Clay Shirky‘s written another sterling essay, this time on the nature of communities vs. broadcasting and why only fools think they’re going to take their broadcast audience and build a really cool community and everyone will come and like hang out and then they’ll be like all popular and everything.

The essay make five points:

1. Audiences are built. Communities grow.
2. Communities face a tradeoff between size and focus.
3. Participation matters more than quality.
4. You may own the software, but the community owns itself.
5. The community will want to build. Help it, or at least let it.

Clay is one of my favorites.

Categories: Uncategorized dw