I got my hands on a pdf of the old, out-of-print book, "Building Online Communities" by Amy Jo Kim.

While the tech references are dated (from 2000), there aren't that many, and I'm really fascinated by her descriptions of the life-cycle of community members and fosting a sense of place, loyalty and belonging.

I ultimately am convinced that building my site is a multi-faceted process that will include both social and technical considerations.

The community I have is an old one; the site was started in 1999 and the forums have been around, although not all that time, still several years. It's been on vb since about 2003. But it's still relatively small considering it's longevity (i.e. about 12,600 members total, a little under 300 thousand posts).

Before I took over the site, growth had pretty much stopped. Despite several SEO no-nos, the site was well indexed because it has been around (and static) for years. Traffic was pretty good, but there was an 85% bounce rate. Lots of the features just didn't work.

Other than the regulars of the community, nothing really happened there. Without the forums, the site would have been dead long ago...So changing up and adding content helped, and the redesign, while it totally bit me in the behind in SEO, