the cmx guide to community platforms

7/23/2019 The CMX Guide to Community Platforms

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-cmx-guide-to-community-platforms 1/110



DedicationWe dedicate this book to anyone who brings people together – at work or for family,

friends, local communities, and to make the world a better place. We know how powerful you are. You’re doing an amazing job, no matter how far you’ve come or how

far you have to go.

You don’t do this for the glory, but we’re giving it to you anyway.



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About CMX

We’re on a mission give community professionals theopportunity to thrive.

We host the largest gathering of community professionals inthe world and run workshops, local CMX Series events aroundthe world, and publish the most comprehensive community-building content on the web at CMXHub.com.

About the Authors

This book is brought to you by the CMX team: Carrie Jones, Yrja Oftedahl Lothe, andDavid Spinks.

You can read more about each author at CMXHub.com/meet-team-cmx/.

We’ve spent over 500 cumulative hours researching, writing, gathering insights, andfact-checking everything in this book so you can make the best platform decisionpossible. That’s not to mention the incredible contributions of our community members,without whom this would have never come to fruition.

Over 100 of you shared your platform experience with us, and we’ve done our best todistill the information down to digestible chunks. Having said that, we want to hear howwe can do better. Send us a note at [email protected] if you want to see something

improved in the next edition.

Acknowledgements

Technical EditorsChizzy IgbokweChris McCann

Nicolas GregoireRobin Spinks

Copy EditorChristian Carvajal

Cover DesignerVivek Mayasandra

http://cmxhub.com/meet-team-cmx/



mailto:[email protected]







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Contents

So You’re Stuck Choosing a Platform for Your Community... .................................. 8

Introduction to Platform Decisions .............................................................................. 9

The Nine Key Questions You Should Ask Before Even Considering a Community

Platform ........................................................................................................................ 10

Creating a Review Spreadsheet ................................................................................. 13

Community Platforms We Discuss and Why ............................................................ 14

Definitions of Community Platforms ......................................................................... 15

Forums 15

Enterprise Platforms 15

Community Feedback and Support Platforms 15

Group Platforms 16

Content Management Systems 16

Community Relationship Management 16

Internal Community 17

Community Platforms That Exist on Outside Platforms 17

In-Depth Analysis of All Platforms............................................................................. 19

Forums 19

BbPress 19

Discourse 20

IP (Invision Power) Boards 22

MyBB 24

NodeBb 26

phpBB 28

Vanilla forums 29

vBulletin 31

Xenforo 33

Enterprise Software 36 JiveX 36

Lithium 38

Salesforce Community 39

Standing on Giants Platform 42

Zimbra 44

Community Feedback + Support Platforms 47



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Get Satisfaction 47

UserVoice 48

Zendesk Communities 50

Group Platforms 52

CMNTY 52

GroupAhead 54

Hoop.la 56

Mightybell 57

Muut 59

Ning 61

Place 62

Small World Labs 64

Switchboard 66

Content management systems 67

Drupal 67

Evoq by DNN 69

Higher Logic 71

Pluck 72

SocialGo 74

Socious 76

Telescope.io 78

Community Relationship Management 80

FUEL by Passenger 80

Mobilize 81

NationBuilder 83

SocialEngine 84

Internal Community 86

HipChat 86

Honey 87

Igloo 89

Salesforce Chatter 91

Slack 93

Yammer 95

Community Platforms that Exist On Outside Platforms 97

G+ Communities 98

LinkedIn Groups 100

Meetup 101

reddit 102

Stack Exchange 104

TL;DR Quick Suggestions to Get You Started ........................................................ 106



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If You’re Not Tech-Savvy and Don’t Have Anyone Technical on Your Team, Skip

These 106

If You Want Something that Focuses on Content Curation and UGC Creation 106

If You’re Not Tech-Savvy and Just Want to Get Started ASAP 106

If You Want Something Full Customizable and Technical Know-How Is Not an

Issue 106

If Gamification Is Important to You 106

Further Reading......................................................................................................... 107

Platforms to Watch .................................................................................................... 107

Glossary ..................................................................................................................... 107

Appendix .................................................................................................................... 108

Community Priority Checklist 108

Community Platforms that Fit Each Priority Best 108

Create user-generated content beyond conversations 108

Give feedback (product- or content-related) 109

Reply to user-generated content 109

Ask customer support-related questions 109

Crowdsource ideas for your product 109

Private message one another 109

Plan events together 110

Report bugs 110

Discuss topics 110

Follow each other to deepen relationships 110

Search past discussions to use as a knowledge base 110

Serve as a tiered engagement ladder 110

Serve as ambassadors for your product 110

Facilitate collaboration on projects or documents 111

Community Platform Review Sheet 111



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So You’re Stuck Choosing a Platform for Your

Community...We know what a challenge this can be. Whoever gave you this task didn’t know howmuch they were asking of you, or perhaps you didn’t know what you were quite getting

yourself into.

We hope you haven’t been going this alone so far, but if you have, you can now breathea sigh of relief.

You’ve got some friendly community builders by your side.

The good news is there are more tools available for community-building than everbefore. The bad news is all this variety makes it pretty darn tough to select the rightone.

So consider this your ultimate guide-book to the community platform world. We’ll domost of the work for you.

In this e-book, you’ll get: ● Guiding questions that will anchor your thoughtful selection of a platform● A thorough, in-depth analysis of every community platform out there worth

consideration, broken down by things like cost, purpose, time to launch, featuresets, examples and more. We even have the up-and-coming platforms that arestill defining themselves.

● Links to additional articles and case studies that showcase some of theseplatforms in action.



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Introduction to Platform DecisionsChoosing a community platform can be a daunting task, a long, drawn-out process withlots of different demos, options, ideas, and approaches.

Whether you’re a community manager making this decision or a founder, CEO,

marketing manager, or engineer curious how the platforms may integrate with theoverall site experience, we’ve got you covered.

We’ve also been in your shoes before. We’ve built communities at companies we’veworked for and consulted with, and we bring the experience of having worked withmany, many of these platforms firsthand from the ground up.

We wrote this guide thinking, What would I have wanted as a resource when I pickedPlatform X? It’s all written from that perspective of empathy.

But we didn’t write this guide alone. Why would community builders think any work

should be done in a vacuum? Instead, we pulled together the knowledge of some of thebest and brightest in the field -- maybe you even gave us feedback on an early draft oron a community platform you loved or hated.

This guide is a community effort and all the stronger for it. You won’t find anything ascomprehensive or as well-vetted out there as this.

Other lists of community tools aren’t exhaustive. This is as close as it gets. We reallyscoured the edges of the internet to find even the unique and niche platforms. If acommunity platform out there is good enough to matter, it’s in here.

So let’s get started!



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The Nine Key Questions You Should Ask Before EvenConsidering a Community PlatformFirst, make sure you have the answers to these nine key questions. Don’t even thinkabout moving forward until you know what you want to do.

If you don’t yet have the answers to those nine questions, now you know what you needto do to move forward in your community-building efforts.

Here are some questions you should be thinking through:

1. Have you already developed a community or are you starting from scratch?

This is an insanely important question and is the crux of whether or not a community willbe successful. This platform should not be the start of your community building efforts.You should already have relationships in place.

If you have nothing started, you may want to start small and cheap. (It could even befree. We include a list of platforms on other platforms. They’re a great way to start!)There isn’t much logic in launching a massive, expensive community platform when youstill haven’t even verified that people are interested in the community.

As Chris McCann, who runs community for Greylock Partners, explains, “ A lot of peoplethink a community tool will create a community; but the community has to come first,then the tool second.” Don’t skip the real hard work and go straight to a platform. Theplatform won’t solve your adoption problems. Don’t invest money before you’ve investedtime in cultivating relationships and trust.

2. How large is your community?

Some platforms are great for smaller communities but don’t scale very well. As community builder Chizzy Igbokwe explains, “If your community is less than 500people and you plan to keep it intimate, we will share with you the best platforms forsmall communities. But if you have 500 members, are experiencing rapid growth, andhave a goal of 10,000 members, then you should plan for a large platform early in thegame instead of waiting until you reach 10,000 members.”

Here, for ease of discussion, we will define small communities as less than 500members. Mid-size is 500-5,000. Large communities are anything beyond that.

3. How much growth do you anticipate in the next year or two?

Plan for growth. You don’t want to invest in a platform ideal for small communities if youanticipate massive growth. We’ll point out which community platforms are great forgrowing communities and which are better for more intimate groups.



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4. What will community members do?

Is it enough to just have a message board? How important is it that your members canpost pictures, follow each other, post polls, or engage in other community interactions?

Fill this out and decide which are your top priorities. Then create a review spreadsheet. As you go through the platforms, decide which meet your priority needs.

Community Priorities Checklist❏ create user-generated content beyond conversations❏ give feedback (product- or content-related)❏ reply to user-generated content❏ ask customer support-related questions❏ crowdsource ideas for your product❏ private message one another❏ plan events together❏

report bugs❏ discuss topics❏ follow each other to deepen relationships❏ search past discussions to use as a knowledge base of some sort❏ serve as a tiered engagement ladder❏ serve as ambassadors for your product❏ facilitate collaboration on projects or documents

For a quick overview of the best platforms to meet each of these needs, see theappendix.

5. What is your budget?

Some of these platforms are awesome but very expensive. So budget can be veryrestrictive.

Sit down with your team to talk about budget. Pick a low-end number and a high-endnumber. Remember to consider the value and ROI of these tools. If you invest $200 permonth in the license for software that secures loyalty in 200 customers, each of whomspends at least $1 per month, you’ve broken even. If they each spend $10 per month,you’re on the winning side of the equation.

6. How important is privacy?

Some communities need to be extremely secure, and others are actually better offbeing open. Security costs money, so make sure it’s a priority before investing here.Some platforms give you options and degrees of privacy, others don’t.

7. What is the value proposition of your community? Why would you want to be amember?



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We always ask clients this question. Lots of companies can’t answer it--yet. In a lot ofways, this goes back to question 4: what do you expect members to do? Just becauseyou expect them to do things, that doesn’t mean they see the value in doing them.

With clients, we break down a value proposition into the following:Who is the exact group you’re serving?What you’re helping them do? What will they do/build/discuss together? (Seequestion 4.)Where do they most want to connect (online platform, offline events, outside

platforms, or some combination)?Why are you connecting them? Why would they want to do the “What” above,and do you know they want to connect from your information-gathering you’vedone via conversations/surveys?

If you know the value proposition, our “defined focus” section in each platform overview

will tell you if it’s generally in line with your vision.

8. How technical are you/your team?

If you have technical know-how, you can run any of these platforms. If you don’t, it’s adifferent story. Some require extensive knowledge, and you may need a team to runthem. For instance, if you want to run the self-hosted version of Discourse (it’s open-sourced, woo!) or Drupal, you need to know how to make it run in your environment.You probably don’t even want to do that alone.

For the end of this e-book, we created short lists of platforms to avoid or considerstrongly if you don’t have technical backing.

BONUS QUESTION from Patrick O’Keefe We asked community industry veteran Patrick O’Keefe to weigh in here, and he gave usthis tidbit:

9. How easy is it to leave the platform you’re picking?“I receive pitches from platform developers every so often, and [this is] the first questionI ask them. It's a little off-putting, but it should be at the forefront of the mind of everyserious community professional. If you can't easily export your community data at yourown discretion, you aren't hosting anything. You are playing in someone else'ssandbox. Don't allow your hosted community to be locked into a provider like that.”

“Smaller organizations will want to pay attention to how the data is exported, as well,”Patrick cautions. “Can you use the format? Big companies have big budgets and canpay programmers to import the data into their new software. Smaller organizationsmight not have that ability. People sometimes mock phpBB, but keep this in mind: froma phpBB forum, you can get to practically any other software through importers that



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already exist. Think long term, and don't sign away your access to yourcommunity.”

Creating a Review SpreadsheetNow that you’ve done all this reflecting, you need to put your thoughts into some sort of

visual format that makes comparison easy. We’ve created a spreadsheet for you as atemplate to get you started.

Here’s how it works.

You need to figure out your priorities first. This is why you fill out the checkboxes above(in #4). Figure out the number of checkboxes you’ve marked and, as you go through,see which platforms meet those priorities.

Platform# ofPrioritiesMet

One-Time

SetupFees

Monthly

Fees

ImplementationTime andDifficulty

Technical

NeedsStrengths Weaknesse

Discourse

Telescope

NodeBB



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Community Platforms We Discuss and WhyNow you’ve gotten to the good stuff. (The other stuff was pretty quick and painless,right?)

Keep in mind, all of these platforms are:

1. Owned: These are platforms you can take ownership of, that you can brand andcontrol to some degree. We’re not talking about sub-communities within specificcommunities, such as Nextdoor for physical community. We do, however, delveinto the most important platforms that exist on other platforms, as these can begreat for validating community value propositions. (For things like subreddits andFacebook groups, see below.) As community expert Patrick O’Keefe explains,“Hosted community is very powerful. It allows you to go deeper with yourcommunity so you aren't beholden to a third party like Facebook, which candecide to cut your reach or access.”

2. Platforms: We’re not discussing tools like Google Groups or mailing lists becausewe’re talking about platforms where a community can live and breathe. Those

can be great ways to begin a community. In fact, that’s how Product Hunt gotstarted. But it’s not a platform.

3. Next-level: We’re not discussing old-school solutions like Yahoo! groups orlistservs. Why? You already know about those, they haven’t been updated inyears to account for new types of interactions in communities, and they’re notowned. These are not social media management tools. They’re for launching andgrowing your own user community.

4. Not topic-specific: We are starting with the most general community platformshere. There are hundreds of specific community platforms for university alumni,social collaboration, or learning communities, but we won’t survey those here.

https://nextdoor.com/

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo

http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv.asp

http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv.asp

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!

https://nextdoor.com/



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Definitions of Community Platforms

Forums A forum is a piece of software that enables community members to talk in a messageboard style about any topic under the sun. Forums are versatile, but they tend to be

more old-school and free-flowing. They’re not ideal if you have some specific actionyou’re motivating your community to complete, but they are ideal if conversation isthe core of the community’s purpose.

We don’t include every last piece of forum software. Some are archaic, and you won’twant to use them. We curated the ones you’d actually care about.

