Internet Studies

9rules—Share. Learn. Discover.

A Case-Study for NED24 Virtual Communities
Curtin University of Technology
Prepared by Elle Meredith
April 21, 2008

You can also download this Case Study as a PDF file [1.9mb]

Table of Contents

• Case Study Introduction
• Overview
• The 9 rules of 9rules
• 9rules Technology and Features
  • 9rules Notes
  • 9rules Member Entries
  • 9rules Clips
  • Members Profile Page
  • Dashboard
  • 9rules Blog
  • My.9rules Store
• 9rules History
• Membership
  • Membership Benefits
  • Submission Rounds
  • Community Members
• Virtual Community Definition
  • The Five Ps of Virtual Community
• Summary
• Appendix
  • Appendix A: Join the 9rules Network: Round 1
  • Appendix B: Excerpts from Previous Members
  • Appendix C: Images from the Past
• Bibliography

Case Study Introduction

This case study examines 9rules as a bloggers virtual community. It examines technology features of the community which enable interactions between community members, the community history, who are its members and what makes it a virtual community. Analysis of the community was done through 9rules blog archives, the Internet Archive website, former members’ blog posts and actual membership in 9rules community.

Overview

9rules is an online social content network of bloggers where readers can find quality content socially and connect with other like-minded people around the globe. 9rules was originally launched in April 2005 and has evolved since its original concept.

The 9 Rules of 9rules

1. Love what you do.
2. Never stop learning.
3. Form works with function
4. Simple is beautiful.
5. Work hard, play hard.
6. You get what you pay for.
7. When you talk, we listen.
8. Must constantly improve.
9. Respect your inspiration.

9rules Technology and Features

9rules Notes

Notes are basically open discussion boards that can be viewed by all but if you wish to comment, login is required. It includes more than 30 communities with topics such as:

• Art and Entertainment
• Business
• Lifestyle and Special Interests
• Sport and Recreation
• Opinion and Community
• Education
• Internet and Technology
• Politics and Government

These topics then have sub-topics that are more specific. As can be seen, topics range is quite broad; however the majority of online discussions occur within the Internet and Technology bloggers community. This is evident by examining the sub-topics, actual discussions, popular tags as well as when considering that 9rules in its essence is a blogging network community.

9rules Member Entries

Member Entries are a selection of blog entries from 9rules members’ blogs, which are hand picked by the site staff and which feeds get aggregated through 9rules. Instead of manually subscribing to many individual blogs, a reader can instead subscribe to 9rules feed and enjoy the benefit of quality content without all the hassle. This paradigm worked well when the Network launched but as it scaled, too many entries get aggregated through and the reader might be overwhelmed with the number of posts he or she require to follow.

9rules Clips

Clips are short bits of content that everyone can share and explore through trusted friendships. Some might consider Clips as another version of del.icio.us or ma.gnolia

Members Profile Page

Every my.9rules user has a profile page, which is how people get to know the my.9rules members. In addition to personal information the profile page includes:

• Stream, which is an aggregation of the member’s activity on the site.
• Top Friends—members can add as many friends as they wish, but can only have nine top friends. This feature is used by 9rules to tailor the way it displays content to members through the 9rules recommendation areas.
• Points and Awards given for and can either be used on the my.9rules store or sent to member’s “friends.”
• Lifestream, which is feeds from other community sites the member belongs to, for example flickr, del.ici.us, twitter and others.

Dashboard

When members login, they are faced with their Dashboard. The Dashboard page is the jump-off point for all my.9rules users.

9rules Blog

The 9rules Blog started in April 2005 and includes entries about Network decisions, updates and news.

My.9rules Store

The my.9rules Store is a new feature that lets users customise their profiles by “purchasing” various items like profile header images, background patterns with points accumulated by interactions on the site.

9rules History

9rules started as an idea Paul Scrivens had to aggregate quality blog posts in one place in order to drive traffic to both the blogs and the Network site. Differently to other social content networks, where everyone’s post can appear and get voted by readers, on 9rules the blogs are selected by the site staff , which make the decision whether the blog publishes quality content or not. Qualities that are being sought in a site are passion, quality writing, consistency, wide range of topics, blog design while not hosted on free blogging service sites.

