The Meshverse Journal – Node 3

One panelist at the recently mentioned Virtual Goods Summit was community guru Amy Jo Kim who I became familiar with during my days at the WeTalk Network. There are some short and sweet excerpts from her book like the following nugget:

To thrive as a twenty-first-century community builder, you’ll want to be on the lookout for opportunities to blur the boundary between the physical and the virtual, because that’s where the action is and where the Net is headed. This could mean bringing existing groups online, facilitating face-to-face meetings among your members, integrating commerce and communications systems, or creating specialized role-playing environments. Whatever you do, remember that the true power of communities—whether on or off the Web—lies in their power to affect people’s physical, emotional, spiritual, and professional lives in a meaningful way.

Community Building on the Web: Epilogue

which viewed another way points to the so-called “experience economy“. This gives insight into how and why communities are becoming a kind of 21st century black gold that is more significant than brands. For more detail check out the following books:

Communities of Commerce: Building Internet Business Communities to Accelerate Growth, Minimize Risk, and Increase Customer Loyalty

and

Online Communities: Commerce, Community Action, and the Virtual University