Select delivery location
See All Buying Options
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer—no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera, scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Amy Jo Kim
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities Paperback – 5 April 2000

by Amy Jo Kim (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
See all formats and editions
What makes a Web site a Web community? How have sites like Yahoo, iVillage, eBay, and AncientSites managed to attract and maintain a loyal following? How can Web developers create growing, thriving sites that serve an important function in people's lives? Community Building on the Web introduces and examines nine essential design strategies for putting together vibrant, welcoming online communities. Amy Jo Kim, a leading expert in Web community design, has helped AOL, Yahoo, Oracle, MTV, and others start online worlds that have become flourishing gathering places that people come back to again and again. The book is full of informative examples, case studies, and tactics for every facet of Web communities, from welcoming visitors to training community leaders. (Previously announced on the Winter 98 list.)
Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Peachpit Press
  4. Publication date
    5 April 2000
  5. Dimensions
    18.42 x 1.91 x 23.5 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    0201874849
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0201874846
  8. See all details
Next page

Product description

From the Back Cover

What's the point of creating a great Web site if no one goes there-or worse, if people come but never return? How do some sites, such as America Online, EBay, and GeoCities, develop into Internet communities with loyal followings and regular repeat traffic? How can Web page designers and developers create sites that are vibrant and rewarding?

Amy Jo Kim, author of Community Building on the Web and consultant to some of the most successful Internet communities, is an expert at teaching how to design sites that succeed by making new visitors feel welcome, rewarding member participation, and building a sense of their own history. She discusses important design strategies, interviews influential Web community-builders, and provides the reader with templates and questionnaires to use in building their own communities.

About the Author

Amy Jo Kim, Ph.D. is a recognized expert in the field of online community design. She is the founder and creative director of NAIMA, a 21st century design studio that has designed online environments for a wide range of clients, including America Online, Adobe Systems, AT&T, CyberCash, Electric Communities, Fujitsu, Mpath Interactive, MTV, NetNoir, Nickelodeon, Oracle, Paramount, PlaceWare, Redgate, Sony, Viacom, and Yahoo. She also teaches online design at Stanford University. Her article on the fantasy game environment, Ultima Online, appeared in the May 1998 issue of Wired.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Peachpit Press (5 April 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0201874849
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0201874846
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.42 x 1.91 x 23.5 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 29 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Amy Jo Kim

Amy Jo Kim

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Named by Fortune as one of the top 10 influential women in games, Amy Jo Kim is a social

game designer, community architect, and startup coach. Her design credits include Rock

Band, The Sims, eBay, Netflix, Covet Fashion, nytimes.com, Ultima Online, Happify and

Pley. She pioneered the idea of applying game design to digital services, and is known for

her book, Community Building on the Web (Peachpit, 2000). She holds a PhD in Behavioral

Neuroscience from the University of Washington and a BA in Experimental Psychology.

Amy Jo is passionate about helping entrepreneurs innovate faster and smarter; she teaches

Game Thinking at Stanford University and is an adjunct professor of Game Design at the

USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
29 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from Australia

There are 0 reviews and 0 ratings from Australia

Top reviews from other countries

FMS / OMF e.V. - N. Sautter
5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful book - even years after the (r)evolutions
Reviewed in Germany on 28 June 2021
Verified Purchase
also for offline community building relevant
Report
M. Boustani
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
Reviewed in Canada on 16 February 2015
Verified Purchase
Amy Jo Kim is simply unique!
This book goes beyond the initial purpose, it engages you into the many connectors to Knowledge Management put in application through the social communities.
To read and use as a referrence
Report
Nancy White
5.0 out of 5 stars Applies across the board with good, practical advice
Reviewed in the United States on 20 June 2000
Verified Purchase
Amy Jo Kim has collected many online community learnings and turned them into a practical, readable, and useful book. She has distilled things down to a level where they make sense for the smallest online community, as well as for the mega-commercial sites.
So what's to like about this book? It is well-organized. Kim has built the book around her nine down-to-earth community design strategies with specific elements on how to execute those strategies. She stays on track.
It uses examples from both large and small sites which take this book from the realm of theory to one of practicality.
You can read all of it or one section and it makes sense. Chapter divisions and subheads make for a pleasant browse for inspiration or to get a specific tidbit. Graphics are used generously, but my "old" eyes had to strain a bit on the screen shots.
From a content perspective, I found myself repeatedly nodding my head in agreement with her assessments and suggestions. She pays attention to what I feel are the three main domains of a successful online interaction space: purpose, design, and social structures or interactions.
While the business models of online community may not yet be clear, the mechanisms are becoming more visible. You can save a lot of wasted time and effort by using the guidelines, pulling what is relevant, and leaving the rest for when your needs grow or change. Good book. Worth the price!
Nancy White
7 people found this helpful
 Report
Shane
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
Reviewed in the United States on 18 January 2023
Verified Purchase
Some information in this book are a little outdated but overall can still be applied to todays market.
Report
Mr Yannig Roth
4.0 out of 5 stars One of the first books to talk about web community management
Reviewed in the United States on 26 February 2013
Verified Purchase
When Amy Jo Kim wrote the book, she was running Naima, a firm specialzied in the design and set up of web communities. A lot of the communities that she talks about in the book (Heat, Ultima Online, Castle Infinity) are (old) game communities, but she also worked with people from Adobe, eBay, MTV or Yahoo! And interestingly, a lot of the practices that she highlights to build and manage web communities still apply today.

