Mopsos

George's report "Blogging the Market" is a very interesting read, even though I sometimes think its going a bit to far in its manifesto-like tone. I agree with the fundamentals, but I think the actual change in corporate governance and marketing practices resulting from the widespread use of weblogs will happen gradually over time. The conclusion wording of "be assimilated or annihilated" may turn some readers off. I don't think the networked/knowledge economy is actually "Killing Mrs Hierarchy", but only keeping her in the limits of her domain of competence: Attracting talent and investment and allocating them on the right projects. Networks and Communities will be in charge of cultivating a shared body of knowledge, making sense out of it, and proposing actions.

George's question about "blogging for profit" is an interesting one. I found the examples of Macromedia and Gizmodo particularly representative of blogging associated with for profit organizations. The former expects increased product revenues from establishing more trusted relations between the company and its technical clients, the latter from expected referrals and advertising. Another example combining a little bit of both is Dave Leggett's blog on Just-Auto an online for fee information source for business and research professionals of the automotive industry. The blog makes the web site much more lively and brings a human touch to it. It's no longer just a storefront window, but you can actually peek through the window, see what people are doing in there, and get a feeling of their trustworthiness.

But there are other ways, I think, to "blog for profit", especially when the blog is no longer personal but collective. If the content published reflects interesting conversations taking place among the community members, then you might be willing to pay for membership to participate more actively in community events or download full reports (motivation for learning can be powerful enough to pay for a good experience) , or to pay for sponsorship if you have good reasons to help this community grow. That's what Etienne Wenger is trying to do with the blog of CPSquare, "the community of practice on communities of practice".

i don't think that communities that charge fees stand much of a chance, unless they have a very clear goal and a very well identified member base. If you read the section on "slashdot and openflows: the search for community and profit" in my paper, you'll see that the internet community is ultra-skeptical of sites that promote corporate agendas.

thanks for your kind words about my essay

g.

Posted by: george dafermos at January 27, 2004 01:09 AM

Thanks. I will look deeper into this. Like you, I think that online communities with suscription fees don't stand a chance... unless the online space is only one of the several shared spaces of the community. I think that people are not ready to pay for the benefit of interacting online with others, even with famous people (Would you pay to have an online chat with George W.? I wouldn't), but if the benefit is to be regularly invited to face-to-face events with interesting people, it's another matter (Wouldn't you pay to be regularly invited at the Davos conference? I would.)

Posted by: Martin R. Dugage at January 27, 2004 09:46 AM

i get entirely your point, and i 'm aware of some commercial-oriented online communities (in the most narrow definition of what an online community is)whose business model is premised on complementing their online activities with offline experiences - like say get to meet at a pub or club every now and then.

Posted by: george dafermos at January 27, 2004 02:46 PM

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