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Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities Paperback – April 5 2000
Examines the nine most important design principles for growing a successful Web community.
Author is a recognized expert in the field of Web community design
Endorsed by Web luminaries such as John Hagel, author of Net Worth and Net Gain, Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community, and Steve Larsen, Senior Vice President, Net Perceptions. What makes a Web site a Web community? How have sites like Yahoo, iVillage, eBay, and AncientSites managed to attract and maintain a loyal following? How can Web developers create growing, thriving sites that serve an important function in peoples lives? Community Building on the Web introduces and examines nine essential design strategies for putting together vibrant, welcoming online communities. Amy Jo Kim, a leading expert in Web community design, has helped AOL, Yahoo, Oracle, MTV, and others start online worlds that have become flourishing gathering places that people come back to again and again. The book is full of informative examples, case studies, and tactics for every facet of Web communities, from welcoming visitors to training community leaders. (Previously announced on the Winter 98 list.)
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPeachpit Press
- Publication dateApril 5 2000
- Dimensions18.42 x 1.91 x 23.5 cm
- ISBN-100201874849
- ISBN-13978-0201874846
Product description
From Amazon
Nine core strategies form the foundation of Kim's recommendations for site builders, serving as the organizational backbone of this book. The strategies generally make sense, and they seem to apply to all kinds of communities, cyber and otherwise. (One advocates the establishment of regular events around which community life can organize itself.) Some parts of Kim's message may seem like common sense, but such a coherent discussion of what defines a community and how it can be made to thrive is still helpful.
Read this book to help crystallize your thinking about community building, and to review strategies that work for real sites already. --David Wall
Topics covered: Strategies for designing Web sites around the needs of particular groups of people, attracting those people to your site, and motivating them to return frequently. Community identification, member profiling, community leadership, and organization (of information, time, and relationships) all receive ample coverage.
From Library Journal
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Back Cover
What's the point of creating a great Web site if no one goes there-or worse, if people come but never return? How do some sites, such as America Online, EBay, and GeoCities, develop into Internet communities with loyal followings and regular repeat traffic? How can Web page designers and developers create sites that are vibrant and rewarding?
Amy Jo Kim, author of Community Building on the Web and consultant to some of the most successful Internet communities, is an expert at teaching how to design sites that succeed by making new visitors feel welcome, rewarding member participation, and building a sense of their own history. She discusses important design strategies, interviews influential Web community-builders, and provides the reader with templates and questionnaires to use in building their own communities.
About the Author
Amy Jo Kim, Ph.D. is a recognized expert in the field of online community design. She is the founder and creative director of NAIMA, a 21st century design studio that has designed online environments for a wide range of clients, including America Online, Adobe Systems, AT&T, CyberCash, Electric Communities, Fujitsu, Mpath Interactive, MTV, NetNoir, Nickelodeon, Oracle, Paramount, PlaceWare, Redgate, Sony, Viacom, and Yahoo. She also teaches online design at Stanford University. Her article on the fantasy game environment, Ultima Online, appeared in the May 1998 issue of Wired.
Product details
- Publisher : Peachpit Press; 1st edition (April 5 2000)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0201874849
- ISBN-13 : 978-0201874846
- Item weight : 582 g
- Dimensions : 18.42 x 1.91 x 23.5 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,231,956 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #111 in Intranets & Extranets
- #181 in Library Management
- #1,670 in Computer Networks, Protocols & APIs
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Named by Fortune as one of the top 10 influential women in games, Amy Jo Kim is a social
game designer, community architect, and startup coach. Her design credits include Rock
Band, The Sims, eBay, Netflix, Covet Fashion, nytimes.com, Ultima Online, Happify and
Pley. She pioneered the idea of applying game design to digital services, and is known for
her book, Community Building on the Web (Peachpit, 2000). She holds a PhD in Behavioral
Neuroscience from the University of Washington and a BA in Experimental Psychology.
Amy Jo is passionate about helping entrepreneurs innovate faster and smarter; she teaches
Game Thinking at Stanford University and is an adjunct professor of Game Design at the
USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Customer reviews
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Top reviews
Top reviews from Canada
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This book goes beyond the initial purpose, it engages you into the many connectors to Knowledge Management put in application through the social communities.
