I’m surprised people haven’t pulled me up on this yet – I often state that member count isn’t a reliable indicator of the success of an online community; but nobody has asked me what numbers are better to use. Here, I’ll offer you some suggestions.

Registrations

This is a tricky one. On the one hand, an increasing number of new members implies that your community is attractive to outsiders. You need to bear in mind though, that the faster you attract new members, the more diluted your community can become. A sudden increase in new members can actually damage an online community – so be careful.

Contributions

Without activity, you have no community. There are many ways you can measure contributions to your online community; number of posts per member, overall posts per day, number of posts per discussion thread, etc.

Generally speaking, the more contributions to your community, the more value it gives (and receives). However, not all contributions are equal – is a 5 word post worth as much as a 100 word post?

Don’t assume that the higher the number of posts per day, the better your community is – those posts could be abusive or contain little in the way of value.

Bounce rate

Your site’s bounce rate shows how many of your visitors leave without clicking through to any other pages of your website. For example, if the bounce rate of your homepage is 50%, it means that half of your visitors leave your site as soon as they arrive.

You need to be careful here, though. Remember that not all traffic arrives via your homepage – so don’t rely solely on the bounce rate of your homepage as an indicator of how attractive/relevant your community is to visitors. Monitor the bounce rate of the most popular landing pages of your site. Also bear in mind that a sudden influx of traffic will almost certainly increase (worsen) your bounce rate – for example, if a page hits the homepage of Digg, you’ll typically see a huge influx of traffic to that specific page but very little in the way of visitor exploration of your site.

I’d suggest that if your bounce rate is consistently above 50%, you need to work on the site – either you’re not explaining the community’s purpose, you’re not offering anything unique, you’re advertising in the wrong places, your community is too hidden, or you’ve gone for form over function. I don’t think you could go more basic than the homepage for Just Chat – and its bounce rate is only 20%.

Pageviews

Be careful on this one – measuring the health of your online community with pageviews can easily be a deceptive ego stroke, like member count. If you want to double your pageviews overnight, you can simply edit your forum configuration to hold 10 posts per page instead of 20, or edit your blog configuration to display only 10 blog comments per page instead of 20.

However, as long as you’re aware of the potential pitfalls of using pageviews as a metric, it can still be useful. Not only do pageviews reflect how engaged your visitors are, they can show you where any bottlenecks may be. Are there a high number of pageviews for a specific section of your site? Look to reduce them – bring more content onto the page.

People don’t like clicking ‘next’ over and over again – that’s why you’ll see people jump into a forum discussion thread at page 30 with a comment like, ‘I couldn’t be bothered to read the previous 30 pages, but…’. Sure, even if all the content is spread over fewer pages, you’ll still have people skip over the content, but you’ll be more likely to see them skim some of it. It’s all about making it easier for the visitor.

Time on site

Pretty simple this one. Basically, the longer a visitor is on your site, the more engaged they are. You want this number to be high, and to increase over time (as the amount of content in your community increases and relationships get stronger).

Repeat visitors

Your community depends on its members returning to get involved in discussions. Fresh blood is good, but your community won’t get anywhere unless people stick around and form relationships. The more repeat visitors your online community sees, the healthier it is.

Visitor loyalty

This is a good measure of just how addictive your online community is. If visitors are only dropping by once a month, then it isn’t interesting enough. If people are visiting multiple times per day, they’re hooked.

Endorsements

People don’t recommend rubbish to their friends – they only recommend stuff that’s good. Every time someone uses your ‘tell a friend’ form (you do have one, right?), it’s a vote of confidence in the community. Make sure you are measuring the use of this form.

Do you offer a link for visitors and members to share content from your community? The more content is being shared, the more engaging and interesting it is.

Newsletter response rate

Most email newsletters are done wrong – they are used as a way of broadcasting messages to subscribers. Instead, they should be seen as conversation starters. Don’t send emails from a ‘donotreply’ address – use a real, live email address. Encourage people to hit the ‘reply’ button. You want to encourage conversation, not discourage it.

If people are simply reading your newsletter and not clicking any links or getting in touch, then something is wrong. Either your community is boring, or your newsletters are.

