Facebook Groups vs. Facebook Pages

Many nonprofit early adopters of Facebook set up groups as their organizational hubs because that was the only option. Later, Facebook Pages were introduced and many nonprofits have set these up as their institutional hubs. There has been some discussion in nonprofit forums, blogs, and listservs about the pros and cons of Facebook Pages versus Groups. Below are the notes I've drafted on the topic so far.

Davies, Tim. Tim's Blog (2008). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

How and Why to Build an Online Community

A community has to be grown wild and organically or it will fail. Control comes with time and growth. The success of a community and its size may vary. The effort may not give expected results but the work still pays off in knowledge and experience. Community members will change and accept different roles and participate in different manners. Being user friendly and being willing to allow change to happen is most important.

Hiveminds (2008). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Why Are Online Communities So Popular?

In An exploration of the internet publishing revolution, I discussed the implications of the increased self-publishing on the web. The discussion covered general concerns and possible impacts of the sudden growth, but not the reasons behind it. What has prompted the expansion of people’s voice on the web? Where have these communities of bloggers and posters come from? Why have they arisen? In this article I intend to find answers to these questions and ask: ‘What makes online communities so popular?’

Mercurytide (2006). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Communities, Audiences, and Scale

Communities are different than audiences in fundamental human ways, not merely technological ones. You cannot simply transform an audience into a community with technology, because they assume very different relationships between the sender and receiver of messages.

Shirky, Clay. Shirky.com (2002). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Online

Keep Your Web 2.0 Community Happy

Running a web community can be fun and rewarding, but you’re always reliant on the good faith of your members. So what happens when rogue elements threaten to disrupt, even destroy, the foundations of your virtual society? Derek Powazek has some suggestions

Powazek, Derek. Dot Net (2008). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Twitter Is What You Make It

There’s nothing quite like Twitter. It’s a Web site where you can broadcast very short messages — 140 characters, max — to anyone who’s signed up to receive them. It’s like a cross between a blog and a chat room.

Pogue, David. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Best Practices for Designing a Social News Website

In this article I’ll showcase some of the current top social news sites, will identify trends and patterns in their designs and suggest some best practices to follow when designing such sites. Let’s begin by looking at four popular social news sites and see how their designs compare.

Fadeyev, Dmitry. Webdesigner Depot (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Coaching a Community

We’ve all been part of communities since kindergarten, or earlier. Churches, schools, sports teams, and neighborhoods all satisfy basic human desires to interact with others and work toward a common goal. And yet, when these communities are online and we start to think of them as “social sites,” these concepts can suddenly feel foreign. My work in communities (primarily as the editor of community-created magazine JPG) has shown me that different sets of people are usually motivated in similar ways. Most people have an innate need to belong and feel like part of something, and successfully contributing to that something can really reinforce self-worth. Whether you’re at a company such as Yelp working with product reviews, or Threadless working with t-shirts, or in a church group working on an annual recipe book, try some of these methods to nurture great content.

Miner, Laura Brunow. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

The Elements of Social Architecture

Humans can behave in surprising ways when you bring them together. In an information space, a human’s needs are simple and his behavior straightforward. Find. Read. Save. But once you get a bunch of humans together, communicating and collaborating, you can observe both the madness and the wisdom of crowds.

Wodtke, Christina. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Community Informatics, Local Community and Conflict: Investigating Under-Researched Elements of a Developing Field of Study    

Conflict within local communities is an under-researched theme in Community Informatics (CI). This article therefore aims to contribute to the development of CI as a field of study by analysing forms of internal conflict within Moseley Egroup – a CI initiative developed in Moseley, Birmingham (UK). Ultimately it is argued that conflict is an inherent part of local community and is important to CI for a number of reasons. Conflict impacts on the appropriation and social shaping of internet technology by local communities, and has broader implications on the extent to which CI regenerates localities and empowers citizens. In this sense conflict is identified as a productive force, shaping and reshaping both local community and internet projects mobilized in its name. Conflict also draws attention to the contested and mutable relationship that exists in CI between the online spaces that are created and the localities they are set up to serve. It is concluded that conflict and forms of social struggle within communities should form a central part of the developing CI research agenda.

Goodwin, Ian. Convergence (2008). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Tragedy of the Commons

You still have to be willing to moderate comments when you are a blogger or a wiki administrator. And you have to be willing to work hard to build a community that uses the technology in a productive way.

Gentle, Anne. Just Write Click (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking