The Brotherhood

Social Networking - Community

Can you build and strengthen your organization with your website?
Or can you just shout at it?

The hottest buzzword among Internet mavens these days is "Community." "Community" means a website which helps identify and organize groups of people with interests, goals, or even passionate dislikes in common with one another.

While it is true that any website can function as a kind of "Information Dump" for organizational by-laws, histories, organization charts, or other dusty references, it does take a bit more than that for a website to truly build and inspire a community.

To build a social network, a website has to contain a variety of documents and media, and it must contain web based applications which introduce the members, display their credentials and interests for others to see, and to become a conduit for the exchange of ideas. All of these things must be accomplished in a "secure environment," with real user authentication. In other words, a member must be given the "at home" comforts of a place where everyone knows his name.

The most commonly used applications are:

• Forums
• User Profiles
• User Groups
• Chat Rooms
• Private Messaging
• User Home Pages

A good example of a complex social networking site...

Harper Vance has been an active participant in this arena since 1998, which is a long time in Internet years. We are innovative and creative at solving problems in an organization with web applications. Of course, "When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail."