The Original Micro-Communities
Context is something we talk about a lot at KickApps. We’re strong believers in the idea that the web is evolving away from the ‘mega portal’ model of social media into the realm of ‘open portal’ micro-communities that mix premium and user-generated content in engaging ways. Every so often, we run into a skeptic who doesn’t see the micro-community trend. Truth is, not only is it already happening, but it’s been happening for decades.
Before UGC had a name, we used technologies like BBSs, IRC and USENET to make connections and form loose groups. But web-based message boards changed all that—they gave conversations the accessibility, permanence and context these other tools lacked. In this sense, message boards were the Internet’s first micro-communities, or at the very least, the first to really stick.
But message boards aren’t some relic of a bygone era. It’s hard to know how many are out there—various parties track anywhere between 40,000 and 90,000, but according to estimates compiled by John Breslin, an expert in the space and co-founder of Ireland’s largest bulletin board community, the so-called ‘boardscape’ is about 5 times larger than blogosphere—representing over 50 billion posts and growing at 400 million posts annually. As John admits, the blogosphere is much younger and growing much faster, but the absolute numbers are still staggering. This is living, breathing proof that micro-communities are (and always have been) one of the Internet’s dominant paradigms.
At KickApps, we see an enormous opportunity in the message board space. If the overwhelming majority of these communities have been thriving on what is essentially Web 1.0 technology, imagine if they could quickly and easily add robust, video-enabled experiences. The key is integrating this seamlessly with their existing infrastructure but even more interesting is the ability to monetize the experience (problems we’ve solved with our platform). The results could be explosive, injecting even more energy into a segment of the landscape that represents not only social media’s past, but its future.
