A construção de comunidades online tem vindo a ser cada vez mais importante para as empresas que querem ter uma presença forte na Internet. Danah Boyd fez uma apresentação muito boa sobre este assunto, e o texto está disponível no seu site.

“Designers who work with networks must face these tensions and design to take advantage of the global while not destroying the local. This is a hefty challenge and one that i want us to dive into.”

“The digital era has allowed us to cross space and time(…)Yet, people don’t live in a global world – they are more concerned with the cultures in which they participate.”

Today, we are trying to build a whole new level of social communities. Some folks are building more open social platforms so that participants can modify the structures to meet their own needs.”

Danah Boyd apresenta Craigslist, Flickr e MySpace como exemplo de comunidades que cresceram organicamente:

“They all grew organically. They each have public personalities that early adopters feel connected to. The early adopters really felt as though they were participating in and creating an intimate community, even as the community grew to millions. Users are passionate. Designers are passionate.”