Online video, the emotional web, social networking, "community" in unexpected places, the rise of online activity in India and China, network-centric organizing, mobile computing and activism, and challenges of big online communities in continuing to grow - were a few of the highlights of our recent Online Community Summit (OCS) in Sonoma, CA.

On October 4-5 we gathered with approximately 75 folks from technology, media, online businesses, online communities, and the nonprofit sector to talk about online community issues - great discussions. Our lead host, Jim Cashel, posted a quick review of the discussions in the Online Community Report, participant Josh Ledgard blogged about the event live, Gail Williams posted some take-aways, and we're all shown in glory on Flickr.

Building on Jim's review and comments from F1 buddies Sandy and Dave and Sophie - here's my take on some of the highlights:

Emergence of the "Emotional Web": Organizations are increasingly using the web to make personal and compelling connections with users - a necessary first step to engaging them in sharing, contributing, donating, etc. Some examples:
Remember segregation. Simple, emotional, compelling.
Jane Goodall Institute's Gombe Chimpanzee Blog
Project storytelling to the extreme - and download and try the Google Earth-blog integration!
Ronald McHummer site allows you to have it your way.

Eruption of video: Online video is really taking off - with the convergence of cheaper bandwidth, ubiquitous video recording devices, the integration of video and "community" tools, and the use of Flash for video streaming. This is something many policy/issue-oriented organizations on the web need to be paying attention to. Some examples (without even referring to YouTube!):
OCS intro remarks by Jim, captured and uploaded on a small Nikon camera by AOL's Bill Schreiner before the next speaker was up - and the video has been viewed 1,031 times in the 13 days since it was posted?!.
Stories from homeless Canadians
Tibetans apparently shot on September 30th by Chinese border guards on high trails heading from Tibet towards India.

Community in unexpected places: My colleague Sandy Smith commented that much of the talk at the OCS was about online interactions/community happening in places other than social networking sites or online discussions - that is, happening attached to "stuff", i.e. to content, like...
Flickr photos and the associated commenting/favorites/friends community features
YouTube - and many of the same commenting/community features
Blogs, of course, allowing user comments on posts

Growth of internet usage in China and India: We've all heard about it generally, but the growth potential of the internet in China and India is staggering. Satya Prabhakar of Sulekha.com, an Indian service that is a combination Yellow Pages, Classifieds, Social Networking, Blogs, and media outlet, reported that broadband subscription levels were only about 1.5 million, but growing at 30% a quarter. Further, India's population is very young - average age of 26. From China, Xioafeng Jin of Linkool.biz reported that there are 123 million Internet users in China, 50 million of them active online community members, and 60% of those in the age interval 18-24. Big numbers. Seems that strong use of online community services there is tied to interest in finding unofficial news.

Starting and growing online communities: In an interesting breakout session on community growth strategies, we had participants involved with managing communities for software and other commercial products, for consumer information sites, for recreation and social networking and others. The largest communities said they continue to have to work to sustain and grow their audiences - that the vision of the "self-sustaining" community is a myth. They reported that at all stages of growth - from startup to very large - it is critical to seed, nurture, and grow the community. The importance of the heavy users was discussed, and how to provide them incentives and rewards.


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