Big Community Week!

Even though online community has existed for decades in some form or fashion, it’s never really been mainstream. In the last 5 years especially the "mainstreaming" of community concepts has been incredible, and shows no sign of slowing. I’ve been doing Internet and Web community work for a long time, and I know I’m not a "normal" user.

This makes it hard for me to notice when shifts happen in what "mainstream" is. When does that tipping point happen for "normal" users for things like blogs or podcasts? But every once in a while something obvious happens that makes me realize if the concept isn’t mainstream, it will be very soon. (Things like my technophobe mom asking me about iPods)

This week has had several "Moments of Mainstream", and I couldn’t be more excited.

Fans as freaks
I’m not joking when I say that in nearly 10 years worth of meetings related to fans, there’s been at least one reference to fans being freaks/weird/crazy/odd.

This week I went to a client brainstorming and in a room of about 10 and duration of 4 hours, not one person made that reference.

Mom’s blogging
That’s right, my technophobe mom is actually blogging. It took years of convincing, a trip to Costa Rica to chaperon students, and me setting up the account for her and copying her email messages into the blog but she’s there. And she gets it. Even if Blogger.com is in Spanish!

Mom’s emailing
While my mom has been emailing for a while now, she’s doing it quite a bit in Costa Rica. Apparently they don’t have phone service to speak of, but they have email like crazy. That’s right it’s easier for this village to connect with people in Nigeria or Toronto than their friends across town.

Baby presents from strangers
While this isn’t new, per se, the timing is right to be significant. My wife is pregnant (due on/around Thanksgiving) and has a blog of her own. She found a big box from amazon on the porch when she got home last night. We weren’t expecting anything so when she opened it to find a Diaper Genie we thought it a bit odd. Apparently one of her blog readers that she’s connected to (all online) sent her a baby gift … just because. This kind of thing has been happening for years, but not necessarily to her. The excitement I saw on her face was grand and it coming this week of all weeks hit home that much more.

What a time to be alive!

UPDATE: I forgot two other signals that came up last week!

Playing with a team
I play Battlefield 2 quite a bit. I signed up with www.bf2combat.net, a "virtual war". The idea is that you pay a small amount ($9.99 for three months) to get into a full system of play with a chain of command, training schedules and requirements, etc. in order to create a team vs. team vs. team battle. But as I get to know the guys I’m playing with, it changes the dynamic of a "how many kills can you get" type game into an improvement of skills. The crazy thing is that the people in my particular unit span age, country, race, and background. (All males though)

Free flow of goods
I used Craigslist for the first time and last weekend we sold our sadly under used NordicTrack to a nice couple here in town. I had three serious inquires and several other probes, with the first coming hours after posting the listing. The couple was Hispanic, probably lower middle class, and the man couldn’t speak much English at all. The woman made a point that she wasn’t a techie. Yet, here they both were using what’s arguably a very techie site as a regular course of a day.

Building Community

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