"The focus is on teaching you how to grow a thriving community that will attract and sustain members, and on how to adress the design, technical and policy issues that will inevitably arise"

I know the following is a big chunk of text, but you migh want to skip some points… or you can still read the book :

- Purpose: It’s important to know why people join the community and what drives their participation. Ideally, a virtual community’s design and tools will be adapted to this purpose. Amy Jo Kim has a great adaptation of Maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid adapted to we communities (p.9), but she also highlights that it’s fundamental for a community to be profitable: “A successful community must attract and keep enough members to make it worthwile. It must also deliver a satisfactory ROI to whoever is funding and/or maintaining it. If either one of these standards is not met, the community will eventually fail“. On community websites like patientslikeme, you’ll understand a purpose rapidly, and it also managed to be sustainable.
- Places: It’s obvious that popular venues for communities to gather are websites like social networks, contest platforms or web forums. The book also talks about places that I know less of: mailing lists, message boards, virtual world, chats… Then, Kim gives some about growth management, design and community proximity on these venues, which is crucial to adapt to change.
- Profiles: Since “entering a new web community can feel like walking into a party full of strangers“, communities must include ways to get to know people. People want to present themselves, and similarly they want to discover who they’re dealing with. It’s important to note that not all members will be curiously browsing others’ profiles and communicating with them, but transparency is important anyway. “On the web, full disclosure is good business“, Kim says.
- Roles: Here, Kim introduces the particularly interesting concept of Membership Life Cycle. She argues that “you can help a community flourish by providing features and programs that support [social] roles“. Reserach has also shown that design features can activate community participation in innovation communities, but to my knowledge research on membership lifecycle is not extensively covered. Do you have any thoughts or papers to share on that?
- Leadership: Regarding how centralized a community’s management is, a web community needs people to take leadership roles in both animation and controling. “For games or contests, you’ll need support personnel who can resolve technical issues, and deal with reports of cheating and systems hacking“, Kim says about rather centralized management sites. Also, she has a great table that summarizes leaders’ possible roles in a community (p.163), including both official and unofficial leadership roles.
- Etiquette: When exchange and interaction is the fundamental purpose of a community (like learning-focused communities), it’s important to have a common understanding of the tone people will adopt. One example is the use of the formal you (vous in French, Sie in German, usted in Spanish…). In English the problem doesn’t arise since there is no formal you, but you must know how you talk to members: will they be offended if you have a familiar tone? Or do they expect everyone to show closeness?
- Events: According to Kim, the three types of events are meetings, performances and competitions. These types of events need to be planned thoroughly, but when they’re well-executed and well-attended, they will ty together the community by bringing them together. About contests, Kim says that “the most effective contests contribute to long-term community building [...] by reinforcing a community’s purpose, values, and brand identity“.
- Rituals: As you could see on the Membership Life Cycle illustration, there are rituals. These might mark transitions between stages of the Life Cycle (thus occuring only once), or they can be repeated: making a targetted recommendation, remembering special days, mark holidays… I particularly like Kim’s paragraph The Power of Goodbye (p.281), where she highlights that “leave-taking also offers an opportunity to ritualize the community experience“.
- Subgroups: Particularly if your community is big and has the possibility to organize autonomously, it might be valuable to allow members to form or join subgroups. Since “simply joining a large, general-purpose [...] community doesn’t give someone much sense of community identity“, people might want to be part of smaller, focused sub-groups. However, Kim stresses that this might only be valuable in later stages of communities’ evolution.

These principles are, as I think, very true today! If you think it’s too old to be true!
5 people found this helpful
 Report