How to create a blogosphere — I

It's sort of a commonplace statement now that virtual communities such as blogospheres have to include some face-to-face contact. My question is: what are the virtual features that make such a community thrive? I've talked a lot in this blog about zeitgeist. I'm still trying to figure that out, and Andy Seidl, co-creator of the blogosphere has gone as far as to call it a holy grail.

I tend to think there are other features that are as important, maybe more so. One of them is creating a sense of ownership and control. When each person has their own blog, it is like their own home and soap box rolled up into one. They take some time decorating and organizing it. They tend to go on longer in their posts giving more detail. It is an expression of them (how to test this in some ironclad way?).

Another is getting people disciplined to share information in particular ways. Recently, a participant made a post about how it would be nice to create a sort of community changelog where we could keep track of posts on topics of interest. I wondered about this post a bit, wondering how I could change the technology of the blogosphere. I then realized that if we changed our practices, using consistent categories, and consistent ways of titling posts, we could achieve much of what he wanted using the standard search engine currently aimed at the blogosphere.

Changing practices is one the most difficult things to get people to do. How can we get them to perceive the value of this? To some degree, if it is something they are already asking for, it should be easier.

Finally, you need to use standard technologies. People know how to use those. There's no need for retraining. Further, standard technologies are better supported. What people don't know, they can pick up from a network of other people using the standard technologies.

I'll have more to say in future posts on zeitgeist and the technological aspects.