To read and use as a referrence
Even before the book actually starts, the roman-numeraled introduction delivers Nine Design Strategies. #1 is Define and Articulate Your Purpose. Bang, that's enough to slow some people in their tracks and make them actually think about what they want to do. Three Underlying Principles are then introduced. For anyone actually involved in community building, just the information given in the introduction is more than worth the price of the book.
Chapter 1 draws on and expands the information presented in the introduction. Amy Jo even uses Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, presenting concepts to make sure the community member's basic needs are met before offering "higher-level" features. Something which is surprisingly often overlooked.
What I like about this book, is that it's void of academic and sociological, highbrow rhetoric. I thought it was quite subtle and interesting that Amy Jo's Ph.D. title is not displayed on the book. Instead, it delivers page after page of nuts n' bolts information on how to actually design, build and manage web communities. And before the building even starts, a lot of thinking has to take place. This book will get the motors running. If the reader's desire is still there after working through the "pull-no-punches" first chapter, then there's good reason to explore community building further. On the other hand, if the reader finds the wind knocked out of their sails, they'd have Amy Jo to thank for that too. No sense in investing a lot of time and energy if it turns out that a community venture idea never even makes it out of the gate.
One thing the author really has going for her, with her ten years of community-building experience, is that she's worked in a lot of virtual environments -and that is clearly reflected in the contents. From MUD's, to The Palace to eBay, each environment has it's own set of positives and negatives, and those are all well-covered.
The meat of the book delivers a well-rounded arsenal on community leadership, membership roles and rites of passage, etiquette, community growth stages, and even Event Planning 101.
The one aspect that might be missed by some is more actual case-history examples. In some ways, I actually found this refreshing, because there are more than enough web-community books on the market that cover those bases. If anyone is actually thinking of getting involved in building communities, they'll soon find themselves reading Cliff Figallo's Hosting Web Communities, and of course, the classic The Virtual Community by Howard Rheingold. (A second addition of Rheingold's book will be released soon by MIT Press.)
There are certainly more web community books [see our recommended links included with this article], but if there is one book to pick up first, Community Building on the Web, by Amy Jo Kim, is the one. END
As the author says, "This book is a strategic handbook for community builders." It espouses 9 design strategies:
(1) Define and articulate your PURPOSE
(2) Build flexible, extensible gathering PLACES
(3) Create meaningful and evolving member PROFILES
(4) Design for a range of ROLES
(5) Develop a strong LEADERSHIP program
(6) Encourage appropriate ETIQUETTE
(7) Promotic cyclic EVENTS
(8) Integrate the RITUALS of community life
(9) Facilitate member-run SUBGROUPS
The book also proposes 3 design principles:
(1) Design for growth and change
(2) Create and maintain feedback loops
(3) Empower your members over time
Each of the design strategies has its own chapter. There is also a good structure to propose questions to answer. In addition, you also will find excellent examples of existing Web sites, some of which will be new to you. Not only are the sites discussed, but they are also illustrated with many actual Web pages. I have missed that in many other books about the Internet. This one provides and makes superb use of its visual examples!
I thought that the best practice examples worked, because each one was better than any other feature that I have seen at another Web site.
Also, the author provides a Web site so that you can keep up-to-date with her latest insights and to share information.
But to me the best part of the book were the many astute, rich comparisons of on-line communities to real world communities. Ms. Kim has obviously done a great job of thinking through important fundamental questions about what is possible on-line. Her thinking is obviously in flux. It seems to be pointing to a world where on-line and off-line will have few distinctions, as we relate to many of the same people in both modes. I liked her comparison of how we think about telephone calls compared to other communications methods.
After you have read this book, I suggest you also reexamine your business model in terms of how it could be improved by merging with your customers in the kind of rich off-line and on-line communities that are described in this excellent book. These communities can be powerful irresistible forces to power your growth forward.
May you find the on-line community that expands your life in many useful ways!
Top reviews from other countries
So what's to like about this book? It is well-organized. Kim has built the book around her nine down-to-earth community design strategies with specific elements on how to execute those strategies. She stays on track.
It uses examples from both large and small sites which take this book from the realm of theory to one of practicality.
