Tribe or community?

We got an invitation to join a ‘meeting the expert’ panel on providing services to set up communities / tribes. In thinking about this from an Internet Service Provider's perspective I realized there are two ways to do this. You can go the lowest common denominator way and try to attract as large a crowd as possible, or you provide the means for many small communities to do their own thing.

The first route is what Hyves does. You set up a meeting point for people (specifically the 13 to 21 group) to gather around and meet like minded spirits, but you keep it simple. Easy search algorithms (I am 17 and he/she is 17 and we live nearby) to find each other and easy ways to start communicating with each other, share pictures, etc. OpenBC has a business approach where you can meet entrepreneurs to team up and as an entrepreneur find people who can deliver services you need in setting up or expand your business.

The specific challenge with this approach is that you have to constantly provide new services to keep your tribe interested in your specific platform and off course be very entertaining by creating the right events to make sure people keep using your services. Tribes are nomadic, so the bandwagon effect is something you have to take into account when setting this up. It often becomes a fad that people (the tribe) follow and fades out after the initial enthusiasm fades and a new fad (competitor) starts.

The advantages are easy set up and maintenance as a trade off against the maintenance effort in keeping the tribe interested and the need for constant vigilance to provide new events and services. This approach is a bit of a hit and miss approach with potentially short lifecycles.

The second route is to provide a framework for creating small groups around specific topics. Provide these communities with the means to find other people with the same interest, share information in a structured way and to separate the good from the bad apples. Let them manage themselves and provide them with limited means to create their own services.

The advantage is that these communities will maintain themselves as a trade off to the initial investment in time spent on helping people start these small groups and in building a simple interface to build your own service (look at ning). Once you got the thing going, people will start to use it and create their own communities using your service framework. This approach is a trial and error approach with a long life expectancy for resulting communities. You will also have to create many to create a large enough revenue stream. You would be a first mover, since large scale is what dominates the web today. A longer lifecycle can be expected!

What is important when doing either is that you start communicating with the people who are using your services. Communicate in a way that you build the trust needed for them to tell you what to do next. Create a system and processes where people can Pull you where They want to go!

The choice you make is up to you. Both have the potential for differing business models (from advertising to subscription, to pay per use) and I personally think there is no best way to go at this time. Just choose the path closest to what makes your own company tick. Just remember though that much of the large scale market is being cornered by Amazon, Ebay, and the likes of Yahoo and Google. You need to differentiate yourself from very powerful players.