Online Community Platform & Vendor Research

This is cross-posted from the Online Community Report blog.

The Online Community Platform and Services Satisfaction research report was published in March of this year as part of the ongoing efforts of the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the research project was to provide insight about customer attitudes towards online community platform and service vendors, particularly around satisfaction. Further, we wanted to explore the unmet needs in the online community platform and services market. The study had over 200 participants, and we gathered data on all major commercial and open source online community platforms, as well as feedback on custom built platforms. Key highlights from the research are covered in the slides below.

The full Online Communities: Platform and Services Satisfaction Report can be purchased here:
http://store.onlinecommunityresearch.com/oncoplandses.html

The Real-Time Web: A Short Reading List

A recent series of articles from ReadWriteWeb has spawned discussion here at Forum One of what impact the “real-time web” will have on online communities. Those conversations continue, but I wanted to share our short list of selected readings on the topic from the last 12 months.

Ken Fromm wrote the series of articles about the real-time web, and they can be found here:
The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 1,
The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 2,
The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 3

In the articles, he describes the collection of activities that describe the emerging Real-Time Web:

As with other recent waves of innovation (Web 2.0 and cloud computing, for example) there is no single definition of what the term “real-time Web” means. As a result, it is used as a catch-all phrase for a number of developments underway. At this point, we can identify that the real-time Web…:
1. is a new form of communication,
2. creates a new body of content,
3. is real time,
4. is public and has an explicit social graph associated with it,
5. carries an implicit model of federation.

Other recommended reading:

Google vs. The Real-Time Web
O’Reilly: The Real-Time Web

Real-Time Web Summit
Forum One is working with ReadWriteWeb to promote the Real-Time Web Summit in Mountain View on October 15th. I’ll be there – will you? You can register here. Price is $195 until October 8th.