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'Lost' Fans Serve Up Surprising Lessons About Web 2.0 For Business
Lost Fans Find Internet Thrills Via Wikis, Games, Second Life takes a look at how Lost fans are having fun online via Lostpedia, a wiki encyclopedia of information about the show; a Second Life group; and official show sites run by ABC, the network that airs Lost. The money quotes, relevant to using Web 2.0 for business, are on the first page of the article, based on my interview with Kevin Croy, a programmer consultant who founded and manages Lostpedia.com. He takes a hands-off management style: "I try to let the community figure out answers to their own questions," Croy said. "Some of the users like to give my opinion on content more weight than the average user." He added, "Lostpedia has grown the most when I'm sitting on my hands." The lessons are the same whether it's a bunch of fans discussing a TV show for fun, or a business team trying to work out solutions using internal wikis and discussion forums, or a community manager looking to herd customers on a company's Web site: The hands-off approach is best. A hard-working community manager is a bad community manager, the best community managers are the laziest. If you think there might be a problem on the site requiring intervention, do nothing. Wait. The community will probably work out the problem on its own. The manager should only intervene where that process fails. Now if you'll excuse me -- I'm a couple of weeks behind reading Lostpedia episode updates. Do you manage an online community for business? How do you handle inappropriate behavior? « A ReiserFS Without Hans Reiser | Main | Hello, Would You Like A New Job? » |
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