We’ll review: - Bbpress- Discourse- IP (Invision Power) Boards

- Mybb- NodeBb- Phpbb- Vanilla Forums Phpbb- vBulletin- Xenforo

Enterprise PlatformsEnterprise software is targeted toward large internal communities and large externalcommunities alike. They are expensive but powerful, and pricing is often negotiable.

We got an insider tip from someone who’s negotiated with all of the most popularenterprise platforms: “You can negotiate a better deal at the end of the fiscalquarter (especially at the end of the year). They will often give you a break ifyou’re willing to do co-marketing, customer testimonials, and sweeten the deal inother ways. They’ll usually knock some money off the price.”

We’ll review: - Jivex- Lithium- Salesforce Community

- Standing on Giants Platform- Zimbra

Community Feedback and Support PlatformsThese platforms allow you to create connections with your customers primarily for thepurpose of scaling support and product feedback. You can choose this type of platformif your community is tied into either support or product departments.



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We’ll review: - Get Satisfaction- Uservoice- Zendesk Communities

Group PlatformsGroup platforms are bent toward action, collaboration, and participation. They oftenhave less structure than a forum, but the content isn’t buried under hierarchies of topics.Go with this type of platform if you want your community to create things together anddo more offline, rather than just answer one another’s questions or talk about a topic ofinterest.

We’ll review: - CMNTY- GroupAhead- Mightybell

- Muut- Ning- Small World Labs- Switchboard

Content Management SystemsThese are wide-ranging platforms that work as standalone solutions or create socialexperiences within existing sites. We call them content management systems because,like Drupal, they allow you to manage user-generated content through plugins.

This is an all-encompassing experience, and generally works best when an entirecompany is plugged into the community and its user-generated actions.

We’ll review: - Drupal- Evoq by DNN- Higher Logic- Pluck- SocialGo- Socious- Telescope.io

Community Relationship ManagementThese platforms are all about developing and deepening relationships between andwithin communities. They differ from groups slightly, in that they are more about buildingrelationships that create actions from member to member and from member to leader.

We’ll review:



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- FUEL by Passenger- Mobilize- NationBuilder- SocialEngine

Internal CommunityThese are all tools for creating community within your company. As we know, everycompany has a culture. This is how you can strengthen yours. Many of these tools arebeing used now for small, tight-knit external communities too, so don’t count them out.

We’ll review: - Hipchat- Honey- Igloo- Salesforce Chatter

- Slack- Yammer

Community Platforms That Exist on Outside Platforms(“Unowned Communities”)We said we wouldn’t review any unowned platforms, but we promised to cover thosethat will matter to you and your work.

Any of these are great starting points. But in most cases, you want to ensure that you’renot sending your product’s users to a third-party site and making them leave yours.

There are two exceptions:1) It doesn’t matter that they leave as part of their customer journey (i.e. For

example, Udemy instructors’ work is done outside the platform as they createindependent courses. They can connect on Facebook Groups with noconsequence to Udemy; however, if your community is meant to buy/sell in yourmarketplace, sending them elsewhere to gather would take them out of yourcustomer journey and into an unowned, third-party experience.

2) You are testing product-community fit. These solutions are low-cost and goodindicators of whether or not you should invest in a platform.

Patrick O’Keefe agrees: “With some of [these] platforms… you don't have

the ability to take your community with you. You are locked into the platform. I think you should think long and hard about what that means. I'mnot saying that you shouldn't use Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, but Ibelieve you have to be careful to not place all of your eggs in someoneelse's basket.”



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The value of these platforms is that people have already built a habit of going there, sobuilding initial engagement is easier. The downside is it’s off your site, off brand and youdon’t own the data.

Before picking one of these unowned platforms to run with, poll your existing users to

see where they want to hang out. It’s always a good idea to get community buy-in.

We’ll review: - Facebook Groups- G+ Communities- LinkedIn Groups- Meetup- reddit- Stack Exchange



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In-Depth Analysis of All Platforms

Are you ready? Let’s dig in.

Forums

BbPressThis is the go-to for forums inside of WordPress, which many use as they get startedwith their own small-business forums. Bbpress lets you build the forums, and by addingother plugins, you can build an entire community on your WordPress site.

Bbpress allows you to include forums in your existing website without changing yourdefault theme style. You can play around with different plugins and customize the lookand feel. It’s super easy to set up and use, and it’s embraced by well-known companieslike Dropbox.

Defined Focus Wordpress-integrated forums for free

In Action



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Detailed Breakdown of Bbpress’s Features

Cost FREE. It’s an open-source plugin.

Setup Time A few minutes (but you need to have aWordPress site already)

Hosted? Self-hosted on your WordPress site

Mobile Not optimized

Key Features Ease of use, with a super simple forum-like look and feel. Additional plugins addmore features.

Key Missing Features Not mobile-optimized

Privacy? Can be made invisible to non-members

Ideal Community Size? Small because moderation queue couldquickly become unwieldy

Examples Dropbox Forums, Wp Candy

DiscourseDiscourse is designed to take forums into the 21st century, facilitating discussion andnew kinds of engagement outside the basic post counts that old-school forums give you.

It’s sleek, open-source, user-friendly, and clean.

High priorities for Discourse are trust and moderation. What might be its killer feature isthe built-in community trust system that “lets communities become self-governing andprovides a natural immune system from trolls, spammers, and bad actors.” It’s a bigvisual change from forums of the past, but if you can get past all that white space andcolor-coded topic areas, this is a strong contender for any type of community.

It’s well-suited to large and small communities and is used by large and small brands,including Boing Boing, HBO, New Relic, and Twitter.

"We want to be the WordPress of forums," says founder Jeff Atwood.

Defined Focus A clean-looking take on old-school forums, with an emphasis on powerful moderationand reputation systems.

Good Reads https://www.ostraining.com/blog/general/discourse/

https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/communities/public/questions

http://wpcandy.com/discussions/

https://www.ostraining.com/blog/general/discourse/

https://www.ostraining.com/blog/general/discourse/

http://wpcandy.com/discussions/

https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/communities/public/questions



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http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?76770-What-if-Quarter-to-Three-switched-from-vBulletin-to-Discourse

In Action As you see, each person’s avatar in a Discourse forum is displayed if they’ve

commented, almost like a Twitter display of @mentions. There’s an overall feed thatincludes color-coded topic labels next to each thread. It has a friendly, updated look andfeel with flat discussion in each thread.

Detailed Breakdown of Discourse’s Features

Cost Free if self-hosted, otherwise $100-

$1000/month (depending on size ofcommunity)

Setup Time 30 minutes if you pay to have them set itup for you, months if customized

Hosted? Both options are available

Mobile Mobile-friendly, but they support only thenewest devices like iPhone 6

Key Features Open-source, highly-customizable,

advanced-karma system that incentivizesall kinds of contributions (not just posting).Extremely focused on crowdsourcedmoderation.Minimalized design, simple UI. Readmore here.

Key Missing Features They only support the newest devices.




http://v1.discourse.org/about/








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Lack of robust metrics, no built-in CMS.Installation and maintenance isn’t easy.The settings are professional-grade soare made for large communities.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Unlimited: large or small work well

Examples Boing Boing, Cisco, GitHub, HBO, Sitepoint, Twitter

Testimonials “We started our Estimote Community platform on Zendesk, whichproved a big mistake. Zendesk's community tool pretty muchturned our forums/knowledge base hybrid into just another tech

support channel. At some point, we decided to move forums toDiscourse (Knowledge Base stayed on Zendesk for the timebeing), and it worked well for us. Basically, from day one, we'veseen bigger traction and more interactions between users: not justbetween users and our community managers. Also, it'scustomizable without technical knowledge, and super-flexiblethanks to the API if you have a web developer on hand.”--Wojciech Borowicz,Community @ Estimote

“I successfully migrated the SitePoint community off vBulletin ontoDiscourse last year. We moved ~280K active member accounts

and five years’ worth of posts–-no mean feat. Because SitePointis a hybrid community of interest/practice focusing on webdevelopment, we wanted something bleeding-edge, andDiscourse fit the bill. If I had to pick one platform weakness thatfrustrates me the most, it is the lack of good metrics/analytics;however, they are currently working on that side of things, sowatch this space. The migration was complicated, but theoutcomes were incredibly positive and community health andengagement statistics continue to rise six months on. I’m a hugefan, and am now working to migrate the Feverbee community onto Discourse as well.”--Sarah Hawk, Community @ Feverbee

IP (Invision Power) BoardsWe noticed a lot of vBulletin users have migrated to this system, so we set out to findout why.

IP Boards offers IP Blogs, IP Content, IP Gallery, and other community-centricsubproducts. We’ll talk mainly about the forums in the breakdown, but keep in mind you

http://bbs.boingboing.net/

http://community.dev-innovate.com/

https://discuss.atom.io/

https://discourse.hurley.hbo.com/login





https://discourse.hurley.hbo.com/login



http://bbs.boingboing.net/



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can do more with IP Boards than just create forums. We address this in the detailedbreakdown.

Of all the flat forum software we’ve come across that’s still solidly grounded in themessage-board world, this is the most modern-looking. The Baltimore Ravens,

Evernote, and NASA seem to agree.

Defined Focus Community packages tailor-made for your customers.

In ActionHere, you see IPBoards simple look and feel – all the familiar forums you’ve come toexpect with a modern, but still old school, sensibility.

Detailed Breakdown of IP Boards’ Features

Cost $20/mo for 25 simultaneous users, andup from there to $590 for 750 users

Setup Time A few hours to a few weeks

Hosted? Both self-hosted and hosted optionsavailable

Mobile Mobile-responsive

Key Features Polls, social sign-on, automatic video andimage detection, points, easy tocustomize and beautify (hard to findamong forum software platforms). For aprice, can be integrated with your site



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sign-on.

Key Missing Features @replying

Privacy? Optional

Ideal Community Size? Small and large because it can quickly beset up in the cloud or expanded for a cost

Examples https://discussion.evernote.com/, http://boards.baltimoreravens.com/

Testimonial"I've been part of a French gaming guild since 1999(http://www.lesnomades.fr) and we've been running ourown community with IP Board for a few years now.

We picked IPB simply for its track record of stability andupdates. We narrowed down our choice to two platforms.vBulletin 4.x was the other obvious one, but we ended upgiving a chance to IPB as we wanted something abit different but still with all major forum features.

It comes with everything we need: a structure for ourforums, permission-based roles, user titles, moderation tools, sidebar with widgets,polls, search, quick reply, shoutbox and CMS for the most important ones. My favoritefeature overall is the way the latest unread message system is done, I actually made it

one of my bookmarks directly so anytime I go to our community, I can see whathappened since I last logged in.

In term of modules, we are also using the portal (IP Content) to run our site. It facilitatesmembers to write their own blogs and we can easily push them live as everything usesthe same account.

While IPB is not my favorite professional forum software, it is an amazinghobby community platform. Anytime I'm being asked, I tend to mention it.” – AurelienPoma, Head of Platform @ Standing on Giants

MyBBMyBB is a free, open-source, community-based, forum software project run by MyBBGroup--volunteers from all over the world. Even though MyBB has been around for awhile, it continues to become more and more popular, mostly for three of its qualities:simplicity, an extensive administration panel and a powerful plugin system. Through

https://discussion.evernote.com/

http://boards.baltimoreravens.com/


http://www.lesnomades.fr/

http://www.lesnomades.fr/


https://discussion.evernote.com/



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plugins and themes, you can extend MyBB's functionality to build your communityexactly as you'd like it.

MyBB's Merge System allows you to easily convert from popular forum software ifyou’re switching platforms. It’s available in English and other language packages

available.

Please note that the team is currently developing MyBB 2.0. Watch this space forupdates.

Defined Focus Forum software that’s open-source and customizable.

In ActionMyBB forums have all the features you’d expect from a forum—as long as you have thetechnical know-how to set them up.

Detailed Breakdown of MyBB’s Features

Cost Free

Setup Time Minutes

Hosted? No


Key Features Easy conversion from other platforms.Constantly updated. Moderation tools,

http://community.mybb.com/mods.php?action=browse&category=plugins

http://community.mybb.com/mods.php?action=browse&category=themes

http://community.mybb.com/mods.php?action=browse&category=themes

http://community.mybb.com/mods.php?action=browse&category=plugins



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theme editor, calendars, simplegamification, newsletters, privatemessaging. Traditional forum look andfeel and features – nothing fancy here.

Key Missing Features Updated look and feel

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small to Large

Examples MySkins.org, The Horror Forums (mostlysmall niche communities)

Testimonial“I used MyBB for a community of about 20,000 members. It’s good

for large communities, has strong moderation tools, and [makes it]easy to create subgroups. Unfortunately, it’s becoming very datedin terms of design and look and feel. It’s hard to customize, notmobile-friendly, and the analytics are poor.”--Jessica Malnik, Social@ BigCommerce, Blogger @ blog.jessicamalnik.com

Curious about managing these non-mobileforums from your phone? There’s a new resource:Check out ForumRunner, which works for vBulletin, XenForo, myBB, and phpBBforum. It’s free, which makes it a good option to try.

NodeBbNodeBb is a community forum platform that takes advantage of recent trends in webdevelopment to deliver a modern, mobile-responsive option. It’s a bit more up-to-datethan its competitors.

Node is open-source and free, but also has paid options for those who don’t have thetechnical knowledge to run the forums themselves. It has tons of plugins and is easy touse. NodeBb has built-in multilingual support to provide a localized user interface aswell, which is important for communities that are global in nature.

Defined Focus Open-source forum option with plugins and multilanguage support.

In ActionHere, you can see Node’s updated interface, looking like a Pinterest board of updatesand posts.

http://www.forumrunner.net/





27

Good Read https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nodebb-inc

Detailed Breakdown of NodeBb’s features

Cost Free for self-hosted; $35-$100/mo forpaid options

Setup Time Days to weeks

Hosted? Both self-hosted and non-self-hostedoptions are available

Mobile Mobile optimized

Key Features Single sign-on, internationalization,updated look and feel, mobile-responsivesocial integration

Key Missing Features No mobile app. It isn’t easy to set up or

customize without technical know-how,but for a fee they’ll set it up for you.

