Over the last couple of months I've done a lot of research about online communities. The reason is a company I'm working with, is investing on this type of development and I'm getting speaking assignments to teach people what's currently available in terms of online communities and the core technologies behind them (blogs, RSS, wikis, groups, and much more). I'm actually writing long paper (or a short 50-pages book) covering them, which I might make available for a nominal fee to anyone.
I've also signed up to way more sites and services I can possibly keep up with. Beside my LinkedIn account, I have created accounts on the following sites:
- facebook, where I have too many applications installed... and here is my profile
- myspace, on which I have a really empty page
- digg (my account can be seen here)
- protopage (my public page is here)
- google sharing stuff (my empty page)
- Windows Live space (my empty space)
- naymz (a site I find quite annoying, where I have this profile)
- orkut (you nee to have an account to see my profile)
- I'm considering to add twitter to the list
In most cases, I've used the same photo, and added limited info. I'm experimenting, trying to figure out the various features each community offers, what is nice and what is not, what makes some of them so successful and the like. If you have suggestions about these or other communities, want to share what you like or dislike, feel free to post a comment here or email me.
If you have an account there and want to have a link, feel free to do so (I'd actually appreciate a few more links), but don't expect me to get actively involved on those communities and keep up the various blogs I now have, status information, and the like. Still, I might peek one or two to keep experimenting with a little more...