Incoming links and online mentions

Buzz is good. The more people talking about you, the more attention your community will attract. Not all mentions are guaranteed to be positive, though – so don’t just count a mention as a vote for your community. If you do something bad, you might get thousands of mentions; is that a good thing?

I’d keep track of all mentions and incoming links and divide them between negative, neutral and positive and see how they trend.

* Be wary of playing the numbers game *

In this article, I’ve listed 10 ways you can use numbers to measure your community’s progress – but at the same time I’ve shown how they don’t always reveal the true picture. When it comes to online communities, numbers aren’t everything. A community is about relationships – and relationships are subjective, not objective. Don’t forget this key fact.

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Maximise your chances of success – only launch your community website to the world when the following conditions have been met:

◊ You know why you want to launch an online community

Why do you want an online community in the first place? To increase brand awareness/perception? To reduce costs? To better engage with your customers/target audience? Because everyone else is? The first three are valid reasons – the last one might be valid, but it’s the least likely to see you succeed. Do you really need an online community?

◊ You are committed and supported

Building an online community takes a lot of hard work, and a lot of effort. It also takes time (shortcuts are here). Are you ready for this? Perhaps even more importantly, are others inside your business (if applicable) supportive, too? Building an online community can be a struggle – you don’t want to be distracted, fighting against those that should be supporting you.

◊ You know how you are going to measure success

You shouldn’t base ’success’ on the number of people you can coax into registering. Member count is not a particularly good measure of a successful community. Instead, think of your own goals (or your organisation’s) and how the community will help you reach them.

When it comes to online communities, numbers can be difficult – sometimes success is measured on more subjective terms; for example, online communities can change the internal processes of an organisation to make it far more customer focussed (if the organisation itself is willing to change). That can be difficult (but not impossible) to measure using numbers alone.

◊ You know where your potential members are

It’s much easier to find vegetarians online than it is fortune cookie writers. This needs to be considered – the harder your potential members are to find, the more challenging it will be to build a community in the first place. There are advantages, though – the harder these people are to find, the less likely it is that a competitor has already moved in. Smaller groups are better at building relationships – so see this as an advantage (albeit a challenging one).

◊ You’ve already built relationships with – and amongst – potential members

You know where your members are, and you’ve built relationships with some of them. This doesn’t mean they follow you on Twitter – this means they actually talk to you and engage in meaningful dialogue.

Don’t make the easy mistake of ‘top down’ relationship building here – remember, you want a community. You need to introduce these people to each other; be a matchmaker and introduce people to others.

◊ You have a group of early adopters involved in the development process

You don’t want to launch a desolate online community or one that isn’t relevant to your target audience. Make sure you take advantage of the relationships you have developed and engage with these individuals during the website’s development to ensure it is tailored to your members and accumulating content at the same time.

◊ You have a plan

Don’t open the doors until you know what’s next. Opening an online community isn’t the final stage of community building. How will you continue to attract new members and keep hold of your existing ones? How will you encourage new conversations and the development of existing ones? How will you deal with abusive members? There are a lot of questions when it comes to community building – make sure you have the answers before you launch.

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I get a lot of people contacting me for help with their online community. Most of the time, they are unhappy with the amount of activity taking place – they want to see more. Most of the time, I see the same (or at least similar) problems. Therefore, in this article I want to outline five ways you can easily improve your online community.

1. Make the community prominent.

Don’t hide your online community behind a link. Bring it right up to the front page. Anything less, and you aren’t giving your community the respect it deserves. If you are serious about your online community, prove it by giving it serious exposure.

Show that you value the opinions of your members by featuring their content alongside your own editorial content – you are equal partners in this.

This goes further than just proving your commitment to the community. It puts the community in front of eyeballs. A lot of the time, visitors won’t even notice a link to your community – so put it where they can see it if you want them to join and get involved.

2. Keep it simple.

You don’t need fancy features and a glamorous site design. Most of the time, these are simply distractions. Keep things simple. There is nothing wrong with basing your community solely on a forum. You don’t necessarily need a full range of ’social networking’ features. People need to be able to communicate – it’s as simple as that. They can do this with a basic forum.

Fancy designs are often just an ego stroke for the organisation that commissioned them. Remember, an online community isn’t about you – it’s about your members. Strip everything back and keep it basic. Your community may not look glamorous, but it will be far more likely to contain activity and member engagement.

3. Tell me why.

I come across a lot of online communities that don’t explain or outline their purpose. As crazy as it sounds, there are a lot of people building communities without actually making it clear what the purpose of the community is. Sometimes this is obvious from the name – but even then, I need to know why I should join your community rather than one belonging to your competitor.

Ensure that all visitors to your site know why they should be joining and getting involved in the community. Keep it short, simple, snappy and accurate.

4. Be active.

As a community manager, you need to be active in your own online community. You can’t be a matchmaker unless you get to know members of your community. You can’t learn from your members if you don’t know who they are.

Lead by example – get stuck in and enjoy the community. If you aren’t active or if you aren’t enjoying being active, your community has a problem. Fix it.

5. Build relationships at home and away.

Some people who contact me stress that they are highly active in their community – in fact, sometimes they are its chief contributor. Of course, a community isn’t a community if there is only one person doing the talking. If this is happening to you, it’s an indicator that you need to be more proactive.

Just because you’ve built an online community it doesn’t mean people will flock to it. You need to get out there and find members. Fortunately, that’s never been easier. Your potential members are out there writing blogs, telling the world what they are doing on twitter, and networking on Facebook.

Don’t stalk these potential members, and don’t spam them. Get to know them. Comment on their blogs, provide value. It’s all about what you can do for them – not the other way around.

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Beet.tv caught up with Tania Yuki from comScore and found out that 80% of all net users worldwide watch video online. Aren’t you glad you were there before they arrived?

comScore of course needs to keep up with the times so they’re offering new features and expanding their areas of coverage. Granted, they still make mistakes in reporting far too often for my tastes and their numbers are still questionable at times as they use panels much of the time to gather the information when they should be focusing on direct measurement.

They’re looking at new metrics that will give a better idea of how online video stacks up against TV as well as better ways to plan and track your video versus others and total reach and frequency of online video and TV campaigns.

But the really interesting thing is that the reason for their continued expansion is the continued expansion of the industry and more importantly, viewing online. Tania stated, in her interview with Beet.tv’s Andy Plesser, that in many regions video viewing itself is “north of 70%” and even 80% in some areas in relation to people using the web.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.

That’s a pretty massive number and she said a lot of growth is coming from Australia/Pacific but also in Canada, France, Germany and the UK (see my previous post about UK video online) and of course, the US.

She does also state that China and Japan have some heavy usage, even though comScore is just moving into the region and that it’s hard to say how much growth there will be. Personally, I’d be surprised if less than 70% of Japanese Internet users were watching video online.

Well, I guess our work is done right? 80% of Internet users are watching video. In my world, that’s a perfect score because I follow the 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) which states that “roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” So now it would take 80% more work to get that last 20%. That’s a lot of energy for little payoff, so skip it and focus on your content and getting the best stuff out there that you can.

And if you’re reading this wondering what I’m on about…you’re already so late to the party that it’s in full swing and finding a dance partner might be rough, unless you’ve got a groovy spaceship to show off.

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The precise description of an online community manager varies from organisation to organisation. Some companies will describe the responsibilities of an online community manager very differently to others. Some will offer roles with very similar job descriptions but very different job titles.

The issue is this – there is no standard definition as to what an online community manager is, or does. We are all still ‘feeling our way’. In this article, I’m going to outline the role and personality of an online community manager.

The role of an online community manager

A matchmaker

The primary role of an online community manager is to encourage, facilitate and develop relationships. They need to ensure people with similar interests and objectives find each other, talk to each other and develop meaningful relationships. They need to build relationships with members and potential members themselves, and they need to continue looking for ways to bring people closer together.

A spokesperson

Online community managers are often seen as the public face of an organisation. If people aren’t happy with the business, they might take it out on the community manager. If they have a question about the company’s product, they’ll often ask the community manager before they go through the regular contact forms or customer support telephone numbers.

