Over the years, I've developed a number of thoughts to help establish successful online communities.

Communities are very much like designing a neighborhood of character and life, where homes, streets, even local stores compliment one another and each has an easy to demonstrate PURPOSE, both individually and collectively. The idea is all about 'flow.'

1) To build successful online communities there must ALSO be a demonstrated focus (built into core design) on 'real world' PURPOSE. Without this it becomes YASNS (yet another social network service).
2) Purpose almost always relates to connecting to the physical world.
3) Members must be able to people watch... And should not forced into a corral or inside personal silos with links to friends and family.
4) "I'm moving and need to find a new church" where can I post my question publicly and get an answer? Where can I go and "self serve" this question? In other words, this is a perfect place to connect back to the physical world.
5) Search functionality is EVERYTHING this is how we discover.
6) Never underestimate intuitive design, functionality and flow.

I've formulated this as a simple starting point in order to focus building success into the online communities I design and also as a foundation for discussion with the Yahoo! 360° team:

Central Idea: Discovery is a social process.
Generally, the current proliferation of the term SEARCH could be refined to focus upon DISCOVERY. When discoveries are made most enjoy sharing them.

In other words: I want to discover, I have to search, I want to share.

Members who utilize Yahoo's vast service offerings want to fulfill their needs...search is the method, but the goal is ultimately discovery. I feel that so much emphasis has been placed upon the method that the goal of discovery and the ability to share has faded into the background.

I can envision Yahoo! 360° becoming the interactive hub for discovery and sharing at a depth that no other community has achieved. Once Yahoo! 360° begins to address the central idea of shared discovery, making it fluid, easy to navigate, and seamless, amazing success is inevitable. Vertical markets are certainly important, and I believe there are many ways to address these verticals through Yahoo! 360°.

If the Yahoo! 360° brand name is accurate, it will encompass much more than the current personal blog and social network; it will begin to blend much of the functionality that currently exists as separate Yahoo! services (beyond My Yahoo & Yahoo Mail) including HotJobs, Shopping, and Movies... As a Yahoo member I rarely utilize the vast resources available to me with Yahoo! for a variety of different reasons. In addition to the currently available Yahoo! services, I'm sure there are discussions about new services such as social book mark functionality like del.icio.us and the ability to generate personal wish lists where purchases are a click away.

I believe Yahoo! 360° has the ability to become the fulcrum point of the relationship between Yahoo! and its members. The difficult operation is blending all the Yahoo! divisions together to form one unified relationship to present to members and businesses. I'm beginning to like the idea of a 'Personal Portal.' The ability to successfully integrate media is to understand that media consumption is a very personal experience.

Initially, I would define the objectives and customer requirements for Yahoo! 360°. First, identify the needs members and new members expect Yahoo! 360° to solve. This helps to achieve business objectives [profitability] and market requirements [millions of ACTIVE members]. Yahoo! 360° is ultimately an experience.
Yahoo! 360° is composed of layers and functionality between multiple Yahoo! departments. Customers however, want to experience 'wholeness,' a seamless integration (flow) into their everyday lives. The member's experience should not be dictated by limits within the platform or the skin. Yahoo! 360° should help solve members needs conveniently.

The initial novelty of online social networking has worn off. Now the hard work begins. I'm firmly convinced the many excellent services of Yahoo! places it in the best position to accomplish amazing success. Other sites that continue to place an emphasis on linking to friends and inviting friends will be surpassed by the communities that solve businesses and member's needs with innovations that make daily life more convenient. I am beginning to see the start of this with digital photo sharing and archiving, video and music distribution, online classifieds, wish list and one click shopping.

Before building success into a product or service the key question is purpose. Understanding purpose helps design a product with incentive.

I hope this note introduces the depth of my thought in this area.

 Filed Under: Leans Academic
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