BOOK
$30
How to host online spaces that thrive
With the smoking hulks of lame corporate experiments in grassroots brand-building scattered all over the Net, what's left to say about online communities? Enough to fill this book, which is the most clearheaded overview of the subject to appear in print.
Author Derek M. Powazek (a consultant whose storytelling site, the Fray, garnered three Webby nominations last year) earns our trust the moment he says that he counsels most of his big-ticket clients not to add a community space to their sites. For those who take the plunge, Design for Community is a sourcebook of tools and high concepts for hosting online gathering places that thrive with a minimum of top-down control and fuss.
Advice ranges from thoroughly practical site-tweaking tips ("Avoid designing your navigation to look like Microsoft products") to perspectives on the social dynamics of virtual hangouts from Slashdot's Rob Malda, Feed's Steven Johnson, and Amazon's Matt Williams. Along the way, Powazek slays popular misconceptions - one of the worst reasons for launching a community, he says, is because "it's free content!" He also offers dozens of links to community-building freeware and engages the reader with harrowing tales from the trenches. Email lists, weblogs, hosting strategies, ecommerce elements, webcams, and networked games are all considered, and there's even a chapter titled "Killing Your Community," which tells you when it's time to pull the plug.
Powazek is a natural teacher and storyteller, and his book is breezy and accessible without becoming Virtual Communities for Dummies. The lessons learned by groups who have weathered the shakeout are made available to everyone through interviews with typically cagey characters like Malda. Design for Community is a design for survival.
New Riders: www.newriders.com.
STREET CRED
RND#
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, by Rodney A. Brooks
Caveo Anti-Theft PC Card
Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places, by Derek M. Powazek
Command & Conquer Renegade
Samsung SCH-N150
Entourage X
ReadMe
Music
Maximo: Ghosts to Glory
Wondrous Contrivances: Technology at the Threshold, by Merritt Ierley
Compact Theater
TinyApps.org
US Design: 1975-2000
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