Common Craft Blog
Online Communities Need Currency
By leelefever on March 06, 2007 - 8:00pm
The world of online communities has evolved and I'm interested in new ways to consider the widening variety of community interactions and connections that we see on the Web. A concept that I've found useful is to consider the "currency" of the community - the basic unit of exchange between members.
What is currency in online communities? A currency in this context is a quantifiable form of participation that adds value to the community. Without exchanging currency, communities cannot produce value over time.
For years online communities have had a basic unit of exchange: the discussion topic. In exchanging discussion topics over time, communities learned from one other, connected, collaborated and commiserated around topics of interest. Community value was driven thanks to the ability to start and participate in topical discussions, whether on a message board, email list or newsgroup. The discussion topic was (and still is) the basic currency - the unit of exchange.
What we've seen is a growth in the types and forms community currency. Online discussion is still alive and well (and an element of other currencies), but there are a host of other units of exchange to consider.
Let's consider a few...
Social Networking: Sites like MySpace and Facebook often have a number of currencies, but the central units of exchange are personal profiles, "friends" and membership in groups. Participants create value by making explicit links between their profile and specific people and groups. See related.
Blogs: In many ways, blogs are discussion-based. However, I would say that discussion is not the basic unit of exchange - blogs can produce value without discussion. The two major currencies of the blog world are the hyperlink and the blog entry. The blog entry is an obvious unit of exchange, but it is the hyperlink that enables blogs to become a navigable and connected community.
Wikis: A wiki is a little harder to classify, but I suggest that the currencies of the wiki are the new page and page edit. The currency of a wiki is exchanged at the point where a link to a new page is created or an existing page is edited. The "recent changes" that are tracked on a wiki show currency being exchanged.
There are also a number of product-based examples:
Flickr: The currency of Flickr is the photo. Exchanging, commenting on and building groups around photos are how the community interacts. The photo is the basic unit of exchange.
Last.fm: Last.fm uses music playlists as currency, creating groups around people with similar musical tastes.
Upcoming.org uses events as a currency.
Dell's Ideastorm uses the "idea" as the currency of the site.
YouTube's currency is the video.
The central currency of
Instructables is Do-It-Yourself (DIY) project how-tos.
The central currency of 43 Things is the personal goal.
The central currency of Del.icio.us is the bookmark.
The central currency of Jyte is the claim.
...and the list goes on...
My point is that we've seen an evolution in the basic units of exchange between community members. It started with online discussion and has now branched into a variety of currencies, offering near-infinite opportunities. If you're considering a new online community web site, be sure that you consider the basic unit of exchange: the currency of the community. By considering a variety of currencies, you may discover new ways for members to participate and add value to your community.
I'm just getting started with this idea and I'd love to hear your feedback.
Photo credit: Jan Brasna
Online Communities Need Currency
I really like this notion and I want to think on it more. One initial thought might be to consider the currency by participant type. Take the 90/9/1% scenario where 1% are your active community core, 9% contributors and 90% lurkers. Yes, these ratios can be argued and might differ based on the type of community, but a ratio with some extremes seems to always be true. Is the currency different across these participant types. ie...for the 90 a currency might be new knowledge and for the 1% the currency might be helping others. Thinking through this added dimension by participant type might yield some added insights to the currency discussion for any given organization looking at a web 2.0 project. This might help guide how you structure your community and its rewards to appeal across your participant types. I can think of examples where this wasn't done that on whole have ended up negative. What if you optimize your experience for knowledge seekers, but the usage is clumsy for knowledge providers? Or the opposite?
just a thought,
sean
Online Communities Need Currency
Thanks Sean. You hit on one of the things that I hope is useful about considering currencies. Because there is now a broad choice of features and ideas, communities have new opportunities to serve different types of people. Considering currency is one way to look at these new opportunities to offer alternative forms of participation, and hopefully increase the conversion rate to above the estimated 10% average.
Online Communities Need Currency
I also really like the notion of currency, especially in terms of thinking through ways to motivate and reward participation. Understanding what's of value to types of participants is key to providing a rich experience. As in Sean's example--you can reward knowledge-creators with a ticker showing how many knowledge-needers have accessed their contributions. Much better than a Starbuck's card.
But it's always easier to say "we'll use intrinsic motivators" than it is to understand people well enough to know what intrinsically motivates them. "Currency" is a great way to talk about this ever-present challenge.