Privacy? Optional

Ideal Community Size? Small to large

Example https://community.nodebb.org

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nodebb-inc


https://community.nodebb.org/category/10/nodebb-themes






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phpBBphpBB is a free and open-source bulletin board that allows you to create forums andsubforums. It comes with lots of features while still being efficient and easy to use. Withover 25 million installations around the world and tons of volunteer contributors, this is amajor player in the community platform field. It requires technical knowledge.

Defined Focus Free and open-source forums

Good Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhpBB

In Action This is a snapshot of the ars technica phpBB forums. Nothin’ fancy, but they do the job.

Detailed Breakdown of phpBB’s Features

Cost Free

Setup Time A few hours to a few weeks

Hosted? Hosted


Key Features Open source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhpBB





29

Key Missing Features Mobile optimization

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Both small and large

Examples Adblock, citiesX, http://arstechnica.com/civis/, Rubechat

Testimonials“I used phpBB back in the days when I was an active participantof several fandom communities, not actually working as acommunity manager. Really liked it back then (by back then, Imean 2005-2008 or so, it was hugely popular in Poland). It had amassive community itself, so there were a lot of plugins, making iteasily customizable even without any technical expertise.

Managing it was also straightforward, which was awesome. And itwas free. Actually, phpBB made it possible for so many onlinecommunities to appear and grow organically that it made history,but that's it. It has been replaced by Discourse, which seems light-years ahead now.”--Wojciech Borowicz, Community @ Estimote

“I think that phpBB gets a bad rap. It has probably powered moreonline communities than any other software… At the moment, Iuse an old version of phpBB to power KarateForums.com andPhotoshopForums.com. I've also used it on other communities inthe past. In total, the communities I have used it on total more than

one million posts, 170,000 threads and 90,000 registeredmembers. phpBB isn't a bad user experience. The traditionalforums format is one that is very familiar and comfortable to a lot ofpeople. Some of the more recent entries in the field have a user experience that a lot ofpeople are not a fan of. Because of their long-running popularity, phpBB has a prettyhealthy ecosystem around it of developers who can create add-ons and extensions. Nosoftware will give you everything that you need, so I do think the ecosystem that existsaround the software should also be considered. This isn't to say that I would necessarilyuse phpBB if I were starting a community today--but I also wouldn't cast it aside likemany do, in favor of seemingly shinier options that have issues of their own.”--PatrickO’Keefe, ManagingCommunities.com

Vanilla forumsVanilla forums are so called because they’re like vanilla ice cream--you can add allkinds of toppings and customize to fit your needs. The setup is super simple, and it’seasy to add features as you go. If you want to customize anything, you’ve got to knowsome HTML and CSS, so keep that in mind.

https://adblockplus.org/forum/

http://forum.citiesxl.com/

http://rubechat.kfan.com/

http://rubechat.kfan.com/

http://forum.citiesxl.com/

https://adblockplus.org/forum/



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If you don’t have coding knowledge, they offer theme services and migrations from mostmajor platforms and free upgrades from the self-hosted product. But keep in mind thatall of that costs extra money. You’ll have to go back and forth on getting a proposal andstarting to build your forums’ look and feel.

Defined Focus Traditional forums that are customizable

Good Read http://vanillaforums.com/resources/case-studies

In ActionThe Sims uses Vanilla Forums to engage their player community. People share Simsstories, tips, and more.

Detailed Breakdown of Vanilla Forums’ Features

Cost $99-$3499

Setup Time Five minutes to get the basics going, afew hours to get the design set andfeatures customized

Hosted? Yes. Self-hosted, open-source versionavailable.

Mobile No app, renders in mobile browser, web-based

Key Features Gamification (Badges and Reactions),Single Sign-On, Custom Theme (Skin),

http://vanillaforums.com/resources/case-studies





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Social Connect, SPAM Filtering, multi-forum management, sentiment analytics.Integrates with GitHub, MailChimp,Salesforce, WordPress, Zendesk andothers.

Key Missing Features Web-based only, expensive for smallcommunities

Privacy? Yes, password-protection is possible.

Ideal Community Size? Small to large. Keep in mind the cost isdetermined by number of staffusers/pageviews. Costs could quicklyescalate for high-traffic communities.

Examples Adobe, EA, Edmunds, FourSquare,

Harvard University, Hubspot, Yahoo!

Testimonial“I've used Vanilla Forums in three ways: a Q&A "Quora style"forum, a traditional forum, and more recently, a commentingsystem. Right now, I'm working with a network of 34 healthcondition communities that are all formed around content byothers living with their condition. Vanilla allows us to integratewith WordPress so that whenever someone comments on anarticle, it creates a thread in the forums. This way, alldiscussion from the articles is in one central place along withany custom conversations from the community that are notarticle based.” – Sherrie Rohde, Community @ Rebellion Media

vBulletinThis is a good old standby with a few modern options. vBulletin has the option ofrunning a cloud forum, which means it hosts for you and does the upkeep rather thanmaking you host the forums yourself.

vBulletin is intended for a wide variety of users: freelancers, large enterprises, midsize

businesses, nonprofits, public administrations, and small businesses. Unfortunately, itswide appeal makes it miss key features for specific users. It’s not for newbies: setup,customization and maintenance are pretty advanced.

Defined Focus Advanced, enterprise-focused forums for large communities

Good Reads



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https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.vbulletin.comhttp://www.technobezz.com/moved-vbulletin-phpbb-xenforo/

In Action Here’s a thread from the vBulletin community. As you see, it’s old school but very

familiar for those who’ve used forums in the past.

Detailed Breakdown of vBulletin’s Features

Cost $19.95/mo for cloud version, $249 one-time fee for vBulletin 5 Connect, or $399for vBulletin 5 + Mobile, with many add-ons for each including support ticketfunctionality. All cost money.

Setup Time A few hours

Hosted? Both self-hosted and hosted options areavailable

Mobile VBulletin 5 includes option for mobileapps ($399)

Key Features Avatars, badging, private messaging,WYSIWYG editor

Key Missing Features @replies, dynamic gamificationVery expensive, withno refunds if not working

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.vbulletin.com

http://www.technobezz.com/moved-vbulletin-phpbb-xenforo/

http://www.technobezz.com/moved-vbulletin-phpbb-xenforo/

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.vbulletin.com



33

Privacy? Optional

Ideal Community Size? Small and large because it can quickly beset up in the cloud or expanded for a cost

Examples EA, NASA, Zynga

Testimonial “I have managed both large, established and brand newcommunities on vBulletin (both Cloud and self-hosted) and myexperience hasn’t been good. I currently run a 500 memberstrong UX community of practice on vB Cloud, and the platformis buggy and cumbersome. Settings are buried, reporting isalmost non-existent and features are slow to reach core. Prior tothat I ran a huge tech community on a self-hosted instance,which became so weighed down with plugins (necessary for

basic functionality) that upgrading became impossible. I’mmigrating everything off vB and my advice to others is Run! Runfor the hills!”--Sarah Hawk, Community @ Feverbee

XenforoXenforo is an old-school solution with modern updates. These are self-hosted forumsthat you can integrate into your own site experience. Xenforo is a powerful systemproviding personalization and customization at a high level. You don’t need coding skillsto make it work. It’s pretty straightforward and easy to learn and maintain. Xenforooffers the ability to integrate your Facebook Page with the forum itself, which can help

generate more traffic to the forum.

Defined Focus A highly customizable and secure non-techie-friendly forum solution.

Good Reads https://theadminzone.com/threads/my-xenforo-review-for-2014.116482/http://blinklist.com/reviews/xenforo

In Action This is a snapshot of Xenforo in action in a rehabilitation community. As you can see,

there are traditional threads with post counts and categories, as well as more updatedfeatures like social logins and customizable banners and sidebars. It blends fresh andtraditional elements.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/3685377.page

http://www.nasa.gov/index.html#.VNax-VOG9sk

http://www.zyngaplayerforums.com/


https://theadminzone.com/threads/my-xenforo-review-for-2014.116482/

http://blinklist.com/reviews/xenforo

http://blinklist.com/reviews/xenforo

https://theadminzone.com/threads/my-xenforo-review-for-2014.116482/


http://www.nasa.gov/index.html#.VNax-VOG9sk

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/3685377.page



34

Detailed Breakdown of Xenforo’s Features

Cost $140 plus extras including backend dataanalysis, media galleries, and brandingremoval

Setup Time With engineering know-how, 15 minutes.Up to a few weeks with customizations.

Hosted? Self-hosted only


Key Features Highly customizable, built-in badges,email setup, login with Facebook orTwitter, profiles, replies in threads, SEO,WYSIWYG editor web-based.

Key Missing Features No @replying

Privacy? Yes, option for private forums

Ideal Community Size? Large communities. Installation andcustomization can take a while, so it’s notworth the effort just to try out a new



35

community concept.

Example talk.drugabuse.com

Testimonial

“We couldn't be happier with Xenforo overall. Our communityrequired a great deal of front-end customization and Xenforomade this possible without sacrificing the integrity or securityof the platform. Setting up and managing our forums wassimple, but this simplicity does not reduce the powerfulbackend capabilities in this platform. The reporting andbackend functionality is incredibly strong and managing usersis very straightforward. As with any forums, spam is always anissue. We effectively used both StopForumSpam and Akismetintegrations, which were easy to configure, and these controlshave dramatically reduced our forum spam and abuse. The messaging feature and

activity feed allow you to fully customize Xenforo into a true social experience akin toFacebook. The thing our users probably like most about Xenforo is its ability to create aclean, more progressive user experience than some of the older, more archaic bulletinboard platforms. I would highly recommend Xenforo to host your forums, although you'lldefinitely benefit from having a developer who has strong PHP and CSS skills.”--JosephCervantes, Community @ Rehabs.com

http://talk.drugabuse.com/

http://talk.drugabuse.com/



36

Enterprise Software

JiveXJivex is a cloud-based, powerful, complex external community platform with built-ingamification, CRM, and marketing automation as well as Twitter and Facebook

integrations. This is a big investment for big communities. Jive is also one of the fewplatforms optimized for mobile.

Defined Focus Retention and engagement, mobile optimization

Good Reads http://technologyadvice.com/products/jivex-jive-software-reviews/http://investors.jivesoftware.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=799305http://www.socialedgeconsulting.com/2014/09/the-x-factor-behind-implementing-a-successful-jivex-community/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJBjvWnaCd8

In ActionCisco uses JiveX to enable a community-powered support process. As you can see, theplatform allows you to put social buttons, leaderboards, and groups front and center.

Detailed Breakdown of JiveX’s Features

Cost Note: All Enterprise systems cost for license + technicalimplementation

http://technologyadvice.com/products/jivex-jive-software-reviews/

http://investors.jivesoftware.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=799305

http://www.socialedgeconsulting.com/2014/09/the-x-factor-behind-implementing-a-successful-jivex-community/






http://investors.jivesoftware.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=799305

http://technologyadvice.com/products/jivex-jive-software-reviews/



37

Several inside sources share that prices vary anywhere from$50,000-$100,000 out of box (for cloud—onsite implementationwill cost you much more but will be totally customized), butsubscription model starts in blocks around $12/user/month. Jivecharges based on pageviews and charges for those in blocks.

Implementation will cost another $10,000-$15,000, depending oncommunity size

Setup Time Weeks to months, depending on levels of customization desired

Hosted? Hosted and self-hosted options

Mobile Blackberry, iPad, iPhone, Mac, RIM-web-based, WindowsPhone

Key Features Integrated gamification elements, reward store for giving

incentives to top contributors, CRM & Marketing automation,built-in SEO, Facebook and Twitter integration, deviceoptimization, analytics.

Key MissingFeatures

Limited inter-team communication in the backend

Privacy? Yes

Ideal CommunitySize?

Small to large

Examples Cisco, HP, Sidecar, T-Mobile, Vodafone

Testimonial“I used Jive for the Cisco Learning Network, which launchedin June 2008. We started from zero and grew the communityto somewhere around 500,000 registered users during mytime on the team. The feature set for community engagementmechanisms is rich, but there were no content managementfeatures in terms of scheduling refresh of material, a way forteams to request approval on new content, etc. Ours was a

highly customized community and Cisco worked with a thirdparty solution development company to build out functionalityto widgets and customize aspects of the social groups feature.Jive developed some of its current widgets and features from having worked with ourteam. Finding quantitative metrics for moderation and detailed metrics on activity forspecific pages had to be done separately using Google Analytics. Reporting capabilitieswere also minimal.”--Rachel Medanic, Community and Content Expert @Communituity.com



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LithiumLithium is a robust solution that many large companies use to power their power user,support, and community engagement strategies.

According to Sidecar Head of Community Maria Ogneva, “While a gold standard in

communities with a pedigreed track record and market reputation, Lithium can becomplex and pricey to set up and maintain. It’s a powerful product with features thathave been honed over the years, but the level of customization necessary to stand it upand maintain wasn’t right for us at this time (again, a team of engineers behind youwould be helpful if using Lithium). At the time of our platform selection, Lithium was stilllargely web-centric vs. mobile-first in its approach, and the mobile experience, whichwas our major sticking point, was weaker here than in other platforms.”

Defined Focus Workflow integration with other products

Good Reads https://www.trustradius.com/guides/social-media-management/2015/review-lithium-social-webhttp://social-media-monitoring-review.toptenreviews.com/lithium-social-media-monitoring-review.html

In ActionSpotify uses Lithium forums to incentivize their top members to help others through thesupport process, fuel music discussions, beta test new features, recognize their mostactive contributors, and post community-centric blogs.

Detailed Breakdown of Lithium’s Features

https://www.trustradius.com/guides/social-media-management/2015/review-lithium-social-web


http://social-media-monitoring-review.toptenreviews.com/lithium-social-media-monitoring-review.html








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Very expensive. Offered in 4 packages: Standard LithiumSocial Web, Standard and Premier Lithium Community and

Enterprise Combined Platform.

Based on tiers of number of unique visitors per month (non-crawler page views) in addition to setup costs, from $60,000-$100,000/year + an estimated $100,000 indevelopment/professional services to get you going

Implementation and customization also costs extra, as the barebones Lithium is not very attractive, so expect another couplethousand in customization costs.

