I dread having to make new virtual friends… I’m not anti social, It’s just that I would rather spend my time playing around with a new services features rather than its characters.  Not only do you have to friend the first couple of crazies you come across, but you have to pretend to instantly like them. That’s why I was surprised when a web community, Simler, welcomed me with a certain haste and openness not found on most social networking sites.  The Simler community made me one of their own in a relatively short period of time and because of that I’ve inadvertently become one of their evangelists.

This got me thinking:  What does it take to cultivate a vibrant, friendly, engaged web community?  Do the first beta testers have an impact on a sites zeitgeist? Should one take into considering the aesthetics of a site?  Here are some theories from different Entrepreneurs currently held with the task:

Ryan Goodwin of Simler.com, a social network based on similar interests:

Cultivating a digital community is just like cultivating one in real life— the web just allows for the same principles to take effect quicker. In order to have a vibrant and engaged community, you must start by acting how you would like your community to act. It really all comes down to the age-old leadership adage of teaching by example. This means keeping things positive, open, and honest. It’s the foundation to any kind of lasting community.

Zach Garbow of Qwisk.com, a Social Web Browser:

It takes a good product, first of all, to keep a community of users engaged and returning. Creating a “good” product requires iterative improvement and communication on behalf of the founders. They need to listen to their users and quickly improve the product based on how it’s being used. Additionally, the founders need to remain an active presence in the community, so that they intimately understand its culture and demonstrate to other users that they are happily eating their own dog food.

Ericson deJesus of Robo.to, a short form video messaging service:

Depending on what kind of community environment you’re trying to achieve, I think you definitely have to pay attention to the nuances in the design up front. Ultimately the rule of community is that the community makes itself. But it can certainly be swayed, encouraged, and supported toward a particular direction. Everything from the tone of the messaging to even the UI layout matters.

A couple of example sites come to mind which can be compared. Take a look at Flickr photo page and a YouTube video page. Notice how the dynamic can change with the differences in design. Both have a community that is very engaged but you’ll notice that the general content of the comments contrast.  YouTube puts the most recent comment up top and sorts the rest in reverse-chronology. The most recent comment is most visibly apparent. Users are only represented with a username so it is a bit more anonymous. Each comment has a handy “spam” link next to it which in a way sets up a negative tone. If a YouTube page was an actual place to hang out, commenting is like walking into a loud party wearing dark glasses and a fake mustache, immediately yelling something out in reaction to the video, then leaving. Flickr puts the first comment up top and sorts the rest chronologically below it… If a Flickr photo page was a party, it would be like walking into a quiet room, listening to the one conversation so far, and being encouraged to reply with something smart.

Thomas Cook of Politics4all.com, a social network dedicated to Politics:

What makes a community vibrant and engaging is the tie that binds them. At Politics4All our tie that binds is politics – we’ve found that our members are passionate about their positions and are willing share their opinion.  Another key to creating a vibrant community is that it has to be easy to engage with the other members. We’ve worked hard to make our community where members can engage by either creating their own content, commenting or voting on a discussion. We’ve also created a political compatibility score which makes it very easy for community members to discover and connect to other like-minded members.

What’s telling about each answer is that  Entrepreneur had a different philosophy when brain storming how their community would interact : Design, Communication, Openness.  If I were in the process of developing a social network, I would take all of these aspects into consideration; maybe even draw out how each feature would impact and align with my services value proposition.  With a niche social network popping up each day, it’s important to map out how your community  will scale and interact as your service matures.

Once upon January 2007, I was called upon to put together a presentation on something they called, “Second Life.” It was the latest in a line of social media platforms that were “revolutionizing” the web, and everyone seemed to think Second Life was the one platform to rule them all. News bureaus even assigned reporters to the Second Life beat. But fast forward to almost three years later, and you hear about Second Life about as much as you hear about Crystal Pepsi.

So, what happened? Did Second Life go the way of Friendster? Is it now digging up worms in some unmarked internet grave somewhere next to Geocities? I had to know, and so I ventured to find out.

It turns out, for all the lack of fanfare, Second Life is still alive and kicking. In fact, Linden Labs (the company that dreamed up Second Life) CEO Mark Kingdon claims that approximately one million global users log in every month, that those users spend about 40 million hours “inworld,” that from September 2008 to September 2009, repeat users grew 23%, and that Second Life’s virtual economy “will exceed $500 million this year.” Plus, about 1400 organizations leverage the world’s 1′s and 0′s, including “IBM, Northrop Grumman, and the University of Texas.” They’ve even created an enterprise version of the platform that organizations can set up independently and use to interact across the globe, without ever having to leave their offices.

Of course, one million users and 23% repeat growth may sound significant at first blush. But when you consider that as of September of this year, Facebook boasted a staggering 300 million users, and that from February 2008 to February 2009, Twitter’s user base grew 1382%, things start to look slightly bleaker for the former media darling.

The fact is, Second Life requires an pretty intense amount of time investment. Admittedly, I’ve only spent limited time “inworld,” but the time I did spend was mostly wasted trying to figure out how not to walk in circles and how to find anything but my feet to look at. In otherwords, unlike other “social” platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Second Life isn’t exactly the easiest to use. You need to put in the time to figure out how it works, and to find your own “inworld” niche. And even when you do, I’d estimate you’d need to spend a good hour to two hours at a time time really get anything meaningful out of your experience.

Even more importantly, while there are many practical and PG rated social uses for it, Second Life has become known for its abundance of internet sleaze. And while I’m not naive enough to think that any web platform is safe from “adult content,” it stands to reason that if one of the most prevalent uses of something is pornagraphic, that thing will only attract a certain clientele.

And so, Second Life has become what many might call, “marginalized.”

But for all of it’s “hurdles,” Second Life still holds some substantial value, and it seems like Linden Labs has realized this. For organizations and universities, it is an innovative, efficient, and slightly more personal way of conducting meetings, trainings, seminars, classes and more across the globe. An archaeology class in Texas could easily interact with an archaeologist in Egypt, just by logging in and meeting up. A project team could easily hold a brainstorm with participants from California, New York, London, Tokyo and pretty much anywhere else with internet access [IE - not South Dakota...kidding ]. So it’s not like it’s completely irrelevant.

Still, I think it’s safe to say that for the time being at least, Second Life remains on the back burner of the internet’s hot stove.

Now, how about you all – have you used Second Life? If so, do you still use it regularly? What did you find to be the best and worst aspects of the virtual world? And where do you see it going in the future? As always, I’d love to hear your insight!!