stefan

While putting together some useful resources regarding the use of blogs for existing online communities I found some interesting posts tackling this issue. Like here or here.

Most of the posts try to explain the differences between boards and blogs and there certainly are a lot of them. The main difference obviously is that a blog is far more ego-centered as it provides a personal space for the blogger to present his views and opinions. Somewhere I read (unfortunately I have forgotten where that was) this: compared to an entry in a messageboard a post on a blog is like standing up in front of a classroom and giving a presentation. 

Certainly both community tools have their advantages for certain use cases. That's why I believe that both will coexist and benefit each other. Participants of an online community might want to use a blog when publishing content that is linked to their personality and that they want to claim ownership for. Or when telling other members of the community more about themselves. Still they probably use forums for discussions or when looking for help on a certain issue. Especially with a singlesign-on blogs can be a perfect addition to existing online communities.

Some great insights on community and corporate blogging:

Dana put the presentation he gave at the Decision Sciences Institute conference online for download. Very interesting and I am convinced that we will see more and more sponsored communities over time.

A lot of academic thinking on online communities (and blogging) can be found at  Into the Blogosphere.

And finally Fredrik Wacka published a very comprehensive piece on why companies should blog.

Very interesting article on how to (or unfortunately not) make money as a blog entrepreneur in  businessweek   ( via agenturblog). It goes along with a growing discussion about how to achieve organizational goals through using blogs (e.g. by forrester).

I guess this will be a lasting discussion. But it took about 6 years to turn search engines into a viable business model and it also took a couple of years for companies to see profits from online dating/matching ...

I have received an email from Azeem today:

1. Honourable Fiend (www.honourablefiend.com) which looks at UK politics, Westminster and Parliament. 2. Wanda Lust (www.wandalust.com) which is for people who love to travel. It is a spot for people who are always researching their many annual holidays and who might just hop on a plane for the weekend."

Looks very interesting. I very much like the design and there is more to come.

As the barriers to market entry are so low here there is certainly a lot more of these new media companies to come. It'll be interesting to see what determines the competition.

Good luck, Azeem!

I came across a note on 21Publish on outils froids the other day.

France has by far the most active blog community in Europe today. Our b2c offer 20six.fr is growing strongly. And so are others services. My feeling is that skyblog had been the spark to this growth. Skyblog hosts more than one million blogs today and according to our research has seen more than 50 million comments to date.

I wonder when other radio stations will catch up. I do not see any better way to establish an online relationship with your audience and to build a bridge between off- and online media.