Read the whole thing! But here's my take: Not everybody has the time to participate in a forum/discussion board/chat room. For those who don't, the site mom should run a blog or a portion of your site that points to the best of the forums and summarizes what's happening. This gives needed perspective and balance to your community and allows those who want to be informed but don't have the time to follow a forum in a detail to get a good idea of what's going on. *plug* And of course Bryght sites have blogs and forums so it's easy to do this. *end of plug*
From Common Craft - Online Community Strategies: Weblog as Online Community Management Tool:
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Recently I wrote about the differences between weblogs and message boards inside online communities. In the comments of that entry, a reader asked for more information about the best uses of the resources inside an online community. This entry is focused on the weblog as an online community management tool.
Aside from participation in discussions, the community manager often needs a consistent and accessible place to have an independent voice to relate community news and information. Below you will see how a weblog may be used to fill this need.
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