Do you believe computers can change the world? In 1992 I fell into a debate with my then-girlfriend about computer technology and online communities. To her, computers were a waste of time, a distraction from things that really mattered. She was a writer. She wrote with pen and pad. I was a computer junkie, desktop publisher, and online forum moderator. I wrote too, but my writing was conversational and with people I only knew through my screen and keyboard.

She resigned her side of the debate when I spoke passionately about how the online world could change society, education, nationalism, and everything. I argued that in the computer world, people were not judged by age, gender, economic status, accent, or country of origin. You were valued based on what you said and how you said it. That was before online video, photographic avatars, and social media sites that share your birthday and “which sex in the city character you are most like”.

Slowly I watched my revolution take place, while at the same time, I watched my utopian dreams shattered by spam, porn, gambling, big media, and online shopping. The old networks are gone, replaced by the internet, which has expanded into an unimaginably brilliant universe where the best and the worst of everything co-exists. Still, I never forgot my dream.

How we spend our time online is up to us. We can watch reruns of “The Family Guy” or we can attend lectures at Harvard or Stanford from anywhere in the world. We can shop until we drop, or we can invest in people’s future through micro-financing sites like Kiva.org. Ultimate, how we spend our time defines us.

I recently decided to use some of my time differently. I created a social networking site built around the simple idea of kindness. The site brings together people and humanitarian organizations in a new way. My reasoning is that there is strength in numbers and a community of kind people can impact the world meaningfully beneficent ways.

Are you activating social change through social media? How are you making a difference? Tell me at KindLike.Us

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Have you ever come across a conversation like this, either on line or in person?

Person 1: I’d like to know what people think about the color Red. Red is used frequently, but is it the best color? Can Red be improved? Let’s talk about it.

Person 2: Red is a nice color.

Person 1: We’ve already established that. Why don’t you say something new about Red?

Person 2: I like Red. I also like other colors that are in the Red family, especially the family of Autumn colors.

Person 1: There’s no such thing as “Autumn colors” You can see every color in Autumn.

Person 3: Green. It’s far more attractive and soothing than Red.

Person 1: You don’t know what you’re talking about. There are many greens that are far more jarring than Red.

Person 3: I’m talking about the soothing Greens.

Person 1: You said Green. Not Some Greens. Now you are changing your position.

Person 3: I meant the more soothing Greens.

Person 1: Yet that’s not what you said. Besides, I started this out asking about Red. You haven’t said anything constructive about Red. You really don’t know how to have a constructive conversation.

Person 3: You are an idiot. I’m out of here.

Person 1: You are only giving up because you cannot support a healthy debate. It seems like I’m the only person who understands Red.

Person 4: If you think nobody else understands Red, why did you ask for other opinions?

Person 1: I didn’t say that nobody else understands Red. You are putting words in my mouth.

Person 4: This IS idiotic. I’m leaving too.

Person 1: Person 2, we haven’t heard from you lately. We were having a good conversation. What else do you think about Red?

Person 1: Red is a decent color, but we could make it better if we could work together to identify its weakness and make them stronger.

Person 1: It seems like nobody really cares about Red as much as I do.

As a community moderator, you will occasionally come across someone in a forum who appears at first to be a valuable contributor but serves to alienate many other readers and participants. The above conversation is a contrived example of what sometimes happens within online communities, but it’s not a far stretch. If you are in the role of being the community moderator, it’s your job to deal with the conflicts and issues these people create. But how?

There is no right answer. Each situation is going to be different because the dynamics of the community and those involved in the conflicts will create a unique set of issues. Some communities welcome a benevolent monarch who looks out for the community’s well being. Others prefer anarchy and react strongly to any show of rank that places one above the others. Yet in every case, the goal is the same. Reduce the conflict without creating a larger one by your actions as moderator.

Online communities generally react strongly to unilateral decisions by the moderators. To keep peace within the community you need to be fair to a fault. You need to consider all options, and give advance warning of your intended action to get buy-in from a majority of the community. If you do not get buy-in, it’s probably the wrong action.

Always treat your community with respect and it will flourish.