Scrivens started working on his idea in late 2004 and in April 2005 he called bloggers to join the 9rules network (see appendix A). The first version of the 9rules website included a private forum for the community, where members could interact with each other. 9rules since had a few submissions rounds (three rounds in 2005 and two rounds in 2006) where bloggers could submit their site for review and which how most new members where selected. With each consecutive round, the 9rules Network grew bigger and bigger. There was a discussion in September 2005, when the 9rules Network started to scale whether to create an A-list for “the ones that actually still provide some high-quality content” (Scrivens, September 2005) but the Network decided against it as they believed all their member’s blogs are of quality material.

2006 was a good year for the 9rules Network. Its members were up for the 2006 Bloggies Awards. The Network got an honourable mention at the Web 2.0 Awards conducted yearly by SEOMoz.org and won the 2006 SXSW Web Awards. In July 2006, Scrivens started a 9rules group on Facebook, which doesn’t seem to be active.

With each submission round, the number of submissions increased. In round 5 in October 2006 1190 bloggers submitted their site for review. With so many submissions, the rulers experienced difficulties in reviewing all the submissions in a timely manner. Scrivens said on the 9rules blog that in round 5 they accepted sites from members who participated in Notes.

“…we liked their style, they demonstrated they could interact socially without insulting people behind the blog and learn things that wouldn’t normally show on a blog because their sites didn’t receive many comments and did not have a lot of traffic.” (Scrivens, October, 2006)

It appears that selection of new blogs has changed to be based on social interaction more than pure quality of content. This might also be the seed that started additional changes to the 9rules Network and its members’ agreement. One of these changes was closing submissions in April 2007 which stayed closed for one year. However, the 9rules Blog strongly advised “signing up for notes and interacting in the community. At this time we are not accepting submissions from those who are not participating within the community.” (Scrivens, April 2007)

9rules was always considered a closed-in exclusive community. In the beginning, participation within 9rules mostly came down to getting involved within the 9rules forum, a private area for members only. In 2006, 9rules introduced Notes. The forums now became open for everyone to see. Everyone could become a member of the 9rules community but only a few selected ones were a part of the 9rules Network. As members’ counts increased, some people considered growth as a good thing for business. However, some complaints started to surface that the Network was no longer exclusive. Scrivens posted about it on the 9rules blog entry which he called: “The More They Arrive, The More Things Stay the Same” (Scrivens, July, 2007). How is it possible? As a community grows, it evolves and transforms. Scrivens addressed the complaints of open- versus closed-community by saying that:

“[the] Member system for 9rules is open in the sense that Members can write on any topic that they want, but closed because we choose which sites get in… We are a garden with walls that anyone can enjoy, you just can’t expect to plant your own seeds wherever you like. Since day one we have tried to integrate the best of open and closed systems and will continue to do so as we grow.” (Scrivens, October, 2007)

Through out the past three years, the 9rules website continued to evolve adding new features every few months.

“As time passed, things changed. 9rules continued to expand the network by increasing the membership. To handle the influx of new members, the site saw itself redesign once or twice. New features got added such as Notes and my.9rules. As time moved on, I saw the traffic I receive from 9rules slow to a trickle.” (Snook 2007)

In October 2007 a new member agreement was introduced that requires member participation in either the member-only forums or in my.9rules, the world-wide-open forums.

“Let me be clear – participation in either the new member area or my.9rules is required for all members, requested by members.” (White, 2007 Quoted from Van Hylckama Vlieg)

Quite a few current members at the time resented the requirement to participate in yet another online community. Some questioned whether 9rules is after quantity rather then quality by trying to define quality as frequency of participation (Lockton, 2007). One would think that by dedicating time to post quality content on your own blog, should be enough to show your support of the 9rules Network, as requested in the first member agreement. Others stopped seeing the benefit of being a member because as the Network grew, their own exposure started to decrease. This new member agreement led to members’ exodus, where current members left the Network. And as good bloggers do, they blogged on why they left 9rules (See Appendix B for some selected excerpts).

At the time of this writing, 9rules once again is about to relaunch in the end of this month April 30, 2008. It also has set three more submission rounds for 2008.

Membership

From 2005-2006 applications were handled in submission rounds, occurring roughly twice a year and giving applicants a 24-hour window to submit their blog. Each member was evaluated and hand-picked by the site staff based on quality of applicants’ blogs. The fifth round attracted 1,190 new submissions. In 2007 a new application round started which was not limited by the previous 24-hour time limit. 9rules remained open for submissions until April 17th, 2007 when the round was officially closed with a public announcement.