If your business is in the news, whether for good reasons or bad, the community will look to the community manager to speak on behalf of the organisation. Community managers don’t just encourage conversations between members. They also need to encourage communication between your organisation and its customers.

A leader

Online communities need leadership. There needs to be someone making the tough decisions – decisions that will often be made with a good amount of diplomacy. There isn’t much tolerance of authoritarianism when it comes to community building.

An evangelist

An online community manager needs to be enthusiastic about love what they represent. They need to be happy sharing and spreading awareness of the community and what it supports wherever and whenever they can. Someone who doesn’t believe in what they are doing won’t be as successful as a true evangelist.

A multi-tasker

Although much of a community manager’s time and focus will be spent on the organisation’s ‘official’ online community, they will also spend a lot of time monitoring and getting involved in conversations away from the community. They will be reading the blogs and twitter streams of influential people and potential members. They’ll be monitoring competing communities and getting involved in conversations wherever they may be happening.

A referee

An online community manager needs to keep the peace. This can be difficult when there are a number of competing personalities. It’s true that some people just won’t fit in; however, big personalities are a good thing – often, they drive conversation, activity and engagement, so you’ll want to keep them in the community. At the same time, you don’t want arguments and abuse to destroy the community.

A mediator

Similar to a referee, but different. Referees judge whilst mediators encourage aggrieved parties to work things out for themselves. The best online community managers rarely have to edit or delete member contributions – they will act as mediators and help prevent personality clashes or misunderstandings from happening in the first place, or from escalating out of control.

A babysitter

Experienced online community managers will tell you that sometimes they feel as though they are online babysitters. Something about the anonymity of the web makes some people behave as though they have barely learnt the alphabet. An online community manager needs to accept that part of their job will seem like babysitting. They’ll need to be prepared to hear petty complaints that are of the utmost importance to those complaining, but trivial to almost everyone else.

***

The personality of an online community manager

This is a little harder to define and probably depends on the nature of the community and the organisation. The manager of a community campaigning for an end to the death penalty will probably need to have a different personality to the manager of a community campaigning to give sheep the right to vote.

That being said, I believe there are some generic qualities that will always apply:

Patience

Building an online community takes time. You can’t expect overnight success – in fact, I’d argue that’s impossible. Relationships aren’t built overnight, therefore a community cannot be a success overnight. An online community manager needs to be patient and focussed on long term success.

Dedication

Similar to patience. A community managers needs to be absolutely dedicated to making the community a success. Sometimes an online community will be overwhelming (in a good way). Sometimes it will be disappointing. Often these two extremes can happen on the same day. A community manager need to truly believe in what they are doing and be dedicated to the community’s success.

Determination

Community building is a battle against the odds. Most will fail. A good online community manager will be determined to ensure their community succeeds. There might be existing communities already out there that are competing for the same audience as you. The determined community manager will see competition as an opportunity, not a threat.

Passion

If there is no passion, there isn’t much in the way of motivation. Sure, a nice salary is a good initial motivator but that won’t last long. A community manager who loves what they do and is truly passionate about what they do is far more likely to succeed. You want someone that gets excited every time a new email arrives. Someone that gets excited every time your community is mentioned. Someone who gets excited every time a member makes a contribution.

Maturity

As I mentioned earlier in this article, a community manager will often be caught in the middle of member disputes. At the same time, they will often be the victim of abuse themselves. An online community manager needs to rise above all of this. They need to take the moral high ground and not be drawn into arguments or divisive issues. This can often be very hard to resist. They need to be cool headed and mature.

Proactivity

An online community needs to be interesting and fun. The community manager needs to be constantly aware of the wants and needs of its members, and respond to them. They can’t wait until your competitors are stealing your members before they act – by then, it’s too late. A community manager needs to have their finger on the pulse and always be working behind the scenes. Where are the bottlenecks on the community? How are people interacting with specific features? How can they be improved?

What are people saying about your community/product/service/brand away from the community? A good online community manager will reach out regardless of the medium, regardless of whether the discussion is positive or negative.

