The Internet does it again…
Posted by Dean Wiltse on Wed, Nov 07, 2007
The news from Facebook and Google last week has made all of us think more about online communities. These two amazing Internet success stories are drawing everyone's attention to this new phenomenon. Even demographic types like me, business men over 50, see online communities as a huge opportunity for business. At Vovici we have been building online respondent communities for years. Perseus, acquired by Vovici in 2006, worked closely with businesses to establish online communities of their customers and employees so that they could survey them and gather feedback for the last four years.
My first experience to the power of an online community was in 2001 when I joined Greenfield Online as the CEO. We had a community of people that joined the community because they were willing to respond to e-mail invitations to take surveys for marketing research firms. This online community was the heart and soul of our business. Without them, we had no business.
Today, businesses are beginning to see the value of building online communities. Most are using communities to keep their customers engaged in their brands, through forums and help. We see the next focus of the community to be for gathering feedback via surveys. We give the community a voice.