Niko Nyman writes about Disney’s decision to close their “promotional” community site:

When you start to think of it, it’s very different to tear down an advertisement billboard, than break down a community. While tearing down a billboard evokes images of two guys in blue overalls doing their job, pasting up the next billboard for the next advertiser, tearing down a community is more akin to images of the Chinese government forcing a city of a million people to relocate to make room for an artificial lake.

Read the whole post. Good thinking there.

This thread of thought is closely related to the problem I have been struggling with for a while: how should experimental community services be piloted by a large and established company, with an immensely valuable brand? Is it socially responsible (and does it make business-sense) to try out experimental community services, if you can’t guarantee that they will last? What if you would have multiple potential solutions: should you just pick one on the community’s behalf, of should you let the free market decide?

Here is the Catch-22. If you boldly promote your community service, and end up bulldozing the community later, your most passionate customers will end up hating you (righteously). On the other hand, if you admit on day #1 that there is a chance you will need to pull the plug later, would you have any chance of building a successful community in the first place?

I wonder.

Thoughts? (I don’t assume there are simple answers…)

Original post by Tommi Vilkamo