It Takes a Community, Sometimes

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov, 2001 by Jimmy Guterman

But if all your magazine wants to do online is present information and serve subscribers, occasional (and inexpensive) community events can help. Maxim Online (www.maximag.com) runs the occasional live chat with models and actresses; Sports Illustrated's CNNSI.com (www.cnnsi.com) does the same with broadcasters and athletes. Such events pull maximum attention and require minimal daily maintenance.

Trade magazines, however, have been less likely to implement community initiatives than their consumer comrades. The recently revised AdAge.com site, for example, is stuffed with breaking news and no way to comment on it. The AdAge.com editors, like those of many trade magazines, have decided that its readers are visiting its site to consume news, not comment on it. Community can be a great tool, but it's not for every magazine. As with everything else in magazines, know your audience.

Jimmy Guterman (http://guterman.com) is president of The Vineyard Group, Inc., and a contributing editor to Folio:. Roughly half of the community sites he helped build since 1994 are still standing.

FIVE WAYS TO MAKE COMMUNITY WORK FOR YOUR WEB SITE

1. DON'T OUTSOURCE EDITORIAL One way to avoid checking every post is to outsource the editorial maintenance of the online community, not just the technology behind it. Nerve.com syndicates its personals software (see related story, page 43), and services like Lycos' Raging Bull (www.ragingbull.com) let magazines wrap their branding around its discussion-group environment. Magazines lose control, but they also lessen their risk. But why bother? There's little sense in offering a community option that leads out of the magazine's site. It directs readers to a general-discussion area, not one built around the magazine. If you don't really want readers to talk back about your magazine's offerings, don't pretend.

2. DO OUTSOURCE TECHNOLOGY Few, if any, technology departments of magazine Web sites have the resources or the inclination to write their own discussion-group software. Magazines can add rudimentary discussion-group software to their Web sites for free, using programs like the open-source Loquacious (http://www.greenspun.com/com/home.html). Those looking for something more flexible may find that their existing content-management systems include community features. One of the most adaptable stand-alone systems is provided by WebCrossing (http://www.webcrossing.com) and can cost as little as $995. (An evaluation version is free.)

3. MODERATE Many publishers have pulled back on their Web site's community efforts, in part because of the online advertising meltdown and in part because active, thriving discussion groups online require a good deal of editorial care. Someone has to start discussion threads, keep them on topic, and remove postings that violate the site's standards. Unlike a site like Slashdot, where cacophony is the brand, magazines have a valuable brand they need to protect online. Magazine Web-site editors may wish to encourage reader contributions and publicize the most intriguing ones. (The Atlantic Monthly's site, www. theatlantic.com, tried to do this in its earlier, better-funded iteration.) But no site wants to be the unwitting host of the next Unabomber's screed.