The 7c’s are a fundamental part of the customer interface for any website. However, one of the most important is that of community. Community gives users a feeling of membership, involvement, and shared common interest. In a way, it can almost be like belonging to an exclusive club. Being part of a community is also a great way to learn. For example, most users love to be up to date on the latest and greatest things and will often post and share things as soon as they become available. If a community is large enough, it can be an incredibly powerful tool in regards to being up to date on just about anything.
One aspect regarding a websites community that should be thought about is establishing a personality for the community. Being unique is very important since it helps a website differentiate from others. An individual can help establish the type of community he/she wants by how the content is handled on the site. For example, is the grammar and spelling correct in any updates? What type of tone are you using in your posts/written sections? Is any vulgarity used? Do you charge users a fee to access the message board/certain content? All of these questions are important in shaping the community and culture of the website since individuals who are attracted to your updates will continue to come back.
An example of a website with a very unique community is the comedy based website somethinawful.com. Somethingawful was created in 1999 and prides itself on mocking anyone who takes the internet too seriously. It also has humorous reviews and many other articles available. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of somethingawful is the forums. While they’re open to the general public, you are unable to post unless you buy a user account for $10. This also disables the majority of the sites advertisements. So by paying $10 you can suddenly become part of a very large online community, which has over 110,000 registered users with roughly 10,000 logged into the forums at any given time. Simply buying an account doesn’t mean you will be accepted however. Unlike many other websites on the internet, poor spelling and grammar are frowned upon along with low content posts. There is even a rules section which all new users are encouraged to read since breaking any rules can garner suspension of your account by the moderation team or an outright ban from the forums. This in turn has created a very large and tight knit community of users.
It is easy to see just how important community is to a website and there is no doubt this will continue to be the case in the future. Users, and the communities they become a part of, will continue to help drive websites forward and those who create great communities will garner a great deal of success.
