Back in the 90’s I had a saying in relation to web community building: “the Internet giveth, the Internet taketh away” and it can do either with absolute blinding speed. One can build a community a la MySpace or Facebook extremely fast, but make the wrong choices, mess with your community and they will be harsh and unforgiving and move on…just as fast.
Talking about Facebook opening itself up to the masses, Bambi Francisco wisely refers to this phenomenon as a loss of control and states that this is the true cost of building community and a web brand in the Web 2.0 world.
One needs to empower the community and, in doing so, they will allow you to keep growing. Try to take away too much control and you’re toast!
A delicate balance… but essentially, community controls Web 2.0.
