Creating a virtual community is somewhat like making a movie. Before a single camera starts to roll, there is an entire process of preproduction ensuring that the actors are properly cast, the equipment is rented and functioning, the script is in place, and the department heads know what type of movie they are trying to make. If any of these areas are neglected, from the first day of shooting, the movie will stumble forward, and a vast amount of time and energy will likely be wasted.

Likewise, a virtual community is expensive in time to launch, difficult to attract visitors/contributors,  and poorly planned execution will make even a promising start fizzle into a disappointment. Although Joomla makes the deployment of the features simple, proper planning even for an incremental deployment is critical for site success. By being deliberate in your planning and construction of the new community site, you will minimize the chances of hard-won users becoming frustrated with a poorly working or confusing roll- out and leaving your site forever. The creation and deployment may be divided into roughly three stages.

Three Stages of a Virtual Community
Virtual communities are unlike most traditional Web deployments (such as a static site or online store) in that they derive their value from the intercommunication of a large user base. Under any circumstances, gathering this large number of users can take quite a bit of time. The creation of a virtual community is typically a gradual process, and a visitor surge does not provide the benefits it would on a traditional site. If your Web site was suddenly flooded with a million users overnight, it is unlikely that the site could retain those users for more than a short period of time. Furthermore, the first experience of these new visitors would be empty content and slow performance. Growth for virtual communities is organic because the community slowly discovers what the group has to offer.

Given the unique nature of virtual community deployment and expansion, it may be helpful to look at a “roadmap” of development so that you can maintain your direction as you navigate the sometimes frustrating terrain. The deployment procedure can best be separated into three stages:

❑       Development/testing

❑       Launching/gathering

❑       Redefinition/maturity

Nearly all successful virtual communities follow these paths, so certain landmarks can be identified.

Stage 1: Development and Testing
When the idea of creating a virtual community is first examined, you should have a preconception of the type of community that you want to create. Joomla makes it easy for you to use a local deployment to experiment with various features to decide what type of site you want to create. Using this hands-on approach while answering the following questions will give you a clear idea of the site concept:

❑       Will the community be commercial or hobbyist? — This makes a greater difference than you might imagine. The answer to this question will determine the audience that you are seeking for the site. For example, a commercial community that focuses on Product A will be unlikely to gain the contributions of users of competitive Products B and C. However, a hobbyist site catering to all the products of that category may not have the necessary focus to attract advertising dollars for vendors of add-on offerings for Product A. Additionally, hobbyist Web sites have much looser standards in terms of vulgarity and off-topic communication, since they don’t have to answer to a sponsoring company or advertising clients.

❑       Do you have an agenda of the topics discussed? — Many failed virtual communities have no skeleton upon which content can grow. Like a trellis that guides climbing plants to extend upward and thrive, a topic agenda is a good place to begin planning. With an effective agenda, visitors can be guided into their area of desire.

❑       Will the virtual community be a supplement to a Web site or the main attraction? — Since virtual communities require a great deal of time and maintenance, many sites add them as minor additions, instead of making them the centerpiece of the site. This strategy provides advantages of progressive introduction of the community technology, and allows you to build on the existing visitor base. However, it is unlikely to produce MySpace-like success that is encouraged when the site’s reason for existence is community.

With the general concept outlined, development can begin. Most virtual communities use preexisting software (such as the extensions described in this chapter), so development generally is a small part of the project’s time budget. Once the software is set up and configured, the framework developed during the planning stages can be input. This might include creating categories, providing foundation documents and terms of service, and setting up the security login structure.

Testing should be done with a load-testing and performance tool so that the limits of the current deployment can be understood. These tools, while important to a normal Joomla site, are critical for determining the capacity of your virtual site so that you can judge the upper size limits of your community on the current server setup.

It is a further good idea to personally recruit some users, in the area you want to target, to the virtual community for an informal test. With Joomla’s registered user display options, you can limit access of the new community features to only those who will be helpful in figuring out the deployment. If your site targets teenagers, find some who can try the site and give you their input. For a site focused on high- tech professionals, ask not only for their opinions of your community but also for recommendations of other communities that they visit so that you can have some idea of the types of sites already pulling in that audience.

Stage 2: Launch and Gathering
The time of launching a Joomla virtual community is exciting, but it can often be disheartening. There are usually far fewer visitors than were expected, and those who do arrive are more likely to look around or “lurk” than contribute content or join in a discussion. While the low traffic levels may seem bad at the time, for most sites, this period is actually of great advantage.