Membership Benefits

• Building readership
• Authentication by 9rules that they feel it has quality content
• Exposure and Traffic which mean business opportunities

Submission Rounds

• Started: Apr 2005 with 16 blogs
• Round 1: Apr 2005, 127 applicants, total members: 31 blogs
• Round 2: Jul 2005, 359 applicants, total members: 46 blogs
• Round 3: Nov 2005, 509 applicants, total members: Not sure
• Round 4: May 2006, 700 applicants, 111 new members
• Round 5: Oct 2006, 1190 applicants, 134 new members
• Round 6: April 2007, Ongoing applications, Not sure

For 2008, submission rounds dates are:

• May 7, 2008
• August 6, 2008
• November 5, 2008

Community Members

9rules is run by three people (aka The Triad): Paul Scrivens, Mike Rundle, and Tyme White, which are the owners and administrators of the website and community.

Everyone can join the my.9rules community but only a few become a part of the Member Entries where their website’s feed is aggregated through 9rules. Members use a nickname when interacting on the site and almost all provide a link to their site, which includes additional personal information. When selected as a Network member, members are asked to add the 9rules leaf to their site to show their support for the Network.

If you spend some time in the blogging arena, you might recognise some “celebrities” in the web design and development world. Examples can be Molly Holzschlag, Mark Boulton, Roger Johansson and others.

The majority of the community are tech-savvy. Some members organise meet ups throughout the year or attend professional conferences together but the majority of the interaction is done online.

Virtual Community Definition

Many definitions to virtual community exist. One of the first ones was devised by Howard Rheingold:

“Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace” (Rheingold, 1993)

9rules can be considered a virtual community as it is an online forum where like-minded people congregate and carry on discussions. The community members create personal relationships with others with sufficient human feeling. An example can be James Mathias words when leaving the 9rules community:

“To drop the leaf and leave the club… So now I find myself sans leaf, without private forum access and yet still surrounded by friends and a community that I love.” (Mathias, 2007)

The Five Ps of Virtual Community

According to Porter (2004) the key attributes of virtual communities be summarised as the five Ps which are: purpose, place, platform, population and profit model. With regards to 9rules these key attributes are employed as follows:

1. Purpose (Content of Interaction)—the focal content of communication, among community members is made up of over 30 communities divided by a variety of discussion topics.
2. Place (Extent of Technology Mediation of Interaction)—mostly virtually with some interactions in real life.
3. Platform (Design of Interaction)—asynchronous communication.
4. Population (Pattern of Interaction)—a network with varied social ties.
5. Profit Model (Return on Interaction)—the 9rules network creates intangible economic value meaning better exposure, increased site traffic and value is defined as potential business opportunities and revenue-generation. 9rules is made up of a lot of links because it doesn’t display full content on site.

Summary

Although 9rules hasn’t been around for too long it displays common characteristics of an online community which continues to grow and evolve. Currently, the 9rules website offers so many diverse ways for community members to interact online that differentiation between all methods can be quite confusing. Which forum am I supposed to contribute exactly?

Furthermore, this case-study raises a few questions that should be asked:

• Has 9rules reached its community limits when the original benefits to the members decrease as the Network scales up?
• Can the Network maintain quality with such an influx in numbers?
• Can participation be forced on the community members, regardless of the community?
• Chisholm (2001) said:
  

  “Community was a successful marketing tool for online ventures that failed to translate into bottom-line profits”. (quoted in Fernback 2007)

  With the way 9rules evolves and changes, would its community translate into bottom-line profit for both the 9rules Network and its members?

Appendix

Appendix A: Join the 9rules Network: Round 1

You have a blog and there are some goals you would like to accomplish:

• More Traffic
• More Consistent Readership
• More Business Opportunities
• More Money

Maybe you only want one of the items listed above or maybe you want all of them. In any case that is what the new 9rules Network is for. Here are some of the details:

• The network is intended to be a win-win situation for both 9rules and the sites involved.
• If you have a blog and you would like more traffic, eyes, and money and feel that you provide quality content that deserves more attention then this might be the opportunity you are looking for. 9rules will help get you the traffic and also consult with you in better ways to make revenue from your hard work.
• This will be a revenue sharing venture, but will be greatly tilted towards the owners of the sites. Meaning no 50/50 split here. This also helps to keep the 9rules team focused on helping you out because the more we help you, the more we help ourselves.
• You own the content. Hell, it’s your site and you put the effort into it. Why shouldn’t you own it? We are not here to tell you what should or shouldn’t be written, but we can provide guidance as to what direction you can take your content.
• A private 9rules forum where members get to discuss their secrets and methods for success. Also just a place to chill out and talk.

