What Makes a Good Online Community?

Based on some recent activity at Our Power and some questions I got after the Toronto Star ran a related article I've been thinking about what it takes to put together a successful online community.

From my perspective, the most important aspects of an online social network are as follows:

1. Access has to be free of charge - this probably goes without saying.
   
2. Obvious representation of the size of the community
• New and returning visitors have to be given some sense that they're not the only person visiting the website.
• Before connecting with other people in the community there has to be an evident visualization of how many other people are actively involved.
  
3. Sincere community commitment
• Bells, whistles and a fancy facade will be quickly overlooked
• The website site doesn't necessary need to be "useful", but the service or offering has to be genuine

Without those three aspects, an online community will quickly dissolve.

Real, long-term success would need to add to the following factors:

1. Provide a sense of security, privacy and comfort
• Obviously a security or privacy breach would be game over for any website.
• I say "sense" because people have to inherently trust the website they're interacting with - a privacy policy isn't enough.
  
2. Critical Mass
• For a website to take on a life of itself it needs to hit a critical mass of participation - that number depends on the purpose of the community.
  
• At this point you've hit the jack-pot and user-defined content can really be a big driver of success.

These are base essentials, additional success factors would be specific to the type of community and the activities the community undertakes.

On many occasions I've run across websites that make failed attempts at starting an online community.
Here's a quick list of potential pitfalls for building an online community:

1. A forum or chat room is NOT an online community.
• These are features and elements that are part of most successful online communities, but a forum unto itself is NOT an online community.
• If you build it, people WILL NOT come - the offering needs to be much bigger.
  
2. A blog is NOT an online community.
• A blog is a great way to be a casual journalist and talk TO your community, but communities are interactive and involve feedback and conversation.
• Commenting on a blog is NOT the feedback and conversation I'm talking about.
  
3. Product marketing websites are under the most scrutiny from potential community participants.
• A product or brand website can indeed result in a good online community if the essential aspects above are followed.
• The sincerity of the community commitment is most important in this case.

Now that I've made this list, how does Our Power compare?

• Our Power is certainly free of charge and has a sincere offering to help people adopt renewable energy. 
  
  
• What's missing is the obvious size of the community.
  Our Power has a database of hundreds of interested people, but that network and those relationships haven't been visualized or aggregated for others to be able to see the success of the online community.

Good thing there are some new developments in the works for Our Power! :)

How does this list compare to some of the online communities you're a part of?

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