Setup Time Months (sales calls to customizations to launch)

Hosted? Only Lithium-hosted


Key Features Ability to bubble up great content, knowledge base powered bycommunity, crowd-sourced content support, integratedcommunity product reviews, contest support, customer tocustomer tech support via Q+A, built-in SEO, powerfulanalytics, gamification tools like badges and leaderboards.

Key MissingFeatures

Integrations with other tools could be improved, includingonline chat tools and Lithium Community. Also, users wouldlike to see integration with additional social channels such asInstagram and Reddit.

Privacy? Yes


Medium to Large

Examples AT&T, Autodesk, Barclaycard, eBay, Sephora, Skype, Spotify

Salesforce CommunityThese are community platforms that exist in the cloud and plug in with the entireSalesforce suite.

Maria Ogneva shares, “Salesforce Communities is a solid option with a pedigree incustomer experience and worker productivity, and it has a whole suite of leading

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/autodesk

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/barclaycard

http://community.ebay.com/

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/sephora

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/skype

http://cmxhub.com/ultimate-guide-choosing-right-platform-community/www.salesforce.com/communities/overview/

http://cmxhub.com/ultimate-guide-choosing-right-platform-community/www.salesforce.com/communities/overview/

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/skype

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/sephora

http://community.ebay.com/

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/barclaycard

http://www.lithium.com/why-lithium/customer-success/autodesk



40

technologies built on the Salesforce platform. Similar to Lithium, it’s pretty complex (andexpensive) to set up and customize. Salesforce Communities is a powerful platform forpartner engagement and for anything that relies on Salesforce products.”

For some, Salesforce Communities can be a bit too powerful, especially if you’re just

starting out.

If you do decide to use the platform, Salesforce Community Templates make it easier toget setup quickly from scratch. These templates use responsive design, and they alsoallow discussions and articles to be organized by topics so they’re easily searchable.Currently, they offer three options. If your community needs more customizedtemplates, you can do that with Community Builder.

The Salesforce Community Templates integrate with the rest of the Salesforce suite,and there’s no need for programming skills to get started.

Defined Focus Customers who use Salesforce for other functions in their business and want to tie theircommunity activity back into sales goals.

Good Reads https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=networks_overview.htm&language=en_ UShttps://help.salesforce.com/help/pdfs/en/salesforce_communities_implementation.pdf

In ActionSalesforce Communities gives you powerful analytics both in the desktop and mobileapps. It integrates well with sales/marketing teams.

https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=networks_overview.htm&language=en_US


https://help.salesforce.com/help/pdfs/en/salesforce_communities_implementation.pdf

https://help.salesforce.com/help/pdfs/en/salesforce_communities_implementation.pdf





41

Detailed Breakdown of Salesforce Community’s Features


Our several inside sources share ranges anywhere from$80,000-$200,000 for large communities of users.

Setup Time Weeks to months (depending on customizations)

Hosted? No self-hosting available

Mobile Yes

Key Features Attachable files, badges, business integration for CS andsales, endorsements, rich profiles, sleek interface.

Key Missing Features Hard to track individual member engagement, reports areadaptable but not user-friendly. Must have a tech team tohelp implement.

Privacy? Yes


Large

Examples GE, Virgin



42

Testimonial“We used Salesforce for hosting our online community forthe employees of Certified B Corporations (we’re a non-profit). The prepopulated Salesforce Reports are not veryhelpful or intuitive when you are trying to track individual

users. With a fair amount of time and energy, we were ableto adapt them to report what we would like them to show.

“Our company, B Lab, is 40 team members but we are usingSalesforce Communities to ideally reach several thousandemployees of Certified B Corporations from around theworld. The major plus is that they’re built on Salesforce, which is our main database anddriving force of our organization to manage the Certified B Corporation community. Themajor minus is that Salesforce Communities (Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce pages)requires a lot of customization which requires a lot of time and energy from our techteam. I do recommend it, but also caution [about] the amount of time it may take from

the tech team building the platform.” -- Sarah Haggarty, Community @ B Lab

Standing on Giants PlatformThis is a brand new platform that just launched (you heard it here first!).

The Standing on Giants platform was created because the team knows that ITenvironments can be very complex, with many legacy systems, long-term roadmaps,and inflexible solutions.

They designed their platform to be easy to set up, integrate, and customize to reflect alarge company’s changing needs.

Defined Focus

An enterprise-level platform at a more affordable price, created by a team of communitymanagers.

In ActionThe Standing on Giants platform is fully customizable with your branding, so eachplatform will look different. Here, you see main discussion boards, widgets, and memberleaderboards.



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Detailed Breakdown of SOG Platform’s Features

Cost Depends on the size of the communityand the features required. It can go fromten of thousands to hundreds ofthousands of dollars (PRO TIP: in privatecomparisons, they’re the most affordableof these enterprise options).

Setup Time 8 to 12 weeks from the moment youagree on final scope to the actual launchof the community. This timeframe is for afully tailored community includingbranding.

Hosted? SOG-hosted



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Mobile Responsive design with the option to runa separate mobile version if required aswell as integration with the Tapatalk app.

Key Features Four main feature modules: advanced

forum, knowledge base, ideas exchange,company blog and users blogs. Inside ofthese, there are features, which include:gamification, analytics, SEOconfiguration, social media integration,Q&A, hashtags and @mentions, verifiedanswers, thumbs up and down, privatemessaging, profiles, search, sidebars andwidgets.

Key Missing Features ROI calculation, REST-API, call center

integration (all coming soon)Privacy? Yes


Examples http://forum.vivo.com.br http://comunidad.movistar.com.ar

Zimbra

Zimbra places a huge emphasis on privacy, design, and content sharing. It’s a sleekplatform with a ton of room for customization. It’s definitely more focused on feedback,customer support, and social than some of the other platforms, but it also plugs intoother programs to be pretty robust.

Focus Sharing and collaborating on content in a private and beautiful way.

Good Reads http://searchconsumerization.techtarget.com/definition/Zimbrahttp://www.getapp.com/collaboration-software/a/zimbra-collaboration-suite/

https://files.zimbra.com/website/docs/Zimbra%20Collaboration%20Product%20Overview.pdf

In ActionZimbra’s clean interface is great for creative collaboration communities and those whowish to focus on their members. Profile pages are front and center.

http://forum.vivo.com.br/


http://comunidad.movistar.com.ar/


http://searchconsumerization.techtarget.com/definition/Zimbra


http://www.getapp.com/collaboration-software/a/zimbra-collaboration-suite/





http://www.getapp.com/collaboration-software/a/zimbra-collaboration-suite/







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Detailed Breakdown of Zimbra’s Features

Cost Freemium and subscription mode. PricingN/A on their webpage.

Setup Time Hours to days

Hosted? No self-hosted option

Mobile Yes, synchronized but web-based

Key Features Integration with powerful third-party toolsand applications (blogs, calendars, email,wikis, video embedding, etc.).Can also work for blogs, internal teams,photo galleries, and Q&A.Built with Big Data in mind, Zimbra

Analytics has been designed to make iteasy to integrate with businessintelligence systems.

Key Missing Features Zimbra focuses heavily on email and theirintegration on that front, so development

on the community platform is slow andthe UI is dated.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Large

Examples Cadbury, Comcast, Dell, H&R Block,



46

Investec, Mozilla, NTT Communications,Rackspace, Red Hat, VMware, andVodafone.



47

Community Feedback + Support Platforms

Get SatisfactionGet Satisfaction is cloud collaboration software and has been building customer

community software for over 10 years. It’s one of the standard solutions that manystartups use when looking to solve both community and customer support issues.

You can utilize Get Satisfaction (lovingly referred to in the industry as GetSat) for arange of priorities: product feedback and brainstorming, celebrating customers, Q&A,customer service, content curation, event scheduling

Defined Focus Customer service-related community

Good Read

https://getsatisfaction.com/corp/resource-center/case_studies/bluenose.php

In Action

Detailed Breakdown of Get Satisfaction’s Features

Cost Starts at $1200/month



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Setup Time Minutes to hours


Mobile iPhone, iPad, Web-based

Key Features Social Knowledge base, gamificationelements, easily customizable to look likeyour home site, analytics, private notesand ability to route issues to your team,ability to filter content into categories likeideas, praise, problems, and questions.

Key Missing Features Analytics are not powerful, no customizedwidgets, hard to do much beyond productfeedback and support with GetSat.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Any size

Examples Bluenose Analytics, Prezi

UserVoiceIt only takes a few minutes to embed UserVoice, and it’s easy to use, customize andmaintain. It’s designed with customer-focused companies in mind, in that it helps youunderstand how to provide the best service for your customers through customer

satisfaction analytics, feedback forums, gaming, and support ticketing.

It’s a great tool if you’re at the early stages and want something that can scale up.

Defined Focus Early-stage product feedback and brainstorming community

Good Reads http://www.getapp.com/customer-management-software/a/uservoice-feedback-site/#q=userv&ac=listinghttps://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uservoice

In ActionThe UserVoice interface is no frills, but it’s intuitive for new users and easy to plug in.

https://community.bluenose.com/bluenose

https://getsatisfaction.com/prezi

http://www.getapp.com/customer-management-software/a/uservoice-feedback-site/#q=userv&ac=listing


https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uservoice

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uservoice



https://getsatisfaction.com/prezi

https://community.bluenose.com/bluenose



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Detailed Breakdown of UserVoice’s Features

Cost Prices range from free to $95/mo percompany user.

Setup Time Fast and easy


Mobile Android, iPad, iPhone, Mobile Web App,Web-based

Key Features Feedback, gaming, in-depth ActionableCustomer Feedback, scale support withInstant Answers™, support ticket.Embeds directly in your web or mobileapp. Knowledge based. Unique distinctionof being beneficial to both productmanagers and support managers.

Key Missing Features Central community space

Privacy? Yes


Examples Bitly, Kaboom



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Testimonial“UserVoice is not great as a standalone community. However, itperforms great as a subsection of a community when it comesto sorting feature requests. It's really easy to set-up, [it gauges]overall interest (via votes and comments), [has] decent

analytics, and integrates nicely with other web apps (such asSalesforce).”--Jessica Malnik, Social @ BigCommerce andBlogger @ blog.jessicamalnik.com/

Zendesk CommunitiesZendesk started as a purely customer service-driven solution but has made significantforays into the community space.

The primary function of the communities is to allow customers to answer each other’squestions instead of having agents answer them.

Defined Focus Streamlining customer service inquiries through communities

Good Read http://www.getapp.com/customer-management-software/a/zendesk/

In Action Zendesk is a clean knowledge base-forward platform with tons of white space.

Detailed Breakdown of Zendesk Communities’ Features

Cost Free with Zendesk account. Starter Plan:

http://www.getapp.com/customer-management-software/a/zendesk/

http://www.getapp.com/customer-management-software/a/zendesk/



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$1 per agent/month with 3 agents.Regular Plan: $25 per agent/month.Plus Plan: $59 per agent/month.Enterprise Plan: $125 per agent/month.Enterprise Elite: $195 per agent/month.

Setup Time Fast and easy

Hosted? Self-hosting not available

Mobile Android, iPad, iPhone, Linux, Mac, Open-source, RIM-BlackBerry, Web-based,Windows, Windows Phone

Key Features @mentioning, tied to CS ticketing system,upvotes, replies and comments. Endusers can answer each other’s questions.

Key Missing Features Private community section

Privacy? Not possible


Examples Airbnb, Box, Gilt Groupe, Groupon,Sears, Sony, Tumblr, Zappos

Testimonial

“I have a love/hate relationship with Zendesk as a supporttool. I hate that the web version works slow, and the spamfilter isn't all that good (suspends legit inquiries, lets thePrince of Nigeria through). The analytics are poor unless youintegrate with GoodData, etc. But apart from minorannoyances, it's an extremely powerful tool for customersupport and really flexible on top of that. It has some built-inplugins (random GIF selection from Giphy is pure gold) andexposes an API that lets you tailor it to your needs. We haveintegrated it with Trello for product feedback, with RelateIQ for passing leads to BizDevteam, and even with our own backend for managing orders. So do I sometimes want to

throw my PC out the window because of Zendesk? Yeah. Would I replace it with anyother support tool? Hell, no (the Giphy plugin <3)!

“As for their community platform, it's dreadful and we were happy to ditch it. Unlike thesupport tool, community has a very weak API and any customization is a ton of manuallabor. Plus the forums/questions UX is rather bad, too.”--Wojciech Borowicz,Community @ Estimote



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Group Platforms

CMNTYThis platform includes many features to start conversations and gather insights, such as

blogs, forums, diaries, questionnaires, and rewards. It’s an impressively customizable

interface.

CMNTY Corporation just launched CMNTY Market, which allows you to pick and

choose features in an a la carte model unique to the market. It’s white-labeled and has

an app.

Defined Focus A host of community offerings that can be plugged in a la carte, plus many features for

the qualitative researcher.

Good Readhttps://www.cmnty.com/news/2015/03/introduction-video-to-cmnty-platform/

In ActionCMNTY has a traditional blog-like look and feel, but with powerful backend analytics.

https://www.cmnty.com/news/2015/03/introduction-video-to-cmnty-platform/





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Detailed Breakdown of CMNTY’s Features

Cost A la carte

Setup Time Minutes, once you start working with the team

Hosted? Only hosted by CMNTY on Amazon AWS worldwide

Mobile-Friendly Yes

Key Features CMS and backend analysis of community metrics, challenges,

forums, blogs, profiles, member-centric approach.

Key MissingFeatures

Event calendar, upvoting.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Small to medium



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Size?

Example https://community.phonebloks.com/home

GroupAheadGroupAhead is the first mobile-first platform. It’s meant for communities that meetoffline. It is not meant for giant brands. If you’re developing a tight-knit group or a localambassador program, we highly recommend giving this a shot.

The co-founder was part of the group at Google who built Google+ Communities.

Defined Focus: For small, tightly-knit groups who want their own app.

Good Read http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/04/groupahead-gives-member-based-organizations-their-own-mobile-app/

In ActionGroupAhead is a clean mobile-only app that can be customized for your community.

https://community.phonebloks.com/home


http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/04/groupahead-gives-member-based-organizations-their-own-mobile-app/








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Detailed Breakdown of GroupAhead’s Features

Cost Currently free

Setup Time A few days. You email a request, and the team sets upyour app.

