LiveWorld is fast-growing marketing agency whose speciality is creating, operating and  managing customized interactive online customer communities–in more than 30 languages–for large companies.  Its customers include  America Online,  BEA Systems, eBay,  Campbell Soup Company, Discovery Communications, Dove, HBO, Intel, Intuit Inc., MINI Cooper USA, QVC,  and TV Guide.  The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a, frankly, softball, interview today with LiveWorld founder and CEO Peter Friedman which provides a number of insights into how online communities are being pitched to corporations by marketers. 

Basically, it looks like the operative theory is “if you build it, they will come.” 

For example, the interviewer asks Friedman how LiveWorld delivers on its promise to create loyalty marketing communities that integrate brands into customers’ daily lives and create buzz.  Friedman cites a study that LiveWorld did with McKinsey that showed that people who participate in an online community, “if it is done well,” return to a site nine times as often and stay five times as long.  “That’s a 45 times increase in in loyalty,” Friedman says.  “So right there is a hard metric that shows if you do this community there is more happening.”

Call me crazy but I find that particular metric to be a little soft.  We don’t know, because the interviewer doesn’t ask, whether the McKinsey study was done only within the corporate communities managed by LiveWorld or also included the larger world of online communities where sites like MySpace and YouTube command tremendous loyalty and attention–which would skew the results.   And does “more happening” actually translate into increased sales or even stronger loyalty? 

It isn’t fair to pick on a company on the basis of a single interview and I’m sure LiveWorld is going to be a huge success because corporations always fear being left out of the next latest greatest thing and executives will spend a lot of money trying things that may or may not work simply to cover their behinds.  But, I do wish the Journal had asked a few  tougher questions.  For example:

1. Is there any real evidence that customers are demanding to belong to company “communities?”  Do people really wake up in the morning and say to themselves, “By golly, I’m lonely so I think I’ll join the Campbell Soup community so I can hang online with my soup hoodies?”
    
2. Is there a saturation point for online communities?  On the consumer side, there seems to a new one announced every day and virtually all of them are DOA.  How many “communities” can individuals belong to and maintain some semblance of loyalty, not to mention personal sanity?
    
3. How much of the activity on LiveWorld-managed communities is generated by LiveWorld operatives and designated company employees and how much is honest-to-goodness, over-the-transom customer or shopper participation?
    
4. Is there a danger that customers will view this as just another example of companies outsourcing their customer contact to outsiders?  Is LiveWorld the India of corporate communities?
    
5. If they work, corporate communities would seem to be not simply a marketing vehicle but also a valuable place to collect and act upon customer feedback.  Do the companies you work with actually collect and use these insights? 
    
6. The only example of “interactivity” cited in the WSJ article is a section of the Campbell’s Soup site where customers can trade recipes.  (Take a can opener, open the can and pour contents into saucepan.  Heat gently over medium fire.  Add salt or pepper to taste).  Do you have other similarly persuasive examples?
    
7. How, exactly, do you attract and build an audience for a new community.  What traffic-building mechanisms do you use to get people to come to a new site the first time. 
    
8. How do you make a site “sticky” so vistors will spend more time there and return frequently?  What are the key elements of “stickiness” and “loyalty?”
    
9. Online communities depend upon “word of mouth” and “trusted individuals” for their credibility.  Hard sell is a known and identified turnoff, but let’s say a company wants to get the word out on a new product or service?  Can, will, does LiveWorld “game” the system on its clients’ behalf?
    
10. Should I infer from your mention of McKinsey that you’re already stuck about what to do next as a company?  Maybe it’s just me, but the mere mention of the “M” word in relationship to any company is cause for concern.

We can’t promise you the audience of the Journal, Mr. Friedman, but if you happen to read this, please feel free to weigh in.