CommunityBuildrs

This is a site I'm building as a project for the scuba diving community. It's being built based on the Drupal CMS, hosted at 1&1, and is really my first foray into building a community online from scratch. The site is still in a main construction phase and as a result almost no marketing has been done yet. Feedback and suggestions will be appreciated.

I built this start page for Scuba Divers specifically to indirectly plug my "Dive Lounge" community. The concept is pretty simple really. The start page helps to refer scuba divers to my community while the independent URL allows divers with other loyalties to be comfortable using it as well and at least see the name of my site referenced among leading sites in the industry.

One of the largest online repositories of articles available for posting on your site. You have to credit where the work came from but it is a great way to fill out some content in a hurry. The quality of the writing is highly variable though so you have to spend a little time working your way through the many hits to a given topic.

From the "About Us" section on their site:
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“For people who make websites”
A List Apart Magazine explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on web standards and best practices.
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The information on this site may not be as deep in terms of sheer number of articles as some other sites online but it makes up for it in the quality of their articles. It's good stuff! Well written and thought out. Definitely worth checking out.

A blog by Jeremy Schoemaker who is consistently rated among the top earners through affiliate marketing online. It's a pretty home-grown style and a mix of personal as well as money-making posts. This guy is making it happen online and learning from what he is willing to share makes sense.

This site certainly pushes its products and sales but makes up for it with a wide range of good information on improving your search engine optimization and describing various tools and links to additional services.

Comprehensive list of the most popular money making methods today, many of them focused on blogging and peer production.

Ning is in the leading position right now for automated social network options. Basically they provide a no-programming interface for launching an online social network. If you are looking for a quick and easy way to get an online community rolling and aren't necessarily worried about monetization or deep control of functionality this is probably your best bet.

Upcoming.Yahoo.com, formerly Upcoming.org, lists venues, events, and groups for metro areas. They have an API and tons of RSS feeds. Great for scheduling public events.

Similar services are meetup.com and eventful.

It's a pretty hokey name but is worth checking out. It is essentially an affiliate ad network that has an innovative way of displaying the ad. The illusion of a curled corner is created that when moused over will "peel" down to show the ad until mouse-out. It is less obtrusive than a pop-up/under but also more graphically interesting than text links. So far, reported conversions are stronger than for other graphical ad types. It also has the benefit of using less screen real estate unless moused over.