Hosted? Hosted by GroupAhead on mobile

Mobile-Friendly Yes (mobile only)

Key Features Discussion feed, events, and photo feed. Access to emailsof all members. No need for technical know-how. Pushnotifications.

Key Missing Features No desktop component. No ability to customize (yet).

Privacy? Only private

Ideal Community Size? Small

Examples SF Front Runners, rowing clubs



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Hoop.la Hoop.la is one of the most feature-rich platforms we’ve seen, and it could work for largeenterprises or small startups. It includes separate areas for forums, a calendar, chatrooms, clips (where you can share collections of content), blogs, surveys, a separatecustomer support portal, the ability to feature content, and feature-rich profiles for your

members.

If you don’t use all the features, you can turn them off--but you’ll still pay for them.

Defined Focus A dynamic fanbase site that allows you to customize a package.

In ActionHere you see Hoop.la’s many areas for creating and curating community content. Userscan create blog posts that cascade as a feed, and they can create activity streams,featured photo galleries, forum feeds, and subgroups.

Detailed Breakdown of Hoop.la’s Features

Cost $399/month for 20,000 members, $999/mo for largercommunities. For a more scaled-down version, seeUbb Forums, starting at $359/mo.


Hosted? Hosted

http://www.hoop.la/

http://www.hoop.la/



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Mobile Mobile-friendly interface, with full responsive designscheduled for Q2 2015

Key Features Multi-author blogging and collections, advancedreporting (community health report), forums

(powered by UBB Forum), premium memberships,chat events and chatrooms, email and system alertnotifications, groups, custom themes and design(graphic design costs more), calendar events,access custom CSS, surveys, custom pages, fileupload (photos, video, files), single sign-on (withFacebook, Foursquare, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, orYouTube), robust member profiles, memberleaderboard, API.

Key Missing Features Design is a bit dated and setting up all the areas can

be cumbersome for a smaller community.Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Medium to large, because features are too rich for acommunity that’s just forming

Examples HarperCollins, Runner’s World Magazine, and TimeWarner Cable Business Class

MightybellMightybell is geared toward professional networking and communities. The design sets

it a tier above the rest, though many of the details of the feed and content sharingcapabilities are still being worked out. It launched out of Levo League (Lean In’scommunity) and has since expanded to Skillcrush, Intuit, and others.

Mightybell is good for organizing small groups around projects and discussions. It wasbuilt to give people the opportunity to learn something new every day with people whoshare the same goals and interest.

A Mightybell Circle can be either public or private. Circles can live within a MightybellCommunity or exist independently.

Defined Focus Professional community platform with evolving features and clean design.

Good Reads http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/mightybell-now-tolls-for-all/http://www.businessinsider.com/gina-bianchini-Facebook-mightybell-2014-4

In Action

http://skillcrush.com/

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/mightybell-now-tolls-for-all/

http://www.businessinsider.com/gina-bianchini-facebook-mightybell-2014-4

http://www.businessinsider.com/gina-bianchini-facebook-mightybell-2014-4

http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/mightybell-now-tolls-for-all/

http://skillcrush.com/



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Mightybell’s design has a ton of white space and therefore looks very clean. Membershave their own profiles (which can be sorted by top contributors, geography, and lengthof membership. People are grouped into “circles” (subcommunities).

Detailed Breakdown of Mightybell’s Features

Cost Free up to a certain amount of members

(pricing is still TBD, so you must workwith the Mightybell team on a one-on-onebasis).

Setup Time About an hour



Key Features Beautiful design, clean look and feel,profiles, topic pages, Google Hangout

integration, calendar of events,collaborative project areas, branched-offsubcommunities (called Circles)

Key Missing Features Ability to white-label the group, ability tosearch and filter conversations easily,“circles” are not very intuitive from a



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community standpoint.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small to medium—otherwise, content and

feed become cumbersome to follow

Examples Intuit: How to Be Self-Employed, Skillcrush

MuutMuut has a clear stance on communities: “Content is everything.”

It touts the “world’s smallest forums.” That means they’re light and fast and easy toenable. Many users plug these design-friendly forums into their Squarespace sites,

since both sites are aligned toward design-first thinking. They don’t offer an incrediblyrich community experience, but they do get you going quickly.

Basically, the community is the center of your site, and people’s forum identities canfollow it throughout--on your blog, news pages, store, and so on. It also plugs intoShopify so people can leave comments and reviews on your products.

The forums are free and include unlimited traffic and users, but you have to pay if youwant to customize.

Defined Focus

Lightweight, text-focused commenting platform.

In ActionMuut’s forms are insanely clean and easy to navigate, combining the white space lookof Discourse with the more traditional-looking thread home-page layout of old-schoolforums.

https://howtobeselfemployed.com/communities/selfemployed

https://mightybell.com/communities/skillcrush

https://mightybell.com/communities/skillcrush

https://howtobeselfemployed.com/communities/selfemployed



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Detailed Breakdown of Muut’s Features

Cost Free for most small communities, more ifcustomized ($ 16, $36, $96, $486)

Setup Time Minutes

Hosted? Only Muut-hosted

Mobile Mobile responsive design and super light

Key Features Drag-and-drop visual editor means youdon’t need technical chops, seamlessintegration with channels like Blogger,Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, WordPress,etc.

Key Missing Features Rich content sharing

Privacy? Several options available on paid plans


Examples https://localbitcoins.com/forums/, http://www.rappad.co/discussion

https://localbitcoins.com/forums/

https://localbitcoins.com/forums/



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NingNing is one of the original community platforms, founded by Gina Bianchini (who nowruns Mightybell) and Marc Andreessen. Unfortunately, it hasn’t evolved much since itsorigins, so it looks pretty dated.

Defined Focus A simple, affordable way to create a dynamic community platform.

In ActionNing is a full-on, feature-rich community platform with areas for collaboration, groups,event listings, job postings, stores, and user profiles. This is the front page of theNational Peace Corps’s page, which has static content on the sidebars, highlights ofmember profiles, and a big call-out image in the center.

Detailed Breakdown of Ning’s Features

Cost $25-$99/month

Setup Time An hour or so

Hosted? Ning hosts

Mobile Mobile responsive and has APIs todevelop your own mobile app.



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Key Features Social integrations with YouTube, etc.Broadcast capability, customizablemember profiles, email, forums, liking andsharing, photos, unlimited subgroups

Key Missing Features Updated look and feel. No easy way tocreate an app.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Medium

Example Peace Corps

Testimonial “I used the platform as part of a three-part community

strategy at The Tyra Banks Show for TelepicturesProductions. I was the show's web producer and led arelaunch of the show's website for its final season. Ning[was] where our community of just over 200k talkedabout topics we covered after the show. Though the[Facebook] page was heavily moderated, Ning wasmodded mostly by community members, and wecreated avatar badges based on how active memberswere. It worked to create a perfect balance because Iwas very involved on the other two platforms [Twitterand Facebook], but with Ning, we could link from

specific show pages directly on the site, and the community managed the conversationfrom there. This was [the] early days, and the analytics weren't so advanced on anycommunity or social platform. General page views and visits, and registrations to thelarger site were the main KPIs.”--Annemarie Dooling, Community Advisor @ Salon,formerly at AOL and Huffington Post

PlacePlace is a complete community networking system accessed via web and mobile

applications (iOS and Android). It provides tools for growing and managing your

network, moderating user activity and deriving analytics on users and their engagement

patterns. The product was built to foster self-expression, facilitate two-way

communication and help organizers retain the value of their network.

The Place’s team vision is: “The future of social networking doesn’t lie in an all-encompassing network, but in niche networks with purpose.”

Defined Focus

http://community.peacecorpsconnect.org/

http://community.peacecorpsconnect.org/



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Connect with like-minded people, create deeper engagement and more genuine

conversations.

Good Read http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/06/the-backplane-black-box/

In ActionPlace looks a lot like a branded Facebook group for your community especially.

Detailed Breakdown of Place’s Features

Cost Free

Setup Time Minutes to hours


Mobile Yes

Key Features Media-rich posting tools and integrations(such as SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube,Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,Google+). Privacy controls, tools tomoderate content, Custom

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/06/the-backplane-black-box/





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branding/tailored for SEO, emailcapability, topics (sub-Groups),customizable leader profiles, sign-in withsocial accounts, events, blogs, search,notifications, special HTML pages,

responsive design for tablets, use acustom domain, flag content, assign rolesand permissions, track usage metrics,leaderboards, message other users,browse/discover Places, multiple contentfeeds, follow people.

Key Missing Features Deep backend analytics

Privacy? Optional

Ideal Community Size? Small to 1M+

Examples Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), UN Foundation,Jazz Foundation of America, AnimeMultiverse, Paradise City (Guns NRoses).

Small World LabsSmall World Labs is a niche solution from a small company. They work with a lot of

nonprofits and for-purpose companies.

Small World is a flexible platform with a large number of standard block features.No programmer needs to personalize it, so it’s super easy to use. It offers both aplatform and community engagement services.

Defined Focus Community software with great customer support to empower nonprofits andassociations.

Good Reads

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/small-world-labshttps://www.trustradius.com/reviews/small-world-labs-community-2013-07-12-15-45-48

In Action

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/small-world-labs

https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/small-world-labs-community-2013-07-12-15-45-48

https://www.trustradius.com/reviews/small-world-labs-community-2013-07-12-15-45-48

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/small-world-labs



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Detailed Breakdown of Small World Labs’ Features

Cost They do not give out this information tonon-customers.



Mobile Mobile-optimized but with no app--youdesign the site yourself

Key Features Can work for blogs, internal teams, photogalleries, Q&A. Community EngagementServices help you set up and engage withyour community.

Key Missing Features New features constantly released, sokeeping up with them can be rathercumbersome.

Privacy? Yes


Examples American Cancer Society, AmericanHeart Association, Care.org , UnitedNations Foundation, Alzheimer's



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Association, National Wildlife Federation

Switchboard

Originally created as an alumni networking tool for higher education, Switchboard hasexpanded to provide an easy way to connect for any high-affinity, collaborativecommunity.

Switchboard is a simple tool that allows you to ask and offer things within yourcommunity. They’ve taken off in the Portland startup community and have tons of nichecommunities on the platform (female cyclists, butchers, etc.) and in higher educationcommunities.

Defined Focus Posting asks and offers in your community

Good Reads By founder Mara Zepeda: http://cmxhub.com/3-essential-traits-of-an-exceptional-community-builder/http://www.wired.com/2014/08/switchboard/

In Action Here you see Switchboard’s clean interface and the “ask” and “offer” buttons. This isone of the most simple ways to set up a community for give/take.

Detailed Breakdown of Switchboard’s Features

http://cmxhub.com/3-essential-traits-of-an-exceptional-community-builder/



http://www.wired.com/2014/08/switchboard/







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Cost Free for small communities, annual subscription forlarge communities

Setup Time You must be approved first, which takes a few days

Hosted? Switchboard-hosted

Mobile Mobile responsive, with an app coming soon

Key Features Actionable information, not social sharing. Loginrequired to comment, basic discussions, @replies andemail notifications, clean look and feel, text-heavycommunity building tool, successful outcomesmeasured, archived and searchable, post digest.

Key Missing Features Ability to customize URL, customizable design

Privacy? Yes (paid plans)

Ideal Community Size? Midsize to large

Examples https://communitybuilders.switchboardhq.com/, https://pdxstartups.switchboardhq.com/ ,https://meatcollectives.switchboardhq.com

Content management systems

Drupal

Drupal is an open-source content management platform, which lets you build everythingfrom personal blogs to enterprise applications. There are thousands of add-on modules,and Drupal can be adapted to virtually any visual design.

It’s built, used, and supported by people from around the world. Anyone is free todownload and share it. Drupal is the choice for most high-end code developers, as awebsite built in Drupal is much more efficient and loads faster.Drupal 8 allows the user to change content with any Android, iPad, or iPhone mobiledevice.

Defined Focus

A sophisticated open-source solution for creating a community-first website.

Good Reads https://www.acquia.com/what-is-drupalhttps://www.ostraining.com/blog/drupal/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1m-wGcWnVIhttp://nodeone.se/en/what-is-drupal-cms

https://communitybuilders.switchboardhq.com/


https://pdxstartups.switchboardhq.com/


http://t.signalequattro.com/e1t/c/5/f18dQhb0S7lC8dDMPbW2n0x6l2B9nMJW7t5XX4643WcdW2zhHgb8rl5LsVQBb2Y56dwx_ddJxJb02?t=https%3A%2F%2Fmeatcollectives.switchboardhq.com%2F&si=4524728587386880&pi=3f630a1a-e7a0-4bd2-f7ed-b69cc183def8


https://www.acquia.com/what-is-drupal

https://www.ostraining.com/blog/drupal/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1m-wGcWnVI

http://nodeone.se/en/what-is-drupal-cms

http://nodeone.se/en/what-is-drupal-cms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1m-wGcWnVI

https://www.ostraining.com/blog/drupal/

https://www.acquia.com/what-is-drupal






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In ActionThe Carrie Underwood Community uses Drupal to create a content-rich site withcommunity components.

Detailed Breakdown of Drupal’s Features

Cost Free

Setup Time A few minutes

Hosted? Only self-hosted

Mobile Mobile-friendly

Key Features Content management is front and center, open-sourced so you have a whole community ofdevelopers around you and the sky is the limit.

Key Missing Features Nothing is drag-and-drop, so coding knowledgeis required.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small, mid- and large companies

Examples The Economist , NBC, Tesla, the White House

http://www.drupalshowcase.com/drupal-showcase/economist


http://drupal.com/

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/whitehouse-switch-drupal-opensource.html

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/10/whitehouse-switch-drupal-opensource.html

http://drupal.com/




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Evoq by DNNEvoq Engage is a dynamic community platform that comes with an integrated contentmanagement system (i.e., a place for managing and publishing content). It gives anorganization the opportunity to build a branded, online community directly on itswebsite, or on a standalone site. It allows directed actions including sharing ideas,

showcasing members, asking questions, and creating groups around your community.Evoq Engage includes a customizable gaming mechanics engine along with advocatemarketing capabilities.

