h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I started an internet startup company with some friends and colleagues : ) We're trying to put together something so zany and radical that it'll make the wheel look like a silly notion by comparison. Ok, that's smoke and mirrors marketing talk, but I can't talk about the specifics of what we're really doing except to say that we're trying to integrate community and ecommerce in such a way as to allow everyone to make oodles of profits - vendors, the community leaders, and not least of all, us. Our business model is the best I've heard about in this field, so don't worry about that. What I'm interested in is the community aspects of it. How do we encourage communities to thrive in an environment where participation is entirely voluntary and the rewards are (at first) strictly social and intellectual?

We've got some ideas, but you all are smart as a barrel full of smart monkeys, so let me have it : )

Good luck with your community. I hope it works out well

I think Communities are going to be terribly important to the way we live our lives in the future.

But then I would say that wouldn't I

Hope it is a real success..

- Peta

Thanks, Peta

Actually, we're making a tool which you'll be able to use to create your own communities constantly, easily, and then invite all your friends to join them. Check out http://washington.dbusiness.com/index.asp?layout=story&doc_id=12644

We're iKimbo

So we aren't starting a community, but hopefully millions of them.

Let the proclamation ring forth!
All ye heretics, strayers from the path and deserters of Kettering....

HEAR YE THIS!!!

From this day forth ye shall be known as Hotbots and ye shall be forced to wear a hot Kumquat whilst performing your Knightly errands.

RECTALLY!

Stray once more and we shall be forced to increase the punishment.

I shall whisper this for it may not be spoken outloud.

"Buffet pork pie smothered in Chilli sauce"

BURN YE HERETICS AND YE SHALL NOT BE EVISCERATED!

The Pariah.