Curiosity

A good online community manager will be inquisitive. They’ll always be asking questions – to themselves, community members and the  organisation they work for. They’ll be setting themselves goals and asking how those goals will be met. They will be asking community members how the community can be improved. They will be asking their organisation how they plan on adapting to the new challenges and opportunities the community poses. Questions aren’t just good – they’re essential.

Modesty

You don’t want an egotistical online community manager. Attention should always be focused on the online community’s members. If the spotlight does inadvertently turn onto the community manager, they need to quickly turn it back onto the members. Some personalities may find this difficult. A good online community manager knows that keeping the spotlight away from them is essential.

Empathy

An online community manager needs to be likeable and members need to be able to identify with them. The community manager needs to be a part of the community – they need to be involved in it, they need to build relationships with members and always reach out. They need to encourage; they need to be human.

Hard working

I’ve gone through a lot of attributes and qualities. So this final point should be pretty obvious – an online community manager needs to be hard working. This isn’t a 9-5 job.

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Video advertising is the fastest growing advertising format online, so says a new survey from BrightRoll—one of the largest online video advertising networks.  The pace of growth for online video ad spending is expected to remain around 40% for 2010—the same rate of growth as 2009.

A full 94% of advertising executives plan more spending in 2010 for online video ads than ever before.  In the previous year’s survey, that number was 87%.  (Christopher covered this entire report in great detail about a week ago.)

So why are agencies moving so hard and fast to online video ads?  Well, why do ad agencies keep doing anything?  Because it’s working.   More than 50% of respondents said video was the most effective form of advertising—heck, 83% said they were getting more value for their dollar than just one year ago.

That’s pretty significant.  Do you remember even one or two years ago how much talk there was about advertisers not feeling like they get the most for their money with online ads?  How much less they were willing to spend versus traditional television commercial spending?  All that talk now looks more like empty speculation with each passing month.

Part of the reason for advertisers flocking to online video in great numbers is a turnaround in one key area:  targeting.  For years, online video’s inability to accurately target viewers with ads based on demographic information was its Achilles’ heel.  But in the past year, the online video industry has regained the agencies’ trust by turning that particular lemon into very tasty lemonade—agencies now see the targeting capabilities of online video to be its greatest asset.

No one wants to throw away money on ad impressions with audiences that weren’t going to be customers anyway.  The more that online video can demonstrate their ability to accurately match users with videos that appeal to them, the more advertisers are going to jump in with both feet.  It’s the confidence that your ad will be seen by people in your actual target audience, instead of just any old viewer.

The BrightRoll conclusions shouldn’t really be surprising to us.  We already know viewers are willing to tolerate more ads than they’re being served.  And now we have ad agencies that have gone from skeptic to convert in 12 months and are now trumpeting the effectiveness of online video ads.

And according to new reports from Bloomberg, the number of advertisers on YouTube videos has increased tenfold in just the past year.  This is exactly what I like to see… separate sources confirming each others’ conclusions.  The YouTube data on advertiser growth serves to underline and add exclamation points to the BrightRoll survey.   So even if you want to take issue with the survey sampling size or parameters (which I have been known to do myself), the fact that we have two separate data sources offering a glimpse at the same general conclusion is comforting.  I think we can safely say that ad spending for online video is on the rise, and will continue to rise.

Part of this is because video itself is on the rise.  Don’t forget the recent news that YouTube viewers watch nearly 100 videos each on a monthly basis—meaning they’re watching more videos than ever.  I mean, some portion of this growth in online video ads is simply an attempt by advertisers to be wherever the audience is. But there’s one thing I feel pretty confident in declaring about ad agencies—they don’t like to throw money away.  They’re measured on their performance.  And if they see themselves increasing spending for online video ads in the coming year, then it’s because they have the backend data that proves (at least to them) that it’s working… that they can create revenue for their clients via video ads.

So does this mean we can expect to see YouTube turn profitable soon?  Is it a foregone conclusion?  Of course it is.  They’ve increased advertisers by 1000% in one year, and advertisers are bullish about the future of online video ads.  Someday, probably sooner than we think, YouTube will post a harmless footnote on their blog saying, “Oh, by the way, we’re profitable now.”  Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if they already are profitable and just aren’t telling us yet.

