What does it take to build an online community?

Talking about the promise of community is one thing, but what are the design principles that make it easy for community members to find one another and to share their interests? Are all community members equal, or are some of them more equal than others? Do community and commerce mix?

Those are questions that occupy the minds of Net-company leaders for whom community is a crucial element of their business strategy -- whether their business is a highly specialized B2B site or an entertainment site aimed at teenagers. And Cynthia Typaldos has been asking and answering those questions for years.

Typaldos, 50, is a true Web pioneer. A software developer by training, she earned an AB in chemistry at UC Berkeley and attended graduate school in computer science there as well. (She also received an MBA from MIT's Sloan School.) Later, she held senior-management positions at Data General and Sun Microsystems.

Then she got with the Web program. In January 1995, she launched GolfWeb (www.golfweb.com [1]) , a now-popular site for golfing enthusiasts (and currently part of CBS SportsLine) . An important element behind the success of that site has been the GolfWeb Players Club, an online community whose members pay an annual fee of $39.95 to get discounts on merchandise and to trade tips and war stories about the best courses and the toughest holes.

As she worked to develop the Players Club, Typaldos thought more and more about how online communities evolve and about what it takes for them to thrive. Her research base broadened from the tens of thousands of postings that she studied on GolfWeb to the work of sociologists like Marc Smith, now the resident sociologist at Microsoft. In November 1997, she and Mark Waters, who was then an executive at GolfWeb, founded RealCommunities, a company that designs and builds infrastructure and services for other Web communities. Typaldos's interest in online communities even led her to teach a class at UC Berkeley Extension called "Web Communities for Content, Commerce, and Customer Retention."

Here, in an interview with Fast Company, Typaldos discusses the ideas and design principles that define real communities.

km@salon.com [2]), a former Fast Company senior writer, is a senior writer for Salon.com. Contact Cynthia Typaldos by email (ct@realcommunities.com [3]) , or visit RealCommunities on the Web (www.realcommunities.com [4]).

Sidebar: 12 Steps to Real Community

Cynthia Typaldos, president and CEO of RealCommunities, teaches people how to build online communities -- and sells them the software to make communities work. Her "12 Principles of Civilization" will help you find out whether your community is for real.

• Is there a necessary shared purpose that we accomplish together?
• Does each member have an identity? Can we tell who's who, even if members remain anonymous?
• Are we able to share information and ideas that fit our purpose?
• How can we build trust? What tells us that it's safe to deal with other people in the community?
• How do we form reputations? What lets us build status?
• Have we created ways to work together in small groups?
• Is our environment a shared space that is appropriate for our goals?
• Do we know who belongs in our community and who doesn't?
• What's our system of governance? How do we regulate behavior so that it supports our shared values?
• Is there a system of exchange that allows us to trade knowledge, support, goods, services, and ideas?
• Are we able to express our group identity in a timely way? Are we aware of what other members are doing right now?
• Do we have ways to review our history and to track our evolution -- and leave behind what's best forgotten?