Hi everyone. My laptop problems are finally resolved, which means I can finally post again. (It's a good thing.) Today, we're going to take a quick look at online communities and some of the new tools and trends that are emerging from the digitalization of our hardwired pack behavior. (I would love for Grant McCracken to give us his take on all of this.)

Lois Kelly starts us off with a brief but telling study about communities (online or otherwise), and how our "social creature" nature allows our peers to affect our tastes and purchasing habits. The question, of course, is this:

"Are online customer communities an undervalued marketing approach?

A new research study released today by Communispace, “What Companies Gain from Listening: The Effect of Community Membership on Members’ Attitudes and Behavior in Relation to the Sponsoring Company,” found that:

* 82 percent of the surveyed community members said they were more likely to recommend a company’s products since joining its community.
* 76 percent felt more positively about the company.
* 75 percent felt more respect for the company.
* 63 percent said that membership had increased their trust of the company.
* 52 percent were more inclined to purchase products from the company.

Why do communities affect people so much? One reason may be that it provides a way for people to talk with a company and feel heard: 91 percent said they felt that their community allowed them to give candid feedback and suggestions to the company."

Mike Manuel also points us to a new peer-based reputation system called RapLeaf, which apparently just launched this weekend. Here's some of what Mike has to say about how it works, and why it is useful to us:

"The major search engines, like Yahoo and Google, are crawling and aggregating the bread crumbs of our digital selves, our digital reputations, making this info discoverable to anyone who seeks it, while the vertical search engines, like Technorati and Sphere, are taking it a step further by focusing on blog content and assigning authority and relevancy metrics to that.

To me, RapLeaf's service seems like the next logical step in this progression, where real-world feedback and offline sentiment can now be combined with algorithmic metrics and online measures to capture and represent one's reputation. I think the message this sends to PR practitioners, particularly consultants and agency folks, is the obvious one: that you're the keeper of your reputation, manage it diligently, or face the consequences. Write a bad press release, the world can see it. Send a bad pitch, the world can see it. And if you act unethically, the world can now see that too."

Read his whole post here. It's well worth it.

Along the same lines, check out how network-based models of communications are changing the world of poltics here. (Thanks to Chris Carfi's heads-up, and John Lebowski & Zach Rosen's insights.)

The table that illustrates the differences between traditional and network-based models is as brilliant as it is simple. Definitely spend a few minutes checking it out, as it is very similar to how network-based models affect consumer behavior as well.

That's it for today. Have a great Wednesday, everyone. :)