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Most organizations really want a big following, not a community.

A following is an audience that interacts with you. A community is an audience that interacts with each other.

A big following suits organizations that sell commodity, non-sociable, products. Coca-cola is a great example. Huge following, but no community. Likewise nearly all bloggers have followings, not communities. Many politicians, authors, salespeople also have great followings. Big followings are built by engaging with as many people as possible, creating great content, promotions/discounts, coverage in top blogs etc…

A community suits organizations that sell sociable and highly engaging products/services. Communities are small, highly engaging and exclusive. Software products often benefit from communities. As do manufacturers of niche products (e.g. Samurai swords, metal detectors etc…). Communities are built by interacting with a small group of people, initiating events and discussions that foster interactions between this group and soliciting ego, time and emotional investments from members.

You only need a community when your audience has a desire to talk to each other and when there is a benefit (to the audience!) from talking to each other. Very, very, few organizations fit this criteria. Perhaps as low as 1 in 10.

If you hope to build a community with a following approach, you’re going to be disappointed. If you hope to build a following with a community approach, you’re going to be even more disappointed.

Most of the time you’re better off trying to build a big following. Just don’t mistake the two.

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Most communities overlook a number of elements that would increase engagement and participation. Here are, by far, the 8 biggest elements every online community should have.

An epic community history. Your community should have a written epic history which all members can read. This history should be easy to find on your page. A who’s who of members. You should feature prominent members in your who’s who of members. This will create interest and desire to be featured in this list. You can have a selection criteria. A list of upcoming events. Every online community should have a list of upcoming events/activities taking place. They can be hosted by your community or, more broadly, events about the community’s topic matter. Don’t have any? Start some. The big issues page. What are the big issues in your online community at the moment? You should have a page or box dedicated to the big issues in your community along with an invitation to give an opinion on the issue. Plans for the future. When members join a community they’re investing their time to be a co-owner of a better future. You need to outline what the future for your community looks like. A useful FAQ. Most new members usually ask very similar questions (they might have joined solely to ask the question). So put together an FAQ solely about these questions. On Commania this would have included: “How much should I charge for community building work?” and “What platform should I use to create a community”. Compile these questions and link them to where they have been answered. Be more involved page. Every online community should offer ways members can be more involved. Your contact number. This is your job, your members are your customers, they should be able to reach you by phone to resolve issues. Talking by phone also builds a stronger connection than by e-mail. Buy a SkypeIn number if you have to – but offer a number members can call.

You will notice nearly all of these elements provide members with ways to learn more about the community or become more involved with the community in the future. This is how it should be and where you should always be focusing your efforts.

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Most brand community efforts go something like this..

The brand manager decides an online community could help him sell more washing machines. He hires a web designer to develop a fantastic looking community website. Then he builds up a list of the top influencers on the topic and asks them to join and write about the community.

He also writes press releases and sends them to newspapers and trade press. If he’s lucky, he can get a 2k – 3k people to register. Now he begins publishing useful advice about washing machines. How to avoid clothes shrinking and getting out the really, really, tough stains. Members will also be invited to submit their own top tips.

There is a problem in every line. Washing machines don’t bring people together, communities don’t directly sell more products, a fantastic looking community website is usually a distraction, top influencers don’t help launch a community, press releases rarely work, creating advice isn’t the same as cultivating relationships.

If you’re about to start your community efforts and you’re using any, any, of the ideas above, please stop, remove the idea, and start again.

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Sometimes events occur that force a writer like me to suddenly get personal.  It’s like a blog version of the sitcom staple, the “very special episode.”  For me, that event is the Nashville flood.  If you haven’t heard about it, Nashville is largely under water today.

It’s been unfortunately overshadowed in the national media by the oil in the gulf and the attempted terror attack in Times Square.  That’s understandable—those stories are hugely important.  But it’s maddening to see so much suffering and destruction here and have that story largely ignored by the rest of the world.

