Books
Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effec, Community Building on the Web, Design for Community, Hosting Web Communities: Building Relationships, I, Net Gain, Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supportin, Poor Richard's Building Online Communities
Chats and Forums
Delphi Hosts Forum, Nature of the Online Community, The Forum Zone, The Well Hosts Conference, Yahoo! Groups: Onlinefacilitation
About.com: Community Online
Editors' web site picks for fostering an online community and personalizing web sites.
Autospec Thematics: Virtual Communities To Match G
Detailed strategy for creating virtual special interest groups.
Benton Foundation: Community Building
Detailed articles, tools, and resources about community building. Topics range from software recommendations to profiles of successful communities.
Building an Online Community: Just Add Water
The dos-and-don'ts of building a website community by Matt Haughey, the creator of MetaFilter.
Building Community: Online Resources
Has papers, presentations, stories, indexs, and surveys.
Club about Online Communities
Whenever you provide people with the ability to communicate online then community develops. This club is about the development and management of online communities.
CNet.com: Will Media Giants Bulldoze Communities?
News Analysis by CNET observing how Disney and Time Warner, by building enhanced entertainment sites, threaten topical online communities.
Code begets community
Information about Daniel Pargman's Ph.D. thesis on the social and technical aspects of managing a virtual community, a study of a Swedish MUD. Sample chapters in PDF format.
Community is Dead; Long Live Mega-Collaboration
Usability expert Jakob Nielsen's take on Online Communities: "The Web is not a community: a huge impersonal city is a better metaphor. User-contributed content can be valuable (if edited), but chat rooms should be avoided because of participation inequality."
Community Networking Movement
"Realizing that communication and information are increasingly dependent on networked digital information, community activists all over the world are developing community computer network systems."
Community Networks: Putting People First
Editorial by Michael Mulquin. Discusses the role of Community Networks in delvering new information and communications technologies to UK residents. Most content is applicable elsewhere as well.
CommunityAnswers.com
Questions and answers and advice for online community builders, users, moderators, managers, and owners.
Communitybuilding.com
The secret to success on the web is to build a community, not just a web site. Here one can find tools and tips to make a web site interactive and, as a result, a place of community.
CornerWays: Community Development, Training, and M
Online community development company that provides online community building, consulting and design services worldwide.
Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building Online Community
Essay by former Wells conferencing manager John Coate explaining what happens in an online social environment.
Design Principles for Online Communities
Academic paper by sociologist Peter Kollock, drawing upon community design principles by Axelrod (1984), Ostrom (1990), Godwin (1994).
Digital Geographer
Information architecture, interface design, and strategy for online places. Tips, tricks, and articles comparing real and online communities to improve your relationship with customers, clients and employees.
Fragmented by Technologies: A Community in Cybers
Early academic paper studying the human interaction within an online community. The author observed antinomy, atomisation, carnival, decentralization, disembodiment, impersonality, intensification and lurking.
Full Circle Associates
Provides strategic facilitation, online community development, marketing, and project management services. Includes a listing of online community building and virtual group facilitation/moderation resources.
How To Kill Community Networks
By Doug Schuler. Essay describing three common means for the downfall of community networks.
Howard Rheingold
Online community builder, acknowledged expert on social and cultural implications of cyberspace. Includes informative articles and advice and commentary on current online communities.
Membership Agreements
Article by lawyer Ivan Hoffman discussing membership agreements and resolving issues that arise from them. Applicable only to U.S. Law.
Network and Netplay: Virtual Groups on the Interne
Online book by Fay Sudweeks et al. Addresses the mutual influences between information technology and group information and development. Discusses network norms and experiences and the essential nature of network communications.
NTT Social Communication Laboratory
Aims to develop a social information infrastructure and create a new lifestyle for interpersonal communication via the Internet.
Online Community Building Concepts
List of fundamental principles to consider when starting a new community site.
Online Hospitality: Moderator Guidelines and Commu
Gail Ann Williams writes about building conversation and community in online environments, adapted from the WELL Host Manuals.
Peter Kollock
Associate professor of the University of California, Los Angeles. Includes curriculum vita, course syllabi and recent papers on online communities and markets, which is his current research.
Salon.com Technology: Must AOL Pay "Community
Article by Janelle Brown discussing issues on the use of volunteers to manage a site's online community. "The volunteers may feel good about giving their time, but the for-profit online communities are clearly profiting from those volunteers' services."
Salon.com Technology: Netscape to community: You&a
As Netcenter's forums fall casualty to AOL-merger cutbacks, participants mourn.
Suite101.com: Communication in Cyberspace
Articles, links and discussions on various programs used to communicate on the internet. Covers messaging, conferencing, discussion forums, telephony, chat and email.
The Internet as Mass Medium
Article by Merrill Morris of Indiana University. Discusses theory of communication on the Internet and its effects as a mass media.
The Mailing List Gurus Page
A resource for finding, participating in, creating, and managing Internet mailing lists, from the authors of The Internet For Dummies
The Online Community Report
Comprehensive news repository and e-mail newsletter about the business of online communities.
The Virtual Communities (VirCom) Project
Five PhD students out to study virtual communities, their rise and development, evolution, meaning and its effect to traditional organizations. (Some papers are in Swedish.)
Virtual Communities: Structure and Content
Outline of an introductory college seminar on virtual communities.
VirtualCommunities Start4all
Directory of resources and tools for building online communities. Rich content for analysis of virtual communities. With a list of popular communities and vendors in this field.
WELL Conferencing Team - Community Building and Ho
The WELL's description of conferencing, why it's the best tool for building community, and how to get starting in a conferencing environment. Links include the WELL Host Manual.
Xgencia - Best Practice in Online Communities
UK online community specialists providing planning, RFP and ROI analysis services. Requires Flash.