People Who Need People

Quelle: CIO USA

Online communities - news groups, chats or threaded messageboards in which like-minded people congregate to shareideas, solve problems or work on projects - were once thoughtto be the Web's killer app. The Web, its visionariesbelieved, could bring an unlimited number of people togetherno matter how geographically far-flung. And once all thosepeople were gathered around the cyberhearth, theircollective influence and buying power would dwarf anythingthe unmediated physical world could offer.

Well, yes and no.

At first, yes. Sort of. The fact that people could writetheir own reviews, post them and then discuss them withother book lovers certainly gave AmazonAmazon.com a first-moveradvantage that translated, at least initially, into acultlike popularity. Observers watched the onlinebookseller's popularity skyrocket due to the frenzy ofactivity and sales generated by this unique feature. And so,hoping an online community would have the same effect ontheir company as it seemed to be having on Amazon.com,companies building websites, including brick-and-mortarestablishments, made adding online forums a toppriority. Community, after all, was an obvious way toleverage the Web's essence: interactivity. Alles zu Amazon auf CIO.de

The question of whether encouraging site visitors tointeract with one another actually had anything to do withthe business was rarely asked. Everyone knew that hosting anonline forum would make your site stickier. Sticky meantmore eyeballs. More eyeballs meant profits - from sales oradvertising revenues - beyond the dreams of avarice.