Any type of site can apply, even those personal ones that are funny as

• hell. We are looking for high-quality content sites (doesn’t have to be a blog per se).

Now I have already written about this over at Work Boxers to get a sample test of interest and the results have been overwhelming. To control the chaos a bit better we are going to open the window for applicants for a set amount of time. Next Wednesday (April 6, 2005) at 12:00am Eastern, we will post an application form on the 9rules site where you can submit your site(s) for review. Only a set number of sites will be allowed into the network for this first round because we want to be able to provide the best service possible to them. The form will be up for 24 hours.

So if you think you might be interested make sure that your site has been updated with quality content and feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Appendix B: Excerpts from Previous Members

Khaled Abou Alfa, (October 2007) Post the Rules: Broken Kode:

“9rules is a blogging network that reached its zenith (at least in terms of popularity) about a year and a half ago…give or take a several months. It was an incredibly vibrant place, with a great website and really active members…back when blogging was fresh and new as opposed to the norm in the web landscape…. the way in which departures from the network have been handled, or as the case may be, not been handled. While a new site is celebrated, a departing site (or even original member departing) does not even warrant a small mention on the official blog.”

Brad Faults, (October, 2007), 9rules Takes a Dive: h3h.net:

“Breeding a closed community that only feeds off of its own ideas is intellectually disadvantaged compared with the open community that takes insight and discussion from all reasonable sources. Indeed, the shift toward a closed participation-based system gives more voice to people who wish to have more voice, which, paradoxically or not, decreases overall quality.”

Natalie Jost, (Ocober, 2007), Finally Leaving the Rules: Standards for Life:

“An email went out this weekend that reminded me why it is long past my time to leave. They’ve come up with a new membership agreement which requires members to actively participate in the group, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing - for the group. For me though, with so much going on in my life right now, it’s just not something I can commit to.”

Dan Lockton (October 2007), Bye Bye 9rules: Architectures of Design:

“…but it’s a shame: forced participation would certainly “become a chore” and I’m not going to agree to commit to anything along those lines (I wonder how the level of participation will be measured or assessed?), so this site will be leaving 9rules, sadly, in due course.
Taking a broader view, in internet terms, 9rules’ move - to more of a ‘walled garden’, turned in on itself - seems very much at odds with the increased openness which has driven the dramatic growth of, say, Facebook. Perhaps 9rules wants ‘quality’ rather than ‘quantity’, but defining ‘quality’ as ‘frequency of participation’ seems to be rather arbitrarily quantitative, if that makes sense.”

James Mathias (March 2007 ) Why I Left: Leihu.com:

“I was in seemingly everyone’s top 10 reboots lists, it was overwhelming, but felt really nice. When 9rules round four open submissions came up I thought, lets see.

I was surprised and also not surprised to see I had been accepted.
Most folks that had been accepted were elated and overjoyed. Not I. Instead I was jilted again. I felt that my content, which hadn’t changed in quality, only in quantity between rounds should have gotten me invited before, so as insecure people often do I began to question the 9rules network and the way things really were—I have issues, I know… Joining turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. And I’m glad I did. However, and this is the meat of the story, I decided the week before last after some deep introspection, some head-banging and a little discussion with a few friends that I needed to move on.

To drop the leaf and leave the club… So now I find myself sans leaf, without private forum access and yet still surrounded by friends and a community that I love.”

Christian Mohn, (Ocotber, 2007), Leaving 9rules: h0bbel.p0ggel.org:

“And here I was, thinking that delivering “quality” content was the requirement. How silly of me, I was clearly mistaken.”

Robert Nyman, (October 2007), Leaving 9rules: Robert’s Talk:

“I got to be included in the build-up when 9rules didnʼt have so many members, and each new member was someone fairly well-known. Right before me, Roger and Molly were included in the network, so it felt pretty exclusive…”

Marco Van Hylckama Vlieg, (October 2007), Leaving 9rules:

“Making ‘community participation’ a mandatory thing however IS a reason for me to leave.”

Steven York, (October 2007), Standing down from my 9rules membership: Seopher

“It’s a shame, the 9rules members are all amazing people for different reasons but I seldom engaged in meaningful conversation and it’s possible that my place is best suited to someone with more time. It’s been a nice journey but it’s just not the right fit for me anymore.”

Appendix C: Images from the Past

September 2003

April 2005

June 2005

November 2005

December 2006

February 2007

April 2008

Bibliography

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