Defined Focus A feature-rich and simple community platform built into your website.

Good Readshttp://www.dnnsoftware.com/Portals/0/CaseStudies/DNN-Evoq-Social-Case-Study-Mars.pdf http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/from-0-to-1000-in-a-month-one-

online-communitys-story-027768.php

In ActionThis is the COPD Foundation’s “submit an idea” page. DNN’s software allows yourcommunity to submit ideas for implementation into the product.

http://www.dnnsoftware.com/Portals/0/CaseStudies/DNN-Evoq-Social-Case-Study-Mars.pdf



http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/from-0-to-1000-in-a-month-one-online-communitys-story-027768.php









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Detailed Breakdown of Evoq’s Features

Cost Prices starting at $20,000 per year (annualsubscription)

Setup Time Several hours to weeks, depending on whetheryou use DNN software already

Hosted? Self-hosted and DNN-hosted options

Mobile Mobile-responsive out of the box. DNN Partners

have developed privately-branded Android andiOS apps for use by customers.

Key Features Spotlighting, event creation and attendance,event calendars, member leaderboards, membershowcases, clear way to share ideas to improvethe product, member profiles, fully integratedContent Management System (CMS); gaming



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mechanics engine; advocate marketing

Key Missing Features Mentioning capability, document collaboration

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Medium to large

Examples CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), City of Denver,COPD Foundation, Cornell University, CreativeCircle, Gold’s Gym, Mars Petcare, SchoolDude

Higher LogicHigher Logic is a cloud-based community platform for internal and external use. It’s

user-friendly and hosted. Its focus is on long-term use and growth over time, so it’smade for companies ready to make a big investment in community. It has featuresdifferent from other platforms, like a user group called HUG, Mentor Match (great forprofessional organizations and nonprofits), and Volunteer Central.

Higher Logic offers plenty of support by publishing regular articles on how to best usetheir software and build online communities.

Good Readshttp://resources.higherlogic.com/hs-fs/hub/312413/file-2331656204-pdf/HigherLogic_2014_Community_Benchmarking_Report.pdf

In Action

Defined Focus Private communities for all kinds of businesses and volunteer organizations.

Detailed Breakdown of Higher Logic’s Features

http://resources.higherlogic.com/hs-fs/hub/312413/file-2331656204-pdf/HigherLogic_2014_Community_Benchmarking_Report.pdf






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Cost Full communities start at $900/month withannual contract

Setup Time Weeks

Hosted? HigherLogic Hosted on AWS

Mobile Yes–fully responsive mobile sites

Key Features Advanced discussions features, resourcelibrary, user directories, automatedworkflows/smart-rules, microsites, eventcalendar, Volunteer Central, MentorMatch, CMS, Higher Logic user group,integration with Desk.com and other CSplatforms, integration with MicrosoftDynamics, CRM, Salesforce, and other

CRM platforms

Key Missing Features Setup is not simple (no DIY)

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small to large organizations

Example Microsoft Dynamics CRM User Group,NetPromoter (Satmetrix), The American

Association of Association Executives

Testimonials

“Summit is our annual conference that comprises 60 percent of our revenue — it’s byfar our biggest event of the year. Being a major driving force, the annual conferencerelies on the success and growth of CRMUG Collaborate to drive revenue andmembership in so many meaningful ways.” --Andy Hafer, CEO Dynamic Communities

“Higher Logic's Community has become one of our most popular member benefits. Icontinually hear from members about how it has become an integral part of their workday.” --Rachael Bell, Digital Communications Manager NJSCPA

PluckPluck is a platform for user reviews and ratings. It also offers social and communityfeatures, but its focus is really on the latter. The entire platform is cloud-based. Pluck isa product of Demand Media, not an independent operation.

Defined Focus A platform for retailers to connect with customers

http://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/HL/f7108c01-03f0-4562-bffc-dcb2f9bfa72b/UploadedImages/www/Case_Studies/HigherLogic_ASAE_Case_Study.pdf







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In ActionThis is the Pluck illy coffee community. Each piece of content appears as a tile, as in aPinterest board or Tumblr design. You can favorite, forward to social networks, or replyfrom here.

Detailed Breakdown of Pluck’s Features

Cost $399/month

Setup Time Weeks to months

Hosted? Pluck-hosted only

Mobile Mobile-ready

Key Features Ratings and reviews management,groups, forum, customizable feedback,gamification (badges, etc.), community

management, galleries, customizablesearch, comments, social connectivity,language adjusted by members’ location

Key Missing Features User-generated content is front andcenter, actual members are not

Privacy? Yes



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Ideal Community Size? Mid- to large-sized retail businesses

Examples Loreal, Nestlé, Walgreens, Whole Foods

SocialGoSocialGo provides a social networking website builder. It’s an all-encompassing site,rather than a flat platform just for discussions.

SocialGo focuses on providing existing communities with a flexible tool to create anintegrated web presence. With powerful website-building tools and a core host ofcommunity features (membership, private messaging, events), it’s the best choice forexisting communities who need a beautiful, scalable online home.

SocialGo requires a subscription instead of ads. However, you do have the option togenerate revenue by inserting your own advertisements or promotions. Setting up asocial network using SocialGo is simple and takes a few minutes.

It fully integrates with any social media, and you own all your own data. It’scustomizable and growth-adaptive.

Defined Focus Creating entire community-centric sites.

SocialGo in ActionThis is a SocialGo-powered site, with a forum, membership profiles, and event listings(upper-left tool bar) and a customizable banner and front page.



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Detailed Breakdown of SocialGo’s Features

Cost $9.99-$79.99/month

Setup Time A few minutes to get up and running, afew months to customize

Hosted? Both self-hosted and Joomla-hostedoptions

Mobile No

Key Features Fully integrates with any social media,unlimited storage and bandwidth, instantmessaging, event and calendars, blogs

and forums, host media

Key Missing Features Tons of notification emails, which mayoverwhelm your members.

Privacy? Yes



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Ideal Community Size? Large, established communities

Example Chain Reaction Bikes

SociousSocious is online customer community software that helps build customer relationshipsby creating online groups for specific customers or members, discussion forums, wikis,and blogs. Socious focuses on collaboration and visibility through sharing documentsand files like marketing videos, product files, support articles, and recorded webinars.

You can easily increase engagement with such gamification features as awards,leaderboards, and profile badges. Socious also features online registration for events,payment acceptance, agenda-building tools and a speaker management system. Youcan gather feedback from members on products and services through surveys or createan online store.

Socious is only offered in English.

Defined Focus Increases customer engagement by creating online groups for your large community.Generates revenue from an online store.

Good Reads http://www.itqlick.com/socious-online-community http://www.getapp.com/internet-online-software/a/socious/ http://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/socious-online-community-profile/?layout=var_w0

In Action Socious’s look and feel is a bit dated, but can be updated with developer help.

http://www.itqlick.com/socious-online-community


http://www.getapp.com/internet-online-software/a/socious/


http://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/socious-online-community-profile/?layout=var_w0







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Detailed Breakdown of Socious’s Features

Cost Socious does not share pricinginformation with non-customers.

Setup Time Weeks to months

Hosted? Socious-hosted

Mobile Yes--includes a mobile app

Key Features Built-in conference and eventmanagement software (great for usergroups), discussion boards, productfeedback tools, membershipmanagement, activity streams, onlinegroups, member profiles,customer/member directory, doc sharing,



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media library, surveys, ecommercecapabilities, email marketing,gamification, blogging and wikis,analytics.

Key Missing Features Can get too complex for a smallcommunity

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Large enterprises and communities

Examples Lamaze International, VMWare UserGroup

Telescope.io

Telescope is a platform upon which you can build a reddit-like, Product Hunt-like,Designer News-like, or Hacker News-like platform for sharing content and comments inyour community. Is link sharing critical to your strategy? Do you want to formconversations around great content and questions? If so, this is a brilliant place to start.

Beyond link sharing, you can do a lot more with a little technical know-how. According tofounder Sacha Grief, “You're not limited to link sharing with Telescope. You can alsobuild things like news aggregators or event calendars. One of Telescope's strong pointsis how flexible it is. Think of it as the WordPress of community apps.”

Defined Focus

Creating conversations around great content

Good ReadWritten by the founder: http://www.communitybuildingguide.com/

In ActionThis is the Crater.io community. As you can see, the community shares a link or createsan overarching topic, and people comment and upvote. If thoughtful content is importantto you, this is the way to go. Most forums organize content chronologically rather thanby quality, and this allows the good stuff to bubble up.

http://crunchhunt.com/



http://hangouts.codebuddies.org/



http://www.communitybuildingguide.com/








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Detailed Breakdown of Telescope’s Features

Cost Free

Setup Time A few hours to a few days

Hosted? Self-hosted only (fork the code on GitHub)

Mobile Responsive

Key Features Ability to post, create a profile, upvote,comment. Nothing super fancy. Sorts bytop posts, not chronologically. Emaildigests and other community-createdfeatures arising over time. Clean look andfeel.

Key Missing Features Ability to input without technicalknowledge. Rich profiles.

Privacy? Options to limit sites to invited users only


Examples Crater.io, Datalook.io



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Community Relationship Management

FUEL by PassengerThe FUEL Community Engine was built with members and community managers inmind. It helps leading brands connect with their customers to uncover insights, foster

innovation, and inspire advocacy.

FUEL is easy to use. It takes just a few hours to set up Integration of Qualtrics surveytools, so that’s a good option if you’re looking for product feedback.

Includes the ability to translate into multiple languages.

Defined Focus Connect with customers to uncover product insights, foster innovation, and inspireadvocacy.

Good Read http://www.thinkpassenger.com/technology

Detailed Breakdown of FUEL’s Features

Cost The team does not reveal pricinginformation to the public.

Setup Time A few weeks from talking with team tocreating the full site to launch

Hosted? FUEL-hosted

Mobile Yes, native app

Key Features Multilanguage translation, advancedmoderation but easy to DIY, social mediaintegration, responsive design, in-browserand in-app notifications for new content,recruit and qualify new communitymembers from your Facebook fan page(s)and engage members where they alreadyinteract with your brand (organicengagement).

Key Missing Features No transparent pricing

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Large

http://www.thinkpassenger.com/technology

http://www.thinkpassenger.com/technology



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Examples Coca Cola, Mercedes Benz, Nike

Mobilize

Mobilize is in beta, finding its groove and working closely with big-name companies.

What we like about Mobilize is it’s carved out a very solid niche for itself. If you identifywith the following, you should go with Mobilize: Mobilize focuses on an emerging type ofcommunity, referred to as external stakeholders. Team members recognized suchstakeholders’ behavior is unique from that of employees and customers. They call theircompany-to-community platform ‘community relationship automation’ because itembeds all the best practices of building relationships with community members into anautomated, smart process.

What’s unique about Mobilize is your members don’t have to log into the platform. They

can reply to everything from their email or calendar, with more external integrations inthe pipeline. This presents unique challenges as you have to get your members toreturn to the platform, but they’re making all kinds of changes on a regular basis to theplatform to make it better.

Defined Focus A platform designed for up-and-coming to mature businesses to mobilize theircommunity members, partners, and freelancers into action.

Good Reads http://tech.co/community-management-platform-mobilize-raises-1-2m-seed-funding-

2014-11 http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/25/mobilize-a-better-alternative-to-google-groups-for-community-management-raises-1-2m/

In ActionFrom the Activity page, send posts, events, polls or files. Reminder and follow-upbuttons make it easy to drive engagement. Pick message recipients via an embeddedsync to your customized directory (also lives in Members page). See lists of your eventsand files on those pages, with analytics for each one.

http://www.thinkpassenger.com/clients/mercedes-benz

https://app.relateiq.com/r?c=chrome_gmail&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.co%2Fcommunity-&t=AFwhZf2cRqz3SGoLVhGM5LH9awiJwuRpVlFPozkp9G5muY9A6-ysC_0RDaQDz-5vvpiHbz4WlQ8obW_JNC1lusNkdSU86S-5cQQUYJ15DnLxDHIVG7BcKZwT8CUbAN89AK510muLIejH



http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/25/mobilize-a-better-alternative-to-google-groups-for-community-management-raises-1-2m/







http://www.thinkpassenger.com/clients/mercedes-benz



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Detailed Breakdown of Mobilize’s Features

Cost There are different tiers by community size. Pricing for small tolarge size communities ranges from two-week trials to $500monthly, with custom pricing for enterprise accounts.Discount: 10% off first three months with coupon codewelovecmx. Expires 4/30/15.

Setup Time Minutes

Hosted? Mobilize-hosted.

Mobile Don’t need platform to interact (device agnostic). The platform,though, is fully responsive on mobile.

Key Features All communication tools embedded with member directory, withcustom filters to segment your audience. Analytics in each postand in dashboard. Easily invite new members. Very low friction.

Key Missing Features Customizable interface and content spotlights.

Privacy? Yes--customizable privacy controls at every level.


Can work from small to enterprise level communities

Examples Etsy, Google Developers, Seedcamp, Thiel Fellowship, Uber



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NationBuilderNationBuilder specializes in creating community sites for politicians and othergovernment organizations, but that’s not to say it can’t work for other communities. Itdoes, and its designers have a few compelling examples on their homepage. They callthe platform the “operating system for communities.” It has all the makings of such, but

the fine-grained details are lacking—though you can submit feature requests! It allowsyou to fundraise and share news as well as give each of your supporters their ownprofile page.

Some big pros of the platform: You can run your entire organization or a brandambassador program including your website, using their platform. Engagement is builtinto every page, so your site will do more than broadcast your. Collect event RSVPs, sell tickets, manage memberships, process invoices, and crowdsource ideas from yourbiggest supporters, because your people database consolidates website engagement,social media interactions, and financial support, are all in one place.

Defined Focus Connects online space with on-the-ground actions to help leaders and organizationsbuild genuine relationships.

