Guild sites are Internet web sites that bring together users with a common interest with businesses that wish to provide goods or services to people with that interest. The name comes from the concept of a guild as an association of people and businesses interested in a trade or pursuit and as an archive for any related skills or knowledge.
The idea is that businesses would provide the funding to construct the site and the users would help define what the site will contain and provide much of the effort for creating the actual content. The businesses get their value through survey results and advertising space on the site. The surveys are explicitly requested by the users with the understanding that they are supporting the site by filling out the survey. The advertising would be restricted to vendor pages that again would be explicitly requested by the user. The supporting businesses would also be listed as sponsors of the site. The goal for these sites is to create a place that people with the given interest will return and have an active role in creating and extending.
I imagine create a company that provides the structure for the content, the tools for creating the content, the business connections to the supporting businesses, and the advertising expertise needed for the businesses to effectively advertise in this context. This company would work to get out of the way once the site was set up, but would be available to continue to provide support and extensions to the site as needed.
Guild Sites are distinct from typical Internet portal sites in that they are focused, similar to so called `Vertical Portals', and they include specific collaborative activities that the users contribute to because of their own interest in the activities. Simple existing examples are chat rooms or on-going discussion lists. Guild sites would extend this concept to include photo/video galleries, data/knowledge-bases, maintained rumor lists and debate pages, as well as project specific activities that the users come up with.
Some Possible Guilds
Alternative Healing
Sports
Music
Photography
Flying
HAM radio
Model trains
Stamp collecting
Any hobby that has an existing national non-profit oraganization
- Various plant societies (e.g. the American Daffodil Society, the North
American Mycological Association etc.), animal interest societies (e.g.
the North American Hedgehog Association) etc.
Movies
Television Shows
Travel and Leisure
Last Modified: April 21, 2000