Heather Champ, Powazeck
1. The talent is out there
altruistic goals attract altruistic participation
wikipedia the best example
Community is grown not built
build the walls firm – be too rigid is a mistake
the people who you want know more about what they want to do with it
elasticity
how do you build this container
create the tools that they want
reqward good contributions
editorial aspect – rising to the top, leading by example
punish the bad – have tools in place to make sure people who lead community in a bad way, need a way to neutralize them
expect the unexpected
you will always be surprised
last year for flickr, when launched geotagging, d&d interface – drag onto map, into pinpoint – giant F*CK in greenland story
use them as learning opportunities
using your tool in a way you dont expect – doing them a favor
as community designers – first reaction when users use their tools wrong – oftentimes users arent stupid – and you have something you can learn from them
Design for Selfishness
why would anyone do this
and the only answer is cool or b/c wikipedia does it – you may want to think
reason could be ego – make you famous
could be monetary
all diff ways to entice participation
2. FInding the Good Stuff
how do you separate the good from the bad
how do you create a system
there are many interesting examples of how people are doing it now
2 trad ways –
editors
decide what the news is
assign a writer
review and approve and publish
slashdot – moderators
meta moderators who judge if mods did the right thing
computers
what google did
look at the relationship of links to links – id good as having lots of links
more interesting model – the best of both
flickr’s interestingness
pictures chosen by magic donkey – secret sauce looking at behavior
fluid list of int photos going thru the commnity
how many people have viewed, favorited, comments
takes human behavior like commenting and tagging (meta info around photo) and makes interestingness score – populates it
negative access of creating celebrity class
can drive some people nuts
early on it was rank
people made it a goal to get in
rolled back and reloaded abstract list
want to figure out why it is doing what it is
feed into that
keep it as broad as possible
flickr not asking people to vote on the best stuff – collecting intention/attention around a photo and determine something larger than the sum of its parts
whenever you have a system that is making decisions based on user input – you always have a game – ? what kind of game and what are the rewards
if the game is becoming famous or getting attention – creates behavior that isnt good
JPG does something similar
Desc of JPG magazine
last issue collected 1 million votes
want users to participate – give their voice
point – techniques for ferreting out the good stuff
threadless example
sells tshirts
dont design – you do that
vote on tshirt designs
uuser additions, voting and editors
11000 submissions for last issue – having the community help filter and sort is a great help
let the wisdom of crowds do its thing – with the wis of editors
designing systems like this – buy wis of crowds by Surewicki
stock market – acting selfishly
good stuff out there – get them to make –
3. How does it make money
communities and commerce are not mutually exclusive
in the past they have treated communities like porceain dolls
communities form around commerce all the time
pull out any product – chances are there is a disc group about it
how do you integrate commerce in community gen stuff without all going to hell
how not to integrate
ex – Yahoo Games Wii site
announced to old skool members they would need to merge with yahoo ide
Yahoo games site affected
owned by yahoo games
created photo badge – pulling anything tagged wii
anything in terms of licensed photos and rights reserved – not the right thing to do
in addition to legal – do the right thing
jan 31 – their photos were being pulled in without permission – so they replaced with “Yahoo sucks”
people still somewhat angry
if you are doing the legal thing – using the content that is allowable but not the right thing – they can bite you hard in the derrierre
go above and beyond
making decisions in commercial endeavors
not necessarily going to town
other lesson – provide copious opt in an opt out
any use of member gen stuff – they may not know about – even if ToS says pubblic – people participating under set of social guidelines told or perceived
another area they didnt know about
copious
if flickr or yahoo games said to community “we want to do this” – would have been a run on it – people who freaked would have participated if asked permission
pay the photographer $100 at JPG magazine (less excited about money – but jpg saw it as jumping mediums – from web to print – monetarily thank them)
GM Tahoe
ex of the day
being stupid about the internet
site attracted 600k visitors in 3 weeks
9 min on the site
2/3 went on to visit chevy.com
number 1 referrer when active
still wondering if it was a commercial success
why did people make such mean ads
give people a comm tool and you never know what they will produce
was there an anger about tahoe?
or was it a byproduct of the interface itself
your only input was to add some text
all video was stock parts of chevy ads
all you could do is rearrange their video bits and add some text
give them a tiny box to participate it – it was insulting
put in in a little player – only had it there – couldnt email to anyone, couldnt take it with you
developers as editors with APIs
new editorial layer
agg photos in ways people are thinking about
people always have other conversations going on – let them interact and share in these other areas
only pull things back into your site
you dont own your users – they own you
threadless – see profile pages
recognizing their members exist in wide universe where they are creating all over
copious ins and outs – show respect to members
Why Print JPG mag at all – first – in a world where you can upload photo anywhere – how do you pick?
not another photo website or forum
want somethign that appreciates photos – honor great work at photoblogs
a reason to participate
choose to part. at the website – might get publsihed
looked at trad magazines and they are all terrible – all same stuff – same top ten list
third part – make more mags like this – potential for the web and print to work together – most mags treat websites as a threat
every submission is online
go and talk online
best stuff gets into print
growing community of people who care about the output
how do you deal with comm feedback on design changes
not lacking in comm feedback
get lots of feedback
will never get 80-% of listeners without 20% of talkers
b horowitz – 1% creators, 10% synthesizer, 89% listeners
jpg – 25% submits
50% – votes
Authority travels upwards in community driven sites
in real world authority travels down (editors down to readers of New Yorker)
good community participant – do right – they give you authority
if heather was GM she isnt sure she would want users to make ads
maybe not everything needs to have a community
the voice that comes back – listen to it
oh my goodness – maybe not what they expected – or cynically this is what they expected
not whether you should start a community – you have a comm that cares
are those people online
and do they care enought to use the tool for what they put out
Nike – custom shoes to get them to write sweatshop on the shoes
ask – are the people you are talking to your people or not
commerce – one other example – how can commercial entities participate in existing communityes
instead enter an exist comm for GM – and ask to participate there
Lonely girl vs MySpace
Sponspored themes
gives comm one more chance to publish
no editorial control – comm still has power
pay to help print the issue
people who print get awesome prizes
free jewel boxes from the sponsor – outside brand participate respectfully and reward part. in an existing community
good stuff out there
find it
have a viable business