Good Readshttp://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahmckinney/2014/02/24/this-company-is-turning-the-power-of-storytelling-within-for-employees/ http://nationbuilder.com/genun_full

In Action

Detailed Breakdown of NationBuilder’s Features

http://nationbuilder.com/features

http://nationbuilder.com/website

http://nationbuilder.com/calendar

http://nationbuilder.com/ticketing

http://nationbuilder.com/memberships

http://nationbuilder.com/invoicing

http://nationbuilder.com/people

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahmckinney/2014/02/24/this-company-is-turning-the-power-of-storytelling-within-for-employees/



http://nationbuilder.com/genun_full





http://nationbuilder.com/people

http://nationbuilder.com/invoicing

http://nationbuilder.com/memberships

http://nationbuilder.com/ticketing

http://nationbuilder.com/calendar

http://nationbuilder.com/website

http://nationbuilder.com/features



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Cost $19/mo for 2,000 people and 200 emailsall the way up to $999/mo for 500,000people and 100,000 emails; Enterprisepricing also offered by request only.

Setup Time A few hours (custom themes in about twoweeks)

Hosted? NationBuilder-hosted


Key Features Donate page, easy editor, event pages,free phone number, integration with socialmedia, join page, petitions, profiles formembers, volunteer recruiting

Key Missing Features Like many platforms, ability to customizethemes is limited without technical know-how

Privacy? No

Ideal Community Size? Small to large. Though it can getexpensive, it’s still more affordable thanmany other large platforms.

Example Hero Hatchery

SocialEngineIf you want to own and control your data completely, this is the platform for you.SocialEngine includes 100% source-code access and data ownership.

SocialEngine is a software suite sold in two products: as a standalone software packagecalled SocialEngine PHP, and as software as a service under the name SocialEngineCloud. With the cloud version it’s incredibly easy to create a social website with nohosting, installation, or programming experience needed.

Defined Focus Giving you complete control and ownership over all aspects of your site and content.

Good Reads http://www.socialengine.com/features/phphttp://www.getapp.com/marketing-software/a/socialengine/

In Action

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service

http://www.socialengine.com/features/php

http://www.getapp.com/marketing-software/a/socialengine/

http://www.getapp.com/marketing-software/a/socialengine/

http://www.socialengine.com/features/php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service



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This is a SocialEngine community of corgi lovers. It’s like a fully socialized Tumblrfocused on user-generated content.

Detailed Breakdown of SocialEngine’s FeaturesCost A license valid for one installation is $299

Plugins are $40 each

Setup Time SE cloud is easy to set up. You just fill outa form and their internal team sets it upfor you. To use Se PHP, you needengineering skills

Hosted? Self-hosted only

Mobile Mobile plugin

Key Features Complete control and ownership of data,fully unencrypted source code, activityfeed, advertising space, member profiles,anti spam

Key Missing Features No ability to set up for yourself

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small, mid- and large companies

Examples Apple, Electronic Arts, Kaplan University,MasterCard, Shell, Startup Revolution



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Internal Community

HipChatHipChat is an Atlassian product. It basically works as a chat room for internal groups, alot like Basecamp chat. The different chat rooms can be both on-topic for work as well

as off-topic. You can turn on desktop notifications, so it’s great for remote teams thatneed to ping one another.

Defined Focus Instant messaging that works for small and large teams.

In ActionHipChat is another internal chat application that separates by topic and team.

Detailed Breakdown of HipChat’s Features

Cost HipChat Basic: free for unlimited users,group chat, and instant messaging.

HipChat Plus: $2 per user per month forvideo chat, screen sharing and additionaladvanced features.

Setup Time Minutes

Hosted? Atlassian-hosted



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Mobile Mobile-friendly

Key Features Sixty-two third-party integrationsincluding: Asana, Desk.com, Freshdesk,Help Scout, Heroku, Intercom, JIRA,

MailChimp, Raygun, TeamCity, Twitter,Usersnap, UserVoice, Woopra,WordPress, Zapier, and ZenDesk. Mobiledevice apps, social tools like @mentionsand GIFs, and Instagram feeds, filesharing, push notifications, unlimited chatrooms and searchable history.

Key Missing Features Doesn’t scale very well

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small companies. Though it can be usedfor larger, we don’t think it’s ideal.

Examples Dropbox, DropCam, Expedia, and Netflix

Testimonial“We were using HipChat for internal communications atEstimote as sort of an official tool. After several monthssome people started chatting on Slack as well. Then, astrange thing happened: in a matter of two weeks, thewhole company (including CEO and management)organically moved to Slack. It's kind of funny, becausewhile I couldn't really point at any big qualitative gapbetween those two (apart from mobile, HipChat app isawful), I like using Slack so much more than HipChat.”--Wojciech Borowicz, Community @ Estimote

HoneyHoney is a cloud-hosted social intranet solution, founded by former agency and startupengineers and business executives. Honey is an intuitive way for employees to share

and discover news and information at work. It’s user-friendly and clean and has aneasy-to-use mobile app.

Defined FocusSimple internal community builder for companies with employees on the go.



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Detailed Breakdown of Honey’s Features

Cost $4 person/month

Setup Time Minutes

Hosted? Yes

Mobile Yes, native apps

Key Features Unlimited total storage, integration withDropbox, Google Drive and box file,media sharing, group moderators,@mentions, private groups, emojisupport, custom branding, LinkedInintegration. Very basic analytics.

Key Missing Features Because of its simple design and overallnewsfeed, this is probably not ideal forlarge organizations with many teams. Noeditable wikis. No chat. No emailnotifications.

Privacy? Yes



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Ideal Community Size? Small to midsize companies (up to 1000employees)

Examples Capital One, Prezi, Sesame Street

Testimonial"I looked at a lot in this space and nothing quite fit for our needs [building communityamong VC portfolio companies]. Then Honey came along and checked all the boxes. Ithas a rich directory of user profiles, email integration, two mobile apps, a web app,robust archive that is searchable by keyword, PDFs, user profiles, robust notifications,groups and topics. It’s also really nicely designed and I loved Rachel, the founder."

We only have 8 employees, but we have 250 founders who don’t all know eachother. Our companies were in a dark room and I wanted to turn on the lights. I wantedthem to talk to each other and know who else is there. It needed to be asynchronous.

I would definitely recommend it. It’s so much easier to have a product built with asupport team than building your own and troubleshooting support." - Nicola Korzenko,Community @ Lerer Hippeau VC

IglooIgloo is a 100% cloud solution, super easy and fast to get started and use. No technicalskills are required to implement it, and it allows for richer collaboration than HipChat orSlack.

The platform allows you to share files, answer and ask questions, share ideas, andmanage projects. There are many built-in functions including blogs, calendars, forums,shared files, task lists, and wikis for creating practice documents and taking notes.

To set up, simply choose from a selection of built-in apps and drag-and-drop onto apage to create an experience that reflects how you work. You can use them all togetheror select only the ones you need. And if you want to create a site that matches yourbrand, Igloo has an in-house digital agency too.

Defined Focus Organized, connected, intelligent internal communication.

Good Readshttp://www.igloosoftware.com/blogshttps://vimeo.com/igloosoftware

In ActionIgloo is an updated-looking intranet that allows your coworkers to collaborate onprojects and processes.

http://www.igloosoftware.com/blogs

https://vimeo.com/igloosoftware

https://vimeo.com/igloosoftware

http://www.igloosoftware.com/blogs



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Good Reads http://www.getapp.com/collaboration-software/a/igloo-software/https://www.g2crowd.com/products/igloo-software/reviews

Detailed Breakdown of Igloo’s Features

Cost Free to use with up to ten people. For more users, Igloo offers asubscription model with pricing on a peruser, per month basis.Licensing starts at $12 per user permonth (for intranet) and $3 per user permonth (for external communities), andvolume discounts can be applied forlarger communities.

Setup Time 30 minutes to an hour

Hosted? Igloo-hosted

Mobile Yes- responsive and has mobile apps

Key Features Multiple easy ways to communicate and

https://www.g2crowd.com/products/igloo-software/reviews

https://www.g2crowd.com/products/igloo-software/reviews



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distribute to a select few or many, easy-to-follow visual email thread, forum andwikis, communicate with integratedmessaging, presence and statusindicators, share, organize and manage

documents and multimedia, collaboratethrough blogs, events, forums, polls andwikis, build rich user profiles to locateexpertise, find what you need fasterthrough activity streams and searching.Drag and drop editor makes all of theseeasy to plug in.

Key Missing Features No real-time chat functionality (but with adeveloper, you could work around thisgiven their REST-based API.

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small to large organizations (anywherefrom 5-10,000 people)

Languages English, Spanish, French, German,Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russianand Chinese

Examples Aetna, Golin, NII Holdings and the ATP

World Tour

Salesforce Chatter Salesforce Chatter is an internal tool that companies can use to connect theiremployees around sales, marketing, and other business goals. It’s made for companieswho use Salesforce in other aspects of their business.

Defined Focus For the company that uses other Salesforce products and wants to build internalcommunity and collaboration.

Good Read http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/customer-stories

In ActionChatter looks like Facebook meets LinkedIn. Here’s one of its profile pages.

http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/overview/

http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/overview/



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Detailed Breakdown of Salesforce Chatter’s Features

Cost Free with purchase of CRM license or$15/user/month for Chatter Plus

Setup Time A few hours

Hosted? Salesforce-hosted

Mobile “Mobile first” priority: iPad, iPhone, Mac,Mobile Web App, RIM-BlackBerry, Web-based, Windows

Key Features Social intelligence: Chatter recommendspeople, documents, files, and otherinformation for you to follow based onyour activity and interests; supportshashtags, share calendar and events,secure protected data, document and file



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sharing, define workflow and businessprocesses, activity feed, publish andupdate shared content

Key Missing Features A little too robust for a small team, more

geared toward those who useSalesforce’s CRM tools

Privacy? Yes

Ideal Community Size? Small business to large enterprise-level

Examples Salesforce, Inttra, Wells Fargo, GE Aviation

Slack Slack is a relatively new player that is sweeping the business world. It’s a fullysearchable, integrated chat application that plugs into all kinds of other services. Whilenot a traditional community platform, it’s got the makings of an internal or external toolthat we’re seeing used as a community platform more widely each day.

You can’t invite just anyone to be in the platform seamlessly, it takes some onboarding.So this is only ideal for MVP programs and internal communities.

Many organizations are now using Slack as a means to build external communities,giving restricted access to private channels to select users. From the users’ standpoint,

adding new channels and organizations is super simple as they all plug into the cleanmain Slack interface.

The apps that work for iPad and iPhone as well as other mobile devices are similarlybeautiful and functional.

Defined Focus The updated work chatroom you’ve been waiting for.

Good Readshttps://levels.io/slack-typeform-auto-invite-sign-ups/

http://blog.gopheracademy.com/gophers

In ActionSlack is an updated and clean IRC-like chat platform.

https://levels.io/slack-typeform-auto-invite-sign-ups/

https://levels.io/slack-typeform-auto-invite-sign-ups/



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Detailed Breakdown of Slack’s Features

Cost Starting from $0 - $8/month

Setup Time Minutes

Hosted? Slack-hosted

Mobile Native apps for Android and iOS to giveyou the full functionality of Slack whereveryou go with multiple channels or

organizations (great for freelancers!)

Key Features Integrates with dozens of services; nativeapps for Android and iOS; powerfulsearch and archiving; built-in internal andexternal sharing option; support forprivate groups and one-to-one directmessaging; webhooks and an open API;emojis and emoticons and all kinds ofplugins for GIFs make this a funalternative to HipChat

Key Missing Features Cannot open and edit documents likeother software that manages files(Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.). Bestexperience is on the desktop version.

Onboarding is best suited for MVPmembers and internal employees, as it is



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labor-intensive.

Not very customizable and doesn’t allowfor posting and following threads easily.Best for project-based work.

No integration with email. Hard to getusers to re-engage if they’re not regularSlack users.

No ability to search inside Google Docs,PDFs, Photoshop files, Word docs.

You cannot create open channels.

Privacy? Yes


Examples Startups everywhere!https://thenetwork.slack.com, http://hashtagnomads.com/, http://fedsonslack.com/, http://www.hashtagstartup.co/, https://make.wordpress.org/chat/

Testimonial

“Slack communities are predominantly for internal communitieswithin the workspace. However, we are starting to see externalcommunities using Slack. One great example is Nomadslist. It hasan appealing design, it’s easy to use and set up, [with] easy-to-set-up channels and groups (both public and private) for various topics.You can also filter information via tagging and hashtags and searchall your conversations easily. It integrates nicely with dozens of webapps and social media sites. The cons are that it is a more of anIM/group messaging channel than a community. It's better for real-time communication as opposed to discussions lasting days,weeks, or months. The analytics aren't great either.”--Jessica Malnik, Community @

BigCommerce, Blogger at blog.jessicamalnik.com

YammerYammer (owned by Microsoft) enables employees to collaborate with one another in aprivate space. It’s a secure platform that allows your company to share informationprivately across different departments and within teams.

https://thenetwork.slack.com/


http://hashtagnomads.com/


http://fedsonslack.com/


http://www.hashtagstartup.co/


https://make.wordpress.org/chat/









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Defined Focus Internal work groups for large organizations.

In ActionYammer has a simple interface with gamification elements. It’s easy to start new

discussions and see the list of features on the left sidebar. At the top left, you see theuser profile, where you can add in member information.

Detailed Breakdown of Yammer’s Features Cost Enterprise Standalone $3 per user/month

Office 365 for Business starts at $8 peruser/month

Setup Time Hours

Hosted? Yammer-hosted

Mobile Mobile-compatible with all smartphones

Key Features Enterprise microblogging, PMs, Office365 integration, see who's online, profilepages, leaderboards, subgroups, orgcharts, wikis, file sharing, polls, surveys.

Key Missing Features No customizability, no forums

Privacy? Yes



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Ideal Community Size? Small to Large

Examples DHL, Shell, 7-Eleven

Community Platforms that Exist On Outside Platforms(“Unowned Communities”)We’ll remind you here: before picking one of these unowned platforms to run with, pollyour existing users to see where they want to hang out. It’s always a good idea to getcommunity buy-in!

We won’t go into deep detail on these. Instead, we’ll give you a sense for when to knowif this platform is right for you.

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups is the easiest way to collect your community, as everyone usesFacebook on a regular basis. Groups allow members to post content such ascomments, editable documents, events, links, media, and questions on these items. Ifyou want to dig deep into your community, if you want it to truly connect and share info,then groups is not for you. It’s good as a starter to see the appetite for your communityand how people interact.

