The revolution is about how people is using technology to create value and in this article we will explain how telecommunication companies that build an infrastructure that enable users to interact between them, can create massive profits for their companies using the power of virtual communities.



Virtual Communities are one of the biggest revolutions from the online world. This business model became popular with Bulletin Board Systems created in the mid eighties, bringing in people together with the same desires and interests. This people met there to chat, send email to each other, and learn from the information posted in those forums. Although they were ugly for today standards, some of those places became very successful, like AOL, CompuServe (acquired by AOL), and many others. Many entrepreneurs earned a very comfortable living creating a "niche community".

Then a Shift in Technology Took Place

Then the Internet came into place and almost all Bulletin Board Systems where left with an outdated system. Even AOL now is firing workers because customers are migrating from POTS access to broadband. Later, these communities migrated to the Internet like: Woman's Wire (serving to women, now Ivillage) Tripod (now acquired by Lycos) and others. Each of these was targeted to some specific niche that lured others to join. But, the essence of the community business model is unchanged, no matter which technology is used. People always want to meet others with similar interest and needs. They want to talk about their concerns, find people that comprehend them and also meet people from the opposite sex for the opportunity to have the perfect girlfriend, with many things in common.

The whole point is that if you provide the infrastructure to let people interact and create value for themselves, you will have the profitable customers, the ones that communicate the most, and leave your competitors with the rest of not so profitable customers. This could easily mean billions more in revenues for your business.

What is the Key to Build a Successful Community?

Many experts agree that a successful community is built making it easy for members to participate actively in them and interact with each other. Even John Dvorak, a known columnist of PC Magazine and author of the book "Telecommunications For The PC", recommends planning some sort of physical meeting between members of a BBS.

While this is new technology, all is based on existing developments, so you can start small and then expand the system as profits began to show. Although the complete implementation requires CRM and DataWarehousing Systems, you can start with a simple development and add features later, provided that the design of the system is thought with all the future functionality.

Your only future as a Telecom Business is based on bringing more value to the people you enable to talk between each other by "connecting" them meaningfully, giving them extraordinary value.