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There are now 183 million domain names registered around the world, a 17% increase over last year, but it is very likely that the web you experience is getting smaller and the reason is simple. The pace of internet growth has far out-scaled human proportions. It’s so big that without the familiarity of a consistent place, the internet would be overwhelming. Our natural response is to cull from the internet and make our individual experiences familiar and manageable. We find the places that we like, the sources that we trust, the communities that we feel affinity with, and we stick to those. This explains the fundamental reason for the success of Facebook and other social media sites.

Facebook is like an internet unto itself, but with a limited set of things you can do, and with a limited number of people you share the experience with. If the internet is worldwide, Facebook is your local coffee shop. You recognize people, you meet your friends there, you get introduced to their friends. You know what’s on the menu, and you have your favorite place to sit. While initially it feels like just another website, in a short time your friends find you and your experience becomes familiar, comfortable, personal, and participatory.

The Facebook experience can be so consuming that some web users have little time for anything else, and this is how the web gets smaller. As we cull, we limit ourselves to the familiar, where we read, watch, and participate. As our participation increases, we limit our experience of the larger web. The busier we get with our interests, the less time we have to introduce new ones. Social sites like Facebook make our experience feel complete, but manageable. This is their attraction, but potentially, also their Achilles Heel.

What would happen if your local coffee shop suddenly became immensely popular? It might become overcrowded and you wouldn’t be able to find a seat, or they could expand to accommodate their new customers. In either case, you experience would be disruptive, less accommodating, and more impersonal. This can also happen in the social web. You might realize one day that the Facebook network has grown so big that you no longer feel like it’s personal anymore. It has become like the web–and out-scaled its earlier human proportions. What then?

I believe the answer lies in micro-social communities, smaller, more focused, Facebook-like communities that connect people through some common interest, such as the community they live in, or a shared hobby or belief. Micro-social communities have the benefits of a social site, but are self-regulating in scale because of their narrow focus. By participating in a micro-social community that focuses on the place where you live, you can create connections that enhance your community experience as well as your online experience. Micro-social communities may still grow too big for comfort, it’s less likely because they are not trying to be all things to all people.

There are not many micro-social communities yet, but you can expect to see an explosion of them over the next few years as web applications for building social communities evolve. On the internet, the Next Big Thing is creating smaller, richer, more relevant experiences that connect you with your community, making the web increasingly personal.

What are your favorite micro-social communities? Tell me about them!

Tim Piazza is the lead architect of social media and interactive marketing at Keller Crescent Advertising, Indiana’s largest independently owned advertising agency. You can read Tim’s blog at http://www.bzzmatters.com, follow Tim on Twitter @TimPiazza and learn more about Keller Crescent Advertising at http://www.kellercrescentadvertising.com

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People in a connected group start out mostly homogenous. Tribes are homogenous. Close-knit societies like Amish communities are homogenous. A room full of two year olds are homogenous. Jean Piaget painted a theory that says individuals construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world as a result of interactions with the environment. We all have different experiences, so the tendency within a group is that while we are drawn together by our common views and experiences, we’re pushed apart by our unique views and experiences.

I’ve used this model to think about how online communities are formed. I formed theories about where they come from, how they evolve, and what leads to disease and sometimes the death of the community. Now I’m trying to reshape those theories to account for the rapid population explosion that communities like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter go through. The fundamental ideas haven’t changed, but my new concern is how does one navigate toward a long sustaining and healthy community when growth is so dramatic?

Twitter is an exceptional example. It has a ridiculously low barrier to entry. Anybody can broadcast to anybody else, and brevity is king. Right now, just about anybody can follow and interact with just about anybody else. I believe that as Twitter continues to grow, the Twitterers will react to the differences between themselves and the people they connect with more than they will recognize the common ideas they share with so many others. Many of those differences won’t fit into their world view. They will adapt by filtering what they are exposed to, making the environment useful again. Exposure will be narrowed to the people who are most like them, recreating homogeny. For Twitter to survive, it will transform into many micro-communities where people will raise barriers to joining those communities. They will become more tribal and develop a strict code of conduct.

It will be interesting to see how Twitter adapts to its continued growth. I’ll be watching and sharing my views.

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