Ashley Friedlein | What can a business want out of a community?

After a series of mostly fun episodes here’s one that Lera doesn’t like. It is useful, not fun. Anna and I think that it is a good episode with lots of good ideas.

My favorite take is towards the end when Ashley suggests the internet is going in cycles - communities have shifted to social networks and now are getting the focus back.

Then I am listening to David Spinks from CMX and he’s saying the same thing. And my twitter bubble is raving about the communities being the core of the business.

We ask Ashley what kind of business should drop off everything and invest in a community and what return can a business expect.

Ashley thinks about several use cases that collapse to a single idea: people want culture, not a product.

I am turning 36 years young on Monday, but my brain fails to function on emotions. Lera is 22 and her brain fails to not function on emotions. She gets it naturally that it is people, it is the culture that attracts the attention of the masses to a product or a service.

Th…