Nokia Beta Labs

interesting thoughts.
Assuming a small project that does not make viable a satellite company, I would guess it's down to risk of the project, the quantity and quality (as in how much it reflects the real market place) of your betatesters.
If your betatester base reflects the real consumer base, then I would leave the choice of your products to them, otherwise your "educated choice" might be better.
Regarding the decision of starting a new "service" I guess it depends on how big is the risk + expected users "figure". If it's too big, the only mitigating action I can quickly think of is a short rampup phase to correct any problem in time (where users are admitted in phases)...

just my two cents at a very late time of the day ;-)

I think that the first thing we have to define is how much your "experimental community" depends on the "large and established company" to exist. I see the growth and development of the whole beta community as a bottom-up process rather than a purely top-down, centrally controlled project. I guess that the only top-down criterion that drives the community is the common interest in experimenting. Of course, the community depends on the product they experiment with and on the "virtual ground" (this site) to develop, but I also think the major factor that makes it exist is the further interest of its members in technology development and its consecuences in everyday life. On the other hand, it's futile to think of permanence in these processes, when temporary dissaperances or even permanent ones are part of its global development, effectiveness and success.

For some reason I feel very differently inside when I read:
- share.ovi.com
- mosh.nokia.com
- sportstracker.nokia.com

As opposed to reading 'Disney'. I tried to pinpoint why that is and I think it’s to do with few factors:
1. it’s a specific target and not aiming for the masses. By that I mean, it doesn’t feel like its being forced upon you.
2. Personal. Take Beta labs for example. I sent a feedback tonight and got a response almost instantly, despite me asking something that cannot be done. The same person who replied to my email also wrote this blog post. Another great example is the S60 ambassador program - ever since signing up it’s been great and personal. What do I mean by personal? Well, every report I write, I get feedback on. Emails are instantly answered without no-reply generic crap that most companies send.
3. The simplicity of the projects appeal. The community is there for information and not to try and flood everything that’s on offer. As Tommi pointed out 3 specific community groups all around the same brand.
4. Integration. Ovi with Share online 3 with Geo tagging with Sports tracker and so on. A set community has a smooth transition to the other community and they join the other community through the integration that is in place.
5. No fees model. Fairly self explanatory.
6. Tying back to point 2. The community promotes feedback and user input. The companies cannot control what is being said, but instead it does the best by its community which in return responds with positive praise.
7. The strive of the community owner to continually improve the community and the products on offer.
7. Create communities with no corporate feel. Let’s take Nokia for example, despite the multibillion dollar corporate company, all the communities that Tommi mentioned do not have that feel to it. Why? Because of the points raised above.

re: bulldozing the community later, your most passionate customers will end up hating you (righteously).

I think that there will always be people that will end up hating you, nothing can be done to make everyone happy, but I think the key is to set realistic expectations to the community members and keep them constantly updated. The early adopters of the communities are usually loyal customers and (i would hope) if they are being informed of what is going on they would understand if something does not work out. There would be nothing worse then joining a community, participating and all of a sudden its gone with no warning.

I've seen that communities usually fall in to 2 types when evolving

a) a site that can grow organically (Quick to adapt)
b) a site with forced changes. (Slow to adapt)

Both have benefits but they both tend to lack a way to warn users about changes until after they change, by which times users have started to complain and start to drift away.

A trap that some sites fall in to when letting them grow organically is that they tend to push things into a "short term gain" scenario where they change to mirror the "Fad of the Day" to keep users, instead of finding a "Fad of Tomorrow" on which to grow and bring in new users.

Same can be said for sites that do a forced change. They tend to plan far ahead and if they get it wrong the users get bored and drift away. Then you end up making quick changes to a well planed site that end up awkward to use and gives users a bad experience.

The Balance between developing a stable community that can grow with users experiences and changing the site to bring in new users is a tough balancing act and few get it right first time!"

But as long as the site makers have a way of telling users about the change beforehand, then most of the big issues that harm the user experience can be sidestepped or at least minimised.

You can also create communities for a certain period of time - like running an event, party or summer camp. Announce time limits - e.g. 3 weeks, 3 months etc. or if you are really experimenting and you don't know for how long do you need let people know that it is for limited time only and e.g. "we will inform everyone about closing with 2 weeks notice."

Worse would be letting people believe - this from here to eternity ... and then quit without a notice. But is known to happen in real life relationships as well ...

To clarify, Pablo, I wasn't talking about Beta Labs community, but initiatives like:
- share.ovi.com
- mosh.nokia.com
- sportstracker.nokia.com
- + other forthcoming community services

And yeah, community-forming is always a bottom-up movement. There is no way you can build a real community as a centrally planned top-down project.

I guess that's why it feels so wrong when a top-down authority kills a community (example: Disney in Niko's post), or changes the community's environment radically (example: Facebook user community revolts whenever Facebook changes something).