Big Thing in Web 2.0 communities is shared interests. Looking for the innovation?

By Christopher Hire On July 2nd, 2007

Forget myspace, unless you are a band, start thinking web social communities integrated around common ideas. In business words - fragmented vertical markets of web communities.

Some have said personal/professional divide. More likely we will have multiple profiles in multiple places, StumbleUpon, Xing, linkedIn, Ning, Skype and others being some of those.

Social communities

These are also ending the disconnection found in modern society. Social disconnection is the number one Innovation Driver, found in our Global Innovation research.

So in other words, feeling depressed, empty & alone? Well, in a word you are not alone. It is endemic, to varying degrees..

Web communities are the emerging innovation in solving this. Communities of shared interest around direct (eg. guitarists) and indirect (eg. arts) interest areas.

StumbleUpon – a genuine innovation

I like stumble upon. It’s one of my big discoveries on the web. Find interesting articles/stories, based on your interest. Works better than search, as it ‘learns’ what you like and don’t like, by you voting, and other humans suggesting sites.

Search and stumbling have a niche. Stumbling is obviously useful for learning what interests you, and pages around your interests. It’s more humanist. Search is mainly mechanical. Each has their place, and search can incrementally improve.

Stumbling however is a genuine innovation. The reason is it creates a community of shared interests, and sub community nodes. It will be big. Watch it.

Although competitive risks exist, StumbleUpon has the best functioning product in this area of the ‘shared interests community’ market and fits into a number of trends in our 2thinknow^TM innovation research.

One thing I found out

John Denners’ story came to me through StumbleUpon. A one-handed guitarist from the USA, John has taught himself guitar. That’s inspiration & innovation.

From Johns’ website:

“DENNER, 36, shown in his Killingworth home, was born without a right hand, but has learned to play the guitar at a proficiency level he says few others have attained. In less than two years, he went from teaching himself in secret to performing live Van Halen covers on “The Howard Stern Show ..”

That’s an inspiring and interesting story. StumbleUpon has shown me heaps of these stories. John’s interested in coming to Melbourne as well, I gather.

So join stumble-upon. It’s a great site. And the more your participate the better it is.

Here’s my Stumble-Upon profile: http://innovatorau.stumbleupon.com/about/

The birthday is a bit of a fib, as I always give out varying birthdates online for security purposes (a good security practice). The age is close enough