Channels gt IVillage

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Mapping your territory

• Selecting a theme
• Your communitys theme should be based on WHO
  your audience is WHAT types of content you will
  be organizing HOW you want people to think
  about your site
• Does the content suggest a theme
• Is your community based on a citys comm gt
  Geographic theme is the logical choice
• Do I want to suggest a familiar model
• Encourage tot haink of your community as
  entertainment gt Channels
• Will my theme help or hinder navigation?

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Mapping your territory

• What goes where?
• Taxonomy
• Classification scheme
• A way to organize a collection of individual
  elements into groups
• Botanists taxonomy for plants which help them to
  classify new plants
• Lets your visitors know what you have to offer
• Ebay hierarchal browsing to get deeper, find
  more specific items
• What makes a good taxonomy
• Listen to your audience, not your commissioner
• Best example geocities where neighborhoods can
  be created (RIP)
• Extensible flexible to be extended
• Yahoo example

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What kind of place is this

• The look of your community should express as much
  as possible what your identity is
• Each area should contain this look feel
• Using the visual cues creates a distinct identity
  for differen places, but still gives you the
  overall look ffeel of a site
• You are here
• AJK advises to use a site map seems relevant,
  but make your site so obvious it becomes clear
  where you are
• Where do I find?
• Search function

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Zoned for Growth

• Community Centered Design give your OC a chance
  to grow
• Start small and focused
• Do not give in to the pressure of commissioners
• Strong communities start small and grow
• Eg The Well ten public domains at the start
  after five years more than 200
• Worst problem is parts of your community which
  are empty gt small lively
• community members gt direct contact with staff
  founders
• Creation of core audiences

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Listen to Your Members

• LISTEN To understand how your members want to
  grow
• Conversational feedback e-mail, message boards,
  chat sessions, interviews
• WHAT THEY SAY
• Behavioral feedback page hits, time spent on
  site, message board chat statistics responses
  to direct marketing
• WHAT THEY DO (impressions unique visitors, time
  spent on site, traffic, attendance)
• Can be important for your advertisement

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Plan for controlled growth

• Encourage members to add creativity input to
  the community
• Developing loyalty!!!
• How much freedom?
• Unrestricted
• Quantity over quality
• Not on focus
• Be aware of fast creators
• Newcomers who are willing to create, but have no
  idea to keep it a lively place
• BUT making it too hard gt people not keen to build

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Plan for Controlled Growth

• Building Codes
• What are the buidling codes (restricitions
  possibilities)
• Depends on your community
• Eg MSN Groups vs Our Art Community
• Different results eg MSN Groups lots of clubs,
  not much alive
• Find a blance between the eagerness of community
  members to build your opinion to keep this
  place orderly
• Combination Staff volunteers is possible
• Let your members EARN building Rights