Defined Focus Simple, efficient communication

In ActionOur very own CMX Facebook group is alive and well.



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Detailed Breakdown of Facebook’s Features

Cost Free, but you can pay for more views

Setup Time Five minutes

Mobile Yes

Key Features Event creation and sharing, file uploads,

and it’s easy to find all the members

Key Missing Features It’s simple to use but difficult to keep trackof what’s going on.

Privacy? Secret, closed and open

Ideal Community Size? 1- 1000 members. You can have more--Udemy has 20,000--but data and adminget unwieldy.

Example Cmx group

G+ Communities Any Google Plus user can easily create and host a community on the cloud in a matterof a few clicks. Google+ Communities are for users who are interested in vibrantconversations around topics, not for users who want to build deeper communityrelations. By building categories and using hashtags, you can filter your content and

https://www.facebook.com/groups/cmxhub/





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thus improve the discoverability of content. Users can select the content they wantquickly. Hangouts are becoming an increasingly valued asset in communities as well, asthey create shared experiences and cement bonds.

In Action

Defined Focus Lively conversations around specific niche topics

Good Read http://blog.hootsuite.com/reasons-to-use-google-plus-communities/

Detailed Breakdown of G+ Communities’ Features

Cost Free

Setup Time 10 minutes

Mobile Yes

Key Features Discussion areas, ability to emailmembers, G+ profiles, G+ Hangouts,

Google docs integration

Key Missing Features Google+ can be very annoying: G+ circlesare not intuitive, features are not rich, andHangouts are only available to this with aG+ account

http://blog.hootsuite.com/reasons-to-use-google-plus-communities/

http://blog.hootsuite.com/reasons-to-use-google-plus-communities/



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Privacy? From private hidden to open

Ideal Community Size? 1-10,000

Example National Geographic’s “Exploration”Community

Testimonial“I remember constantly refreshing Google+ the day they wereadding communities. Originally, Google+ was a great way forus to grow the My Community Manager community in a publicsetting. Despite rapid growth, the conversations stayed veryfocused and were not full of spam. In more recent times, thishas changed. The nice thing about Google+ Communities is itdoes have a pretty strong native spam filter. Creating a

community here made sense for us since our communityexists around Google+ Hangouts, although we rarely actuallypromoted our hangouts or posts within the community. All of that being said, I'm notsure what the future of Google+ Communities is now.” – Sherrie Rohde, Community@Rebellion Media

LinkedIn GroupsLinkedIn is the best social media platform for businesses. It’s a great way to meetothers in your industry, but is it the best for creating a community? We aren’t sure.

LinkedIn is a professional network, focusing on B2B interactions. That means the qualityof the contacts you’ll get for any business-related content is much higher than thosefrom Facebook or Twitter. It’s a good starting point to prove you have potential for a full-fledged community, but we don’t recommend staying there long-term.

Detailed Breakdown of LinkedIn’s Features

Cost Free


Mobile Yes

Key Features Ability to add people quickly, discussions,email notifications, link dropping

Key Missing Features Hard to follow conversations without itgetting unwieldyNo growth of deep relationships

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/103473332841972047889







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Privacy? From private to open

Ideal Community Size? 1-10,000

Examples Mention, The Fetch

Testimonial “Only use LinkedIn for the network effects.”-- Bas van Leeuwen,Principal Consultant @ Evidently Community

MeetupMeetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Its mission is to start and growlocal communities and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup is a greatstarting point for an event series that encourages offline engagement, but it's not a greatplace to build an ultra-active online community.

Distribution of your meetups is one of the platform’s strong points. It allows you to reachnew people who search the site by keyword, which takes a ton of legwork out of aninitial event launch. We can’t stress how helpful that is.

With Meetup Pro, organizations and companies can harness the power of Meetup tomanage, grow, and engage with their communities. Meetup Pro offers tools specificallyfor community professionals, including the ability to create and manage Meetups,communicate with their community, and measure success.

Defined Focus Bringing people together through events

In Action Here you see the SF Community Manager group. Each scheduled event has its owndiscussion wall, where guests can interact and ask questions. Organizers can nowmessage their members within the app as well, which is a great feature.



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Detailed Breakdown of Meetup’s Features

Cost Free


Mobile Yes

Key Features Detailed events, attendee visibility, ticketsales, photos, sponsors, discussion

boards, in-app messaging of yourmembers

Key Missing Features It's largely a vehicle for eventmanagement -- the meetings happenoffline.


Ideal Community Size? Any size, though depth will not besignificant

Examples San Francisco Online Community MeetupGroup

redditreddit has become one of the Internet’s go-to resources for content discovery andconversation. It’s a social news website where users can post links to content or create“self posts” to spark conversation.

http://www.meetup.com/octribe/







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reddit is organized into “subreddits,” which are organized around topics of conversationand which often grow into full-fledged deeply-connected communities (such ashttps://www.reddit.com/r/ClashOfClans/). Subreddits are abbreviated as “r/topicname.”Some subreddits are defaulted, such as r/books, r/gaming, or r/gadgets.

Other users may then vote the posted links up or down, causing them to appear more orless prominently on the reddit homepage (as well as on reddit users’ customizedhomepages, created by subscribing to certain subreddits).

Karma is the social reputation currency of reddit. Users are incentivized through karma,which you get when others upvote your posts and comments. By default, when thereare enough votes against a given comment, it won’t be displayed, though a reader candisplay it through a link or preference.

Detailed Breakdown of reddit’s Features

Cost Free


Mobile Yes

Key Features reddit is mainly anonymous and notconnected to people’s offline identities. Asa leader, this may make it difficult to bringreddit relationships back to your ownplatform in the future, if that is your plan.

Key Missing Features Hard to build long-standing communityrelationships

Privacy? From private to open

Ideal Community Size? Very small to large

Example Social Media Marketing

Testimonials “reddit is the only site I can say has changed my life. It hasallowed me to benefit from a level of insight that made metremendously grow as a person. But reddit is a harsh mistress.Written and unwritten rules, as well as crowds, change widelyfrom subreddit to subreddit. Managing a subreddit can quicklybe challenging because of anonymity, sensitivities and -- for thefew who are successful -- traffic. But where else can a noob like

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClashOfClans/


https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Social-Media-Marketing-66325?gid=66325&trk=anetsrch_name&goback=.gdr_1260548692386_1






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me get to manage communities of millions of users? Not only is reddit the bestcommunity management school and a great traffic generator for your product, but if yousucceed at reddit, you can manage any community, anywhere.” -- Nicolas Gregoire,Founder and CEO of amigoCAT and reddit moderator

“At Estimote, we've started doing some work to reach developersusing iBeacon (or beacons in general) via reddit, but in our case itturns out it's very distributed and hard. We'll definitely revisit thiswith more resources on hand, but haven't achieved substantialresults yet. However, I see tremendous potential to unlock forpeople managing niche communities (from lucid dreaming, totranscranial DC stimulation, to conspiracy theories, to whatever)that don't have many better places to go.” --Wojciech Borowicz,Community @ Estimote

Stack ExchangeStack Exchange is a network of 130+ Q&A communities. It started with programming onStack Overflow and then branched out. Today, you can propose a new community andrun it on the site.

Defined Focus Q&A only--this is for people with questions or answers. It’s not for anything else.

In Action

Detailed Breakdown of Stack Exchange’s Features



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Cost Free


Mobile Yes

Key Features Community of experts, Q&A, upvotinganswers, intuitive interface, newslettersbuilt in

Key Missing Features Not for deep relationships


Ideal Community Size? 1-1000

Example Stack Overflow

Testimonials “From the whole SE platform, I've only used Stack Overflow(personally, I love the one for chess as well) for communitymanagement purposes, and it has huge power. Developersconsider SO the ultimate source of knowledge, so if you'redoing devangelism and you don't have strong presence atSO, you're doing something wrong. It's awesome forgathering product feedback, gaining authority (which leads tothought leadership), and support too.”--Wojciech Borowitz,Community @ Estimote

“Stack Exchange is perfect: great audience, the rules are clear,moderation tools are great. The downsides are there are noannouncements, no mailings, no analytics.”-- Bas van Leeuwen,Principal Consultant @ Evidently Community

http://stackexchange.com/leagues/1/week/stackoverflow





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TL;DR Quick Suggestions to Get You Started

If You’re Not Tech-Savvy and Don’t Have Anyone Technicalon Your Team, Skip These

● Phpbb● vBulletin● Drupal● Xenforo● DNN

If You Want Something that Focuses on Content Curationand UGC Creation

Telescope Mightybell Pluck Any internal platform

If You’re Not Tech-Savvy and Just Want to Get Started ASAP● Vanilla Forums● Mightybell● Any of the unowned platforms● GroupAhead● Mobilize● Switchboard● Zendesk

If You Want Something Full Customizable and TechnicalKnow-How Is Not an Issue

Any enterprise platform (assuming your budget is over $200,000) vBulletin

If Gamification Is Important to You Discourse Vanilla Forums Enterprise platforms



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Further Reading- CMX’s ultimate guide about choosing the right platform for community- Feverbee: a few rules for choosing online community platform- Udemy Facebook group case study

Platforms to Watch- GroupAhead: still in early stages, could be a game-changer- Legion.io: still in pre-launch- SOG platform: just launched in April 2015

GlossaryCloud or Cloud-Based: The difference here is platforms are updated in real time aschanges roll out. You won’t need to store any information or do manual updates.

Hosted: When we say hosted, we mean it’s either self-hosted (on your company’sserver) or by the company that provides the platform. Why does that matter? If you wantto control the platform and fully integrate it into your site, it needs to be self-hosted. Ifyou’re okay with an outside company having access to your data and controlling whenyou have downtime, then it’s okay to host on another’s servers.

Threaded Forums vs. Flat Forums: A flat forum (like Discourse or vBulletin) is a forumin which a conversation’s replies are all added one by one to the end of a conversationwithout hierarchy. You can quote another member, but there is no set order other thanchronological. A threaded forum is one in which you can reply to another’s messagerather than keep things in a thread by topic. You see this in Disqus comments and onreddit, where replies are indented rather than just a steady stream of similarly formattedreplies.

http://cmxhub.com/ultimate-guide-choosing-right-platform-community/

http://www.feverbee.com/2013/04/community-platforms.html

http://www.feverbee.com/2013/04/community-platforms.html

http://cmxhub.com/ultimate-guide-choosing-right-platform-community/



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Appendix

Community Priority Checklist

I want my community to…

❏ create user-generated content beyond conversations❏ give feedback (product- or content-related)❏ reply to user-generated content❏ ask customer support-related questions❏ crowdsource ideas for your product❏ private message one another❏ plan events together❏ report bugs❏ discuss topics❏

follow each other to deepen relationships❏ search past discussions to use as a knowledge base of some sort❏ serve as a tiered engagement ladder❏ serve as ambassadors for your product❏ facilitate collaboration on projects or documents

Community Platforms that Fit Each Priority Best

Create user-generated content beyond conversations

JiveX

Lithium Salesforce Community

Standing on Giants Platform

Zimbra

CMNTY

GroupAhead (mobile photos and discussions only)

Hoop.la

Mightybell

Ning

Place

Small World Labs All Content Management Systems (it’s their bread and butter)

Mobilize

NationBuilder

SocialEngine

Honey

Igloo



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Slack (allows for uploads)

Give feedback (product- or content-related)Keep in mind that any forum, enterprise-level solution, or any content management system

could be used for this purpose. We’re only sharing those here who really specialize in this

function if this is your top priority. Get Satisfaction

UserVoice

Zendesk Communities

Evoq by DNN

Reply to user-generated content Any of these platforms could be used for this purpose, depending on the content. For richcontent, go back to the first list of those platforms that allow user-generated content beyondconversations.

Stay away from chat platforms like HipChat, Slack, Chatter for this purpose as they requiremore synchronous conversation.

Ask customer support-related questions

Get Satisfaction

UserVoice

Zendesk Communities

Crowdsource ideas for your product

Evoq by DNN

NationBuilder

Mobilize Igloo

IP Boards (polls)


Private message one another

Any forum software

Any enterprise software

Any “unowned” community platform with limited effectiveness, as they all have

messaging built in, with the exception of Stack Exchange and G+.

GroupAhead (you get other members’ emails, but no in-app messaging) Hoop.la

SocialGo

Switchboard

Any internal community



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Plan events together

Mightybell

Meetup

Hoop.la

GroupAhead

CMNTY

Evoq by DNN

Telescope.io (with developer help)

Higher Logic

NationBuilder

Report bugs

Get Satisfaction

UserVoice

Zendesk Communities

Discuss topics Any type of platform will work except community feedback platforms. Note that this should

probably NOT be your only goal of connecting people. This is usually not a compelling enough

reason to get people to interact with each other by itself unless they are super isolated or you

are building a pure fan base or enthusiast community.

Follow each other to deepen relationships

Place

Yammer

Any “unowned” platform

Search past discussions to use as a knowledge base

Get Satisfaction

Zendesk Communities

Serve as a tiered engagement ladder

Vanilla Forums

Lithium

JiveX

Xenforo

Ning Pluck

Socious

Serve as ambassadors for your product

Any private forums

Mobilize

Any internal community platform



Private G+ Communities

Private Facebook Groups

Private LinkedIn Groups

Facilitate collaboration on projects or documents

JiveX Lithium

Salesforce Community


Zimbra

All Content Management Systems

Mobilize

Honey

Igloo

Slack (allows for uploads)

Community Platform Review SheetYou will want to narrow down your priorities for a platform to no more than three from

the checklist above. Then create a spreadsheet where you can evaluate the platforms

based on your unique priorities.

You can download this form and expand it at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HAvUpC3mmBLkACKhIPhu4RkJ7BAjTUqnL

ZVjk074zNc/edit?usp=sharing.

Platform# ofPrioritiesMet

One-TimeSetupFees

MonthlyFees

ImplementationTime/Difficulty

TechnicalNeeds

StrengthsWeanes

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HAvUpC3mmBLkACKhIPhu4RkJ7BAjTUqnLZVjk074zNc/edit?usp=sharing





the cmx guide to community platforms

Documents