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Highlights | The Next Big Thing

Community Action, by Jerry Weinstein
May 14, 2001

Although it's nonprofit, one dot-org has found a tidy way to turn a buck.

Most nonprofits have sought out the Web as a virtual public sector, expressing indifference to the marketplace. But one nonprofit, Web Lab, is proving to be a rare kind of dot-org by creating robust virtual communities and, in the process, finding a promising revenue model.

Web Lab's mission is simple but ambitious: to spark conversation about personal and public issues. The nonprofit can trace its roots to public television's documentary film series P.O.V., which is known for tackling more taboos than Madonna. During the 1997 broadcast of P.O.V.'s Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, series creator Marc Weiss chose to produce a complementary online discussion on its major theme, the Vietnam War. As the project drew to a close, participants posted to and e-mailed P.O.V. Interactive, indicating that this project changed the way they thought about themselves.

"That, to me, was like the Holy Grail," Weiss says. "You want to do this over and over for all kinds of issues — personal and public." That year, he founded Web Lab.

While tackling topics such as adoption, suicide and homelessness, Web Lab also received acclaim for two projects that chronicled an interracial marriage. To pioneer a process Web Lab named Small Group Dialogues (SGD), the organization brought together 15 groups of participants that committed themselves to chatting online for at least a month. These groups involved about 750 registrants and produced almost 13,000 messages during the project.

Of those who answered the call to community, more than 70 percent were male, and more than half were people of color, defying common perceptions about online demographics and proving that online dialogue has the potential to serve all segments of society. After three iterations of refinement and foundation-sponsored study, Web Lab is hoping to bring its community software to the marketplace, and in the process, teach the Masters of the Universe a thing or two about monetizing loyalty.

Community has always been recognized as the vertebrae of the Internet. It was a place very much like a favorite bar or, more often than not, a revolving door. Some believe it was also underappreciated by its custodians. Firefly Network, which pioneered the use of intelligent agent software, had built up a user base of several million registered members. When it sold its technology to Microsoft back in 1998, Weiss says, "they turned their back on their community, not realizing how valuable it was from a business perspective to have those people who were so committed to what was happening."

Back in those early days, Dan Shafer oversaw the launch of two vital online communities, Salon.com's Table Talk and CNet's Builder Buzz. Shafer says, "Belonging to something is beyond brand loyalty. We belong to clubs, churches, the P.T.A. It's the willingness to pay more, to benefit your group that signals belonging. Community which creates this is the secret weapon of the next-generation e-tailing sites."

Jed Miller, former interactive editor at NYTimes.com and a recent addition to the Web Lab family, concurs. Community has been the organization's raison d'être, and Miller says it might have put Web Lab one step ahead. "Websites were too busy rolling out their core business to understand the role community played in it," he insists.

While Web Lab has tried to make its software easy to use, SGD isn't plug and play. The SGD approach calls for discussion groups that are carefully populated and managed by a well-trained, hands-off moderator. The latest buildout of SGD gives the community director a "control tower," which enables her to scan the entire terrain, acting as a virtual air traffic controller.

Now comes the money part. Web Lab has entered into a nonexclusive licensing deal with Web Crossing, the world's leading Internet/intranet server for online conferencing. The deal could prove lucrative indeed, since Web Crossing has a client list of more than several thousand sites including CNN, Oprah.com, CNet and NYTimes.com.

According to Weiss, Web Lab is planning the first phase of projects using the SGD tool and technique. Prospective partners include major media outlets and selected commerce and film sites. The organization's impact on Web-based discussion will be more profound than merely aggregating eyeballs or enhancing stickiness. It will increase, by leaps and bounds, a sense of belonging. In the process, suggests Miller, "we hope to make the word 'browsing' archaic."