Here’s an example of the kind of devastation I’m talking about:

Nashville is my home, and has been for more than a decade.  But even people in their 90’s who have lived here all their lives have never seen anything like this.  The Army Corps of Engineers has called it a “once in a thousand years” flood.  Think about that.

Despite being two blocks from a lake, my home was not flooded.  I feel a mix of relief, gratitude, and something that can only be compared to guilt.  But the damage is so widespread, that nearly everyone’s having trouble getting where they need to go.  Interstates are shut down, tens of thousands were without power—one of the two water treatment plants is underwater and not functioning.  Things are pretty bad.

Television news reporters scrambled to find places to stand on dry land to film the flood.  Power outages forced some field reports to be filed by cell phone video camera.  And many citizens had lost their cable or electricity and were unable to follow the TV coverage anyway.

But there was still a way for people to share and receive information about the storm.  Several ways, actually.  No single event in my experience has served as a better demonstration of the power of social media and emerging technology.  In the age of portable HD video cameras, smart phones, WiFi, and mobile apps… it was actually quite easy to get updates, photos, and videos from the front lines of the storm.

I had multiple Twitter search pages open (I never did lose my high-speed Internet service, though many did), each with various search terms and hash-tags related to the flood (“#OtherSituation2010” seems to be the favorite—referencing the awful winter-2009 storm in Nashville that used “#TheSituation”—though there’s also “#Splashville” and “#NashvilleFlood”).  And people were Tweeting photos, videos, and stories of the damage and the rescues.  Many people were Tweeting out requests for assistance or asking who and how they could help.  I also had my Facebook app open on my phone, getting updates from friends and coworkers.

The flooding made it so difficult to get around the greater Nashville area that the TV crews were quite limited in what they were able to show.  Online video became the best way to stay on top of the latest developments, as hundreds filmed flood waters and destruction in their immediate area and uploaded for all to see.

It feels strange to use the word in the context of this massive tragedy, but this thing was truly viral… a viral beast.  This is the first live, local “newsworthy” event in my experience where TV coverage was actually a far inferior method of getting a big-picture view of the scope of things.  Even with power out across the city, the mobile web is now so commonplace that the viral spread of information wasn’t the least bit impeded.

And that’s not even mentioning the immediacy of online video and Twitter.  They now make TV news crews seem every bit as “late to the party” as TV news crews made newspapers appear when they came on the scene.  By the time the reporter on television says, “We have breaking news… the Metro Center area is being evacuated,” I’ve already seen video of the evacuation and retweeted it myself.  Before the news anchor shows footage of the prison inmates helping to sandbag the lone remaining water treatment plant, I’ve already seen video and photos of the event that have been uploaded to Twitter by individuals on the scene.

I know everyone uses different definitions of the word “viral,” but to me it’s always served to describe any piece of content that rapidly gets popular because of individuals sharing it with others.  And here, in the midst of this tragedy, was the perfect example of a very naturally occurring viral spread.  Using email, text message, blogs, online video, Twitter, Facebook, and more… citizen journalists scooped the heck out of the professional journalists at every step along the way—they still are today.

I hope I’m not coming off too casual by talking about this disaster in “viral” terms.  A lot of people have died (18 so far statewide) with the toll expected to rise over the coming days as the waters recede) and there are tens of thousands who have lost their homes, many of whom had no flood insurance.  This is a massive tragedy that will take months—and billions of dollars—to recover from.

And yet somehow, for me, it served as an official changing of the guard on how I consume news.  After all, I had electricity and cable service the entire time… but I didn’t have the television on.  I had my laptop open.  I had my Droid Incredible out.  Not because it was a novelty or a gimmick, but because it was truly the fastest way to get the widest cross-section of news and updates available.

Online video isn’t just for entertainment anymore.

Online video helped people know which roads were closed and which areas were flooding.  Online video helped loved ones learn their parents or children were safe.  And moving forward… online video will help spread the news of what’s gone on here and help raise much needed donations.  Perhaps videos like this one:

If you’re moved in the least to do something to help, please consider making a donation at either the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (partnered with the Mayor’s office) or the Nashville Red Cross.  Every little bit helps… and we’re going to need a lot.

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