Michael Skoler: Community, not audience, is a new business model

We are social beings. Three-quarters of all American adults belong to voluntary or organized groups, according to "The Social Side of the Internet," a study published this year by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. In fact, today's social media culture may be reversing the decline in social behavior that Robert D. Putnam documented in his book "Bowling Alone." While 56 percent of non-Internet users belong to a group, 80 percent of Internet users participate in groups, according to the study.
Clay Shirky, a professor at New York University who studies the effects of the Internet on society, writes eloquently of how technology is unleashing the greatest wave of social communication and collaboration in our history. The companies flourishing in today's digital, social culture provide more than valued content to people. They deliver valued connections. And they turn this community, the content it creates, and the trust it engenders into money.
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the icons of the social economy. Even Google, the organizer of digital information as opposed to people, upended the search business with its algorithms that tracked connections—the links people share with others. There are hundreds and thousands of lesser known, quickly rising businesses that are, at their core, built on community even when it isn't obvious. Here are just a few examples:
Angie's List has more than 1.5 million members in over 150 cities who pay about $10 to $60 a year to be part of a community in which members rate and review service providers (plumbers, doctors, etc.) to help each other. In the face of free alternatives, Angie's List has turned its community into annual membership fees in the $50 million range and an even larger income stream by allowing companies that are highly rated by members to pay Angie's List for the privilege of offering discounts to its members.
PatientsLikeMe, a seven-year-old company, helps 100,000 patients
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102622/Community-A-New-Business-Model-for-News.aspx