A very common question I get is how to gain users, and more importantly, how to get to that point of critical mass where a community becomes self sufficient in viralness. This process has never been easy, and contrary to popular belief, most successful communities did not grow organically. As time has passed, and the number of web 2.0 companies and social networks has increased rapidly. This has increased the difficulty of gaining critical mass for a couple reasons: 1. The amount of noise in the market is much greater. More noise means that it is tougher for your social network to gain visibility...

There is no shortage of mom niche social networks; Maya’s Mom, Mothers Click, MommyBuzz just to name a few. But there is one that has clearly taken a solid lead, CafeMom.com. I had a conversation with Matthew Zarzecki, one of the founders of CafeMom, and they are happy to announce that they’ve reached a milestone of over 1 million page views a day! The astounding part is that they have only been around since November 2006 (approx 5 months). CafeMom had a slight advantage to get ahead in this space by leveraging traffic from one of their other properties, ClubMom.com. But they...

There has been a lot of press around how OpenID, the effort to create the single-sign on, is gaining traction by adding some major players such as AOL and Digg to their pre-existing roster of Yahoo, LiveJournal, and Wikipedia. Having a single sign on is only the first step. How about a single portable buddy list? Taking OpenID one step further and allowing people to have a single buddy list does three things: 1. Solves a huge problem for new online communities by allowing people to quickly create their network. 2. On the flip side, solves the huge barrier for people who don’t want to...

In a lot of ways, social networks are becoming what forums were during web 1.0. While becoming a lot less popular, there are still hundreds of extremely active forums out there on the web. When I say active, I don’t mean a few thousand members and twenty posts a day. I mean ACTIVE. For example: Gaia Online - Forum about anime role playing Approx 6.6 million members, 967 million posts, Top 1000 Alexa Ranking Vault Network Boards - Forum about role playing games 626,000 Members, 112 Million posts, with 6,000 posts added daily Forum Auto - Forum about cars (in French) 350,000 Members, 20...

I have been closely following the new contact management system being developed by 37Signals called Highrise. I am extremely anxious to get a beta invite, as I have been looking for a solution like this for awhile. To read a little about some of the awesome features go here and here. While I have no idea if 37 Signals is thinking in this direction, I do believe the system could have serious social networking potential. I’ve said before that I consider LinkedIn to basically be an enhanced contact management tool i.e.the main use is to add people to your network that you have already met...

5 months ago I posted how the social networking needs of people dramatically change once they graduate college. There is a huge generational gap that has currently still not been filled. There are multiples SN’s that have captured the highschool crowd, including myyearbook.com and myspace. No one would argue that Facebook has fully captured the college crowd. And LinkedIn currently dominates with professionals 30 year and older. But as you see, there is a huge gap in between Facebook and LinkedIn. For most people, Facebook’s purpose dramatically changes once graduated. It becomes...

Saturday afternoon I will be sitting on a Web 2.0 panel for the John Hopkins Entrepreneurship Conference. The conference takes place downtown D.C. at the Carey School of Business from 1pm - 4:30pm. I haven’t been to D.C. since I was a little kid and my parents took me on the death march from landmark to landmark. I’m looking forward to drinking with a couple college friends and my cousin. If you are going to the conference PLEASE email me so that we can make a special effort to meet up. I look forward to meeting some cool new people. Thanks to Sam Huleatt for setting this up. [tags]Social...

Looks like Virb snuck one past me, and the rest of blogosphere. They have quietly launched a new version of their beta social network. They are currently only allowing a limited number of sign ups each day (334 left today at time of writing). From the front page it looks like they have a lot of stuff coming. I will have more about this later as I get a better chance to play around with the site. In the meantime, go grab one of the limited sign ups. [tags]Social Networking, Social Network, Virb, Online Community, Music, Purevolume, Brian Balfour[/tags]

I’m currently brainstorming some expansion ideas for my blog, so in true online community style I’m reaching out to all of my readers to get their suggestions. What I’d like to hear from all my readers: 1. Other topics you would like to hear about that fit into the current context of my blog (starting, growing, monetizing social networks/online communities) 2. Other topic sections. For example, social networking news, profiles of new social networks/online communities, interviews with founders of social networks, entrepreneurship, etc. 3. Anything else you think sucks/kicks...

A common questions is, what makes a good social network or online community? Obviously there are many different things that vary widely depending on the type and subject matter of the community. But to speak very generally I wanted to share 3 broad characteristics that I think great social networks share. Personality/Identity The best of social networks have their own personality or identity, just like a living being. Spend some time on a social network such as Yelp or Vimeo, and you will start to get a sense that the site is fun, creative, and humorous. Visit a site like LinkedIn, and you...