Comments on: Musing about communities and prices

By: Ric

Ric — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:44:56 +0000

BTW – I tend to use a different sequence: conversation –> relationship –> transaction (with the last one optional), but that’s more in the context of “strangers” (i.e. use of social media for marketing, and the wrong-headed assumption of many marketers that they can sell “with” social media) than community. A community is such because of the existing relationships …

By: Ric

Ric — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:03:35 +0000

One of the reasons the entire community is important is that while the ratio of contributors/lurkers/etc remains relatively consistent, the individuals who make up those categories will differ in different circumstances (different opensource projects, different products, whatever). So the Linux lurkers might be the Apache rockstars. Also, since the ratios seem to be relatively consistent, if you don’t have 90 lurkers you won’t get 10 contributors …

By: Brian Driggs

Brian Driggs — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:17:03 +0000

@JP – Sorry for the delayed response! Yes, we want 2 moderators per user (or thereabouts), but not because we feel a need to police the population. We believe in giving our most active members a sense of ownership in their community not typically found elsewhere. By trusting them, we enable the risk-taking that drives innovation and progress.

People who feel important tend to act important! Perhaps 2:1 is a bit extreme, but our aim is to ensure anyone who believes in what we’re trying to accomplish can take an active role in managing our community. We (semi) auto-promote all the way to a steering committee of quasi-site owners with the authority to lead the evolution of the community into the future.

We’re always in beta. :)

By: TWICs XXVII

TWICs XXVII — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:09:14 +0000

[...] Confused of Calcutta: Musing About Communities & Pricing (04.01.12) I think the future will see new communities built around more democratic, modular scalability. Instead of having centralized teams coordinate growth and operations, I see things being far more distributed. For example, rather than having 1 moderator for every 10-100 users, we strive for a 2:1 ratio, moderator to user. [...]

By: clive boulton

clive boulton — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:52:58 +0000

Surely, black swans lurk. As commerce switches more online to Amazon etc, connectedness affects magnify the demand side, creating 100 percent demand certainly. Yet isn’t the supply side completely blind-sided once inventory is depleted and supply chain globalized (securitization, flash crash).The tools for coping are 1970 era MRP [hence my nudging the usefulness of Pardalis IP...]

By: How to write a B2B brand online strategy | Creative Agency Secrets

How to write a B2B brand online strategy | Creative Agency Secrets — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 03:54:06 +0000

[...] Commenting on Confused of Calcutta’s blog post – Musings about communities and prices [...]

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:49:31 +0000

I was pointed this direction from a highly artismic discussion of Korean popular music on, of all places, Facebook. Shaking my head as I read, trying to get the economist neurons firing again, I’m confused by the conflation of “customer” and “investor” I’ve inferred from your post.

If “Everyone in the community is a customer,” then everyone is contributing some marginal value, you could almost think of it as the profit margin. And of course profits are often reinvested by the firm leading to continuing production of K-pop videos and/or widgets and/or whatever.

Now, if “Communities expect a range of prices for each product or service,” then communities will suck the big one, because prices are determined by (among lots of other things) elasticity of demand. If, OTOH, a range of investment options exists, then members of the community experience a range of profitable opportunities, whether or not they eat their chocolate covered widgets or simply invest in them.

But as you can see, i’m hopelessly confused, which according to the name of this blog is your role, JP. I guess I had better return to a high level of lurkage and spare you the pain of my participation.

By: JP

JP — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:15:56 +0000

@clocke precisely. Great song. One of the few I recognise after 1976 or so.

By: Christopher Locke

Christopher Locke — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:13:06 +0000

into the blue again… after the money’s gone… ?

By: JP

JP — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:04:08 +0000

@chrisellis money isn’t information per se; but the spending or withholding of money can be a signal, and therefore informs. As you say, same as it ever was. Now why do I think “talking heads” when I say that…. once in a lifetime, perhaps?