Community is mass market

Robin @ cybersoc notes:

“Recently published research by Nielsen/NetRatings suggest that over half the UK internet population visits “online member communities” in any given month. Friends Reunited comes top of the list, followed by Blogger, Bebo, MySpace and Genes Reunited.”

As he says, that’s useful if you’re trying to sell the notion of community - 1.8bn community pages served up every month in the UK, and that may be missing out a lot (he notes they don’t count the BBC, or football sites, although I can’t see their methodology in the press release).

The numbers are also a reminder that, while participation in some kinds of online community may remain something of a minority sport (for instance chat participation or blog commenting) the number of people taking part at a lower level of intensity - posting biogs on FriendsReunited, or travel tips on BeenThere - is much higher. And there’s an even bigger number just watching, for now.

Community is no longer for geeks and early adopters, and has probably been mass market for quite a long time.