Randy Weber » community

Trash Can Urinal – San Francisco Could Really Use Some of These

Randy Weber — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:19:07 +0000

It’s hard to walk around the streets of San Francisco without seeing some guy taking a leak in an alley, if you’re lucky, or right out in the open, if you’re not. It’s one of the first things my friend John commented on during his first trip to SF. As it turns out, you don’t see a lot of public urination back in Texas.

Corollary to September Post on Web 2.0 Business Development

Randy Weber — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:36:17 +0000

Collaboradate.com posted about businesses building themselves up using MySpace. He suggests that “they should continue to phase out competing widgets, or charge companies to have their widgets be compatible with the site.” I’d do this if I were MySpace. So I’ll say it again – be careful when attaching your fortunes to other businesses without some kind of contractual relationship.

Offline Behavior Drives Online Usage – Lessons for Business Development

Randy Weber — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 15:15:29 +0000

Startup Review wrote a great case study on Facebook. The main takeaway for me is that offline behavior drives online usage. Other examples of community sites that fit this bill are Gay.com, BlackPlanet.com, and iVillage, all of which are successful sites that were created to serve an existing community. They were not communities created online from within another site. Looking at sites like Linkedin, which is on it’s own a very successful site and one that I like very much, has tried to create communities from within its site as exempliefied by university and professional affiliations. This has not worked nearly as well external sites serving these same groups. If you’re a mainstream service trying to create niche communities, you would be better served trying to partner with existing sites that serve these niche groups than to try building the community yourself.