Transient Communities

Steve Rubel, at Micro Persuasion, takes a thoughtful look at the constantly changing face of the communities we build on the Internet:

On the Internet, churn is constant.

Historically, online communities have perpetually come and go. The Internet Archive amber is littered with fossilized communities that once dominated, much the way the T-Rex roamed during the Mesozoic era. These include former stalwarts such as Angelfire, The Well, TheGlobe.com, GeoCities, Tripod and Friendster.

Rubel goes on to predict that social networks will evolve from a loose network of discrete sites into a kind of river that flows through the Internet.

He could be right - although I agree with  commenter David Binkowski on Rubel's site who observed that there is a necessary difference "between communities meaning 'those driven by specific web sites or technologies' and communities meaning people. There are a lot of communities still around from the 1990's; whether they use the next big social media platform to communicate, are still using message boards or have moved from URL to URL, the platform isn't what makes the community. In fact, it's exactly the opposite."

Trying to get a fix on the social web is like trying to nail Jello to the wall. That's as true from a business perspective as it is from a personal or social one. We're not yet at the point where Rubel's "river" exists - there are too many individual networks that won't play nice - but it's coming. But behind the technology - ALWAYS - are the same people, interacting, moving on. That's the challenge and the opportunity.