Almost every app that I’ve tried out in the last few months has an initial feature set that attempts to instantly seed community.

While I see value I also see inefficiency and it’s clear that my mind is unsettled on the issue.

Do I want a community attached to every app? Maybe. What I don’t want is a decentralized community. I want to build community within/around/upon the centre of my digital identity rather than away from it.

Do I want multiple communities? Maybe. Looking at my life I see that I’m part of a number of different communities. While certain aspects (and members) are the same, the communities are effectively different. Are they centralized? The short answer is yes.

I understand the value of trying to seed community from the start, but to-date the communities within apps, that I’ve benefited from, have all been value-add feature sets that leveraged the value of the network.

What’s the conclusion? There isn’t one. Simply an observation and some initial thoughts. Interested in hearing yours.


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Thinking About Community

Welcome to the conversation.

Hi, I'm Fraser and this is my personal site where I write about the things I'm interested in: start-up strategy, the web, music, and life.

My days are spent commercializing emerging technologies. Currently I'm helping to deliver the promise of semantic web to the consumer market at AdaptiveBlue. Previously I was at Trivaris, a Canadian seed stage investment firm.

I am a co-founder of Innovation Night, a community driven event supporting entrepreneurship in Canadian and US cities.

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