MEX: Defining Community

Via MocoNews at MEX:

"Frederick Ghahramani, director and co-founder of AirG, Vancouver-based mobile social networking specialists. He defined community with four key elements:

• Identity. How the user is represented.
• Presence. Tools like IM and ‘online now’ indicators.
• Interaction. Content sharing, comment functions and so on.
• The user interface and experience fits round any or all of those.

“Identity gives a reason to interact and presence makes the interactivity real time,” said Ghahramani. Pointing to his own MySpace page, he said: “What I see here is Blogger and Photoshare and then elements of Match.com, only not done as well, Friendster, only not done as well, and Napster - only not done as well. MySpace has become successful by playing a combination game.”

“How do you combine identity, presence and interactivity on a 90×50 pixel screen?.” Embed user interfaces that mimic an online experience are promising. “UI is the most important thing when it comes to mobile comunities. Ultimately it’s going to be UI innovation that will drive market success.”