Q. What features make an online community stand out?
Are there are any features (of the technology platform the community is built on) that you think make it is easiest to manage and develop an online community? What has worked best for?
Area of Expertise: Technology and Internet
Industry: Online/Social Media
2 answers | Asked on 01/21/10 by:
Karl Shaikh
San Francisco, CA, United States
Answers
Jason Baldwin
Littleton, CO, United States
Karl,
It seems that your question really ask two things, so I apologize if the answer I give you is not exactly what you're looking for. One platform (facebook), that has had proven success, was developed in the PHP language; in fact most people tend to use this language for its ease of development ,and its ability to deliver rich dynamic content.
Keeping it simple - One of the biggest "turn offs" to any online store or community is when a page has so much content that a user becomes overwhelmed. Make sure to develop with the user in mind, keep the layout clean, yet useful. I would suggest trying to get a random user to navigate around and then ask for feedback on their experience.
I could probably drone on about other features that would be good to build an online community up, but in all honesty "keeping it simple" will be your BIGGEST investment in it's design.
Sincerely,
Jason Baldwin
Posted on 01/23/10
Michael Yu
New York, NY, United States
Hi Karl,
I definitely agree with Karl in respect to the simple/clean facet of a platform.
http://99designs.com/ is a great source to find a template/design for your ideas.
Posted on 01/31/10