Online Communities Need Currency
Now, I am biased via my experience to be sure, but the number 1 currency I think for the 1% is acknowledgement, appreciation and engagement. You might say that is 3 things, but it's not - it's what I would call "respect." Thinking a lot on this as our "1%" are on there way to see us next week. Read here to get a feel (http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2007/03/07/microsoft-mvp-summit-just-days-away/)
sean
Online Communities Need Currency
Now, I am biased via my experience to be sure, but the number 1 currency I think for the 1% is acknowledgement, appreciation and engagement. You might say that is 3 things, but it's not - it's what I would call "respect." Thinking a lot on this as our "1%" are on there way to see us next week. Read here to get a feel (http://communitygrouptherapy.com/2007/03/07/microsoft-mvp-summit-just-days-away/)
sean
Online Communities Need Currency
Yeah Sean, I think of currency, as it sounds like you also do, in terms of the social rewards of participation. Respect is a great example--and your 1% are a very special case. Count your blessings!
For me, the job is to figure out how that currency is manifested on the web page and how you might make people richer. How do your 1% know they are respected, and how might the channel through which respect flows be opened wider?
Lee, your post talks about discussion, links, and so on as currency, which is a little different. Your YouTube example says that videos (content objects) are the currency, but one could also say the number of views and quality of comments (social rewards) are the currency.
Obviously this is a question of semantics, but I think it's interesting because there's a difference between the social reward and the way it shows up on the page--a difference of emphasis in how to think about designing in motivators of participation.
Online Communities Need Currency
When I was trying to come up with a reasonable definition, I thought a lot about the quantitative nature of currency. It's something that represents a unit. A dollar is a unit of currency that is exchanged. When someone is "rich" it doesn't say anything about the number of dollars, just the attribute of richness.
Quality, respect, knowledge, etc. are qualitative and can't so easily be unit-ized. These qualitative things are still very important of course and there are certainly a number of reasons they could be called currency. However, they don't fit with how I'm currently viewing it. I'd suggest that there maybe another way of viewing these things and I like "social rewards" a lot.
Ryan, I think you highlighted the difference I see when you said "one could also say the number of views and quality of comments (social rewards) are the currency." I see the number of views as a currency - it's a unit that can represent the exchange. I see the "quality of comments" as subjective and qualitative.
It is semantics, but it's helping me to think about why I'm stuck to the quantitative perspective. I think it has to do with trying to define something that can actually be measured as opposed to something that is perceived differently by different people. Maybe I yearn for something constant in the community world.
Lastly, there is obviously a long tail of currency. There are many, many things that could represent currency. Maybe we need a wiki to go there. :)
Online Communities Need Currency
yup, or a good old fashioned white board. good topic. I need to mind map it!
sean
I've been thinking this
I've been thinking this problem over for a while and I'm currently coding a website that will have its own currency based on user participation. I've come at this idea from the opposite direction. My interest has been to find a way of phasing new currencies into mainstream use, and I've realized that social software is the way to go.
It will have a circular effect. Social software will virally promote a currency, which in turn will boost user participation. The virtual world of Second Life is an example of this. 60% of its users spend time generating content for the virtual world because it is a way of earning Linden Dollars, the games currency. Compare this to the paltry 5% of Wikipedia users who generate almost all of its content.
But the other half of the equation is that the currency has to be useful for something. Sure, you could set it up so that Youtube rewards people with You Dollars if their videos are highly rated. But what can they do with You Dollars? What can they spend them on?
Possibly you could have certain advanced features built into the website that people would be able to access for a flat monthly rate. Youtube subscribers could cash in their You Dollars to download music or movies or have access to Youtube Channels that broadcast Cable or Satellite TV content.
As this causes the currency to become increasingly popular people will start selling and buying it in exchange for 'real world' cash. This has been going on with online game currencies for years. A host of auction websites facilitate the exchange of virtual game currencies for real world cash. Just check out http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Virtual_Gaming_Currencies
But in order for this to happen, the currency has to be more than just a form of acknowledgement. It has to be useful for something within the context of the community. Game currencies can be used to buy game items. The You Dollar I just proposed could be used to access more advanced features of Youtube.
And finally, they will begin to pass into direct monetary use. This has already happened in China with a virtual currency called the QQcoin. It is packaged with China's most popular instant messenger, the QQ messenger, which is used by more than 200 million people. They use it to send payments to each other as a substitute for credit cards, which are still hard to come by in China. You can read about it here:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117519670114653518-FR_svDHxRtxkvN...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HL05Cb01.html
Trust will be the currency of the future society
I posted this comment on another post but maybe it is more suited here.
See Ripple and the white paper "Money as IOUs in Social Trust Networks & A Proposal for a Decentralized Currency Network Protocol"
http://ripple.sourceforge.net/