The power of communities

Discussion groups linked to a specific Web site are quickly becoming the standard for site-based virtual communities. As in e-mail and newsgroups, you post a message to a discussion group and read the response later. You can participate in Web-based discussion groups on any site that hosts one, and even build your own either by hosting it yourself or by using one of the many free discussion group tools such as EzBoard. EzBoard is the leading online community service on the Net, with over 1 million communities created and over 8 million registered users. You can use EzBoard to add a free message board service as a seamless addition to your Web site.

Forums foster a tight community where conversations are more focused than you'd typically find on Usenet and e-groups. Forums require the reader to visit a Web page to read (and reply) to messages. But it's also a more passive' technique. Discussion forums sit there waiting for someone to show up to read and post. The rewards here are:

• Great for social conversation and in-depth discussion of issues one considers important
• ften can see a number of messages on one HTML page

And the drawbacks are:

• Difficult to come to some kind of resolution
• Difficult to find specific information once again or if you need to later

Newsgroups are simple to participate in, but somewhat difficult to administer. Besides you still have to remember to go check them. And newsgroups are usually heavily assaulted by spam.

Chat rooms

Chat rooms are the quickest way to connect with people on the Internet. In addition to traditional chat rooms, there are rooms where you can move through a graphical world and others where you can build your own text-based world. In chat rooms the messages exchanged are more or less limited to one-liners. They are best used for social purposes, not for exchange of information and views. Some online communities have chat based on IRC, which allows more or less universal access; even a Java applet can get you connected to a chat channel.

Getting down to the pros:

• Real-time discussions
• Can log the transcript to be posted later

And the cons:

• Difficult to schedule a time if you have users around the globe
• Needs a dedicated group of users to be useful

Mailing lists
An e-mail discussion within a group of subscribers is the simplest and most familiar form of virtual community. Anyone who can read and send e-mail can create a mailing list virtual community.

OneList, eGroups, ListBot, Cool List, and other free list-hosting sites let you search among the lists hosted at that site. Once you register and sign up for a particular group, you are on its mailing list. You can view messages on the group pages, read them in your inbox, post messages, reply collectively or individually, and more. On Yahoo!Groups you can also have separate pages for a database, members, polls, chat, etc. You can share photos and files, plan group events and network like never before.

Assuming you have Internet access, the only investment needed to start a mailing list or e-group is time. And make no mistake. It's necessary to invest timemoderating a list, starting and maintaining discussion topics, and so on, do require a modicum of skills and takes no little effort. The pros to a mailing list are:

• Messages come to your e-mail box
• It's inexpensivemessages can be composed and read offline
• Reach: you can reach virtually anyone who's online

But there are some hitches too:

• Spammers can send messages to the list and gather e-mail addresses for advertising purposes
• Often a talkative group can quickly produce a daunting number of messages