Ross Mayfield analyzes the new generation of web-native online community tools :
which displace older models like bulletin board systems and usenet.
Jon Lebkowsky replies that much of the "new online community" is not so new.
We're building new tools which are refinements of the old tools, and the social practices are clearly an extension of stuff we've done all along – we're just getting better at it.
So, what's new?
Jon thinks that the new web-based forms are more extraverted than walled gardens like the Well, and topic-focused forums like Usenet and mailing lists.
What's really new is that, instead of talking inside a community, we're talking across communities. Weblogs (and the feedback that go with 'em) face outward, they're public discussion. You can search them and do aggregation, so there's many ways to pull conversations together. There are tools for high level analysis, so you can see what people are talking about, what subjects are catching fire.
In fact, the old and the new forms may work best together. As Pete Kaminski said, weblogs are like front porches.
Weblogs can serve as the front porch to of a community, complementing more private discussion spaces.
Posted by alevin at April 1, 2003 10:56 AM | TrackBack