As in most arenas, 10 percent of the people will do 90 percent of the work. The launch will help you locate contributors who will take ownership responsibility for the site. As the first people in the door, you can make them feel like they are extremely important to the direction of the site (which they are) and that they are, in a sense, cofounders of the community.

In the beginning, you will need to reach out to those who make even the smallest contribution. Someone who makes a single comment on an article or posts the first message to a forum deserves at least a personal email of thanks from the people running the site. Ensure that you take the time to make these early adopters feel appreciated, because they will reward you by contributing more to the site. You may even reward contributors with giveaways, extra site privileges, or title status (such as site tester, advanced user, featured contributor, and so on).

Many proponents of virtual communities have likened the care and maintenance of the community to caring for a garden. New seeds must be planted, trees pruned, and weeds rooted out. It is in adolescence that the tasks of gardener are most needed, but also most tedious. The “bloom has left the rose,” as the saying goes, and what was exciting and new at the beginning has become more labor and tedium. Like the difficulty of any adolescence, however, it is during this time when a virtual community truly decides what it will become in the future.

Stage 3: Redefinition and Maturity
As the virtual community begins gaining strength, a Joomla web master must examine the site to see if a redefinition is required. For example, a site may have been envisioned as a place for joggers to exchange information about running shoes, but if a huge majority of visitors exchange information on the most scenic routes to run, a redefinition of the site may be in order. You may even want to change the look of the site to better reflect the content, which is an easy task given Joomla’s template interface. Perhaps a site theme that communicated solid professionalism needs to be softened to warm friendliness given the community interaction — or vice versa.

To refocus the site on another topic does not mean abandoning the initial topic (although it may). Rather, it most often means that priorities and resources are redeployed to the areas that reflect visitor interest.

In the example of the running shoe site, redefinition might include adding a photo gallery extension to the site that would allow users to post pictures of the most scenic routes. Additionally, the site might include a category breakdown by geography, where visitors could suggest their routes by area.

There is no simple litmus test to determine when a site must be redefined, yet it is helpful to have specific milestones to indicate when the redefinition evaluation should occur. For example, set a calendar date or choose a Web traffic threshold that will trigger the reevaluation of the site. You will need to dedicate enough time to examining the logs and looking at contributor interests that you can make a thorough examination of the direction of the community.

Once you have survived redefinition, solidified your community, and have many regular visitors/ contributors, that is the time to evaluate how to better serve your virtual community. At this point, you have a clear understanding of your most frequent visitors and most reliable contributors. You can determine how best to add value to their experiences and, if the site is commercial, monetize the traffic. To make this determination, there are a number of areas to examine, including the following:

❑       Ancillary topics or products — If your site focuses on running shoes, can you also provide information related to the larger areas of fitness? Or, maybe you could provide general information on living an upscale lifestyle. Ensure that the new additions are sideline features. A virtual community can destroy itself by becoming too general, or by watering down the reasons people came in the first place. A successful site for professional joggers does not want to be flooded with newbie visitors who don’t know the difference between a half marathon and a marathon.

❑       Special group activities and offers — Like the collective bargaining power of a union, any significant group of people working in concert wields a great deal of power. This power can be used in a great number of ways, including organizing a conference, supporting a fund-raising drive, creating a group purchase for discounted rates, or starting a letter-writing campaign to a regional politician. Think in terms of both what could benefit members of the group (such as a high-volume purchase of a product) and what can benefit the community itself (such as a fund-raising drive for a faster server). Using Joomla extensions such as forums or guestbooks, you can determine if there is interest in such a program.

❑       Targeted advertising — Most sites sport some type of advertising through banner ads or affiliate programs for click-through sales of products. With Joomla’s Banner component, setting up a custom ad campaign is a snap and sometimes Joomla users overwhelm their visitors with marketing. Each Web page offers only so much space for advertising before the marketing becomes unattractive and begins to deter visitors from returning. Evaluate the ads on your site in terms of both attractiveness and revenue generation. If an affiliate-provided banner slows the loading of your page and represents little actual revenue, would the site benefit by eliminating that ad? If a small ad generates a great deal of revenue, perhaps that ad should be moved to a place of greater prominence. In addition to examining the affiliates you already have, it would also be wise to look around to see if new vendors have opportunities that might fit better with your site goals.