You can read all of it or one section and it makes sense. Chapter divisions and subheads make for a pleasant browse for inspiration or to get a specific tidbit. Graphics are used generously, but my "old" eyes had to strain a bit on the screen shots.
From a content perspective, I found myself repeatedly nodding my head in agreement with her assessments and suggestions. She pays attention to what I feel are the three main domains of a successful online interaction space: purpose, design, and social structures or interactions.
While the business models of online community may not yet be clear, the mechanisms are becoming more visible. You can save a lot of wasted time and effort by using the guidelines, pulling what is relevant, and leaving the rest for when your needs grow or change. Good book. Worth the price!
Nancy White
"The focus is on teaching you how to grow a thriving community that will attract and sustain members, and on how to adress the design, technical and policy issues that will inevitably arise"
I know the following is a big chunk of text, but you migh want to skip some points… or you can still read the book :
- Purpose: It’s important to know why people join the community and what drives their participation. Ideally, a virtual community’s design and tools will be adapted to this purpose. Amy Jo Kim has a great adaptation of Maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid adapted to we communities (p.9), but she also highlights that it’s fundamental for a community to be profitable: “A successful community must attract and keep enough members to make it worthwile. It must also deliver a satisfactory ROI to whoever is funding and/or maintaining it. If either one of these standards is not met, the community will eventually fail“. On community websites like patientslikeme, you’ll understand a purpose rapidly, and it also managed to be sustainable.
- Places: It’s obvious that popular venues for communities to gather are websites like social networks, contest platforms or web forums. The book also talks about places that I know less of: mailing lists, message boards, virtual world, chats… Then, Kim gives some about growth management, design and community proximity on these venues, which is crucial to adapt to change.
- Profiles: Since “entering a new web community can feel like walking into a party full of strangers“, communities must include ways to get to know people. People want to present themselves, and similarly they want to discover who they’re dealing with. It’s important to note that not all members will be curiously browsing others’ profiles and communicating with them, but transparency is important anyway. “On the web, full disclosure is good business“, Kim says.
- Roles: Here, Kim introduces the particularly interesting concept of Membership Life Cycle. She argues that “you can help a community flourish by providing features and programs that support [social] roles“. Reserach has also shown that design features can activate community participation in innovation communities, but to my knowledge research on membership lifecycle is not extensively covered. Do you have any thoughts or papers to share on that?
- Leadership: Regarding how centralized a community’s management is, a web community needs people to take leadership roles in both animation and controling. “For games or contests, you’ll need support personnel who can resolve technical issues, and deal with reports of cheating and systems hacking“, Kim says about rather centralized management sites. Also, she has a great table that summarizes leaders’ possible roles in a community (p.163), including both official and unofficial leadership roles.
- Etiquette: When exchange and interaction is the fundamental purpose of a community (like learning-focused communities), it’s important to have a common understanding of the tone people will adopt. One example is the use of the formal you (vous in French, Sie in German, usted in Spanish…). In English the problem doesn’t arise since there is no formal you, but you must know how you talk to members: will they be offended if you have a familiar tone? Or do they expect everyone to show closeness?
- Events: According to Kim, the three types of events are meetings, performances and competitions. These types of events need to be planned thoroughly, but when they’re well-executed and well-attended, they will ty together the community by bringing them together. About contests, Kim says that “the most effective contests contribute to long-term community building [...] by reinforcing a community’s purpose, values, and brand identity“.
- Rituals: As you could see on the Membership Life Cycle illustration, there are rituals. These might mark transitions between stages of the Life Cycle (thus occuring only once), or they can be repeated: making a targetted recommendation, remembering special days, mark holidays… I particularly like Kim’s paragraph The Power of Goodbye (p.281), where she highlights that “leave-taking also offers an opportunity to ritualize the community experience“.
- Subgroups: Particularly if your community is big and has the possibility to organize autonomously, it might be valuable to allow members to form or join subgroups. Since “simply joining a large, general-purpose [...] community doesn’t give someone much sense of community identity“, people might want to be part of smaller, focused sub-groups. However, Kim stresses that this might only be valuable in later stages of communities’ evolution.
These principles are, as I think, very true today! If you think it’s too old to be true!
I'm personally working now with communities for performing artists and software developers. This book is the only one I'm willing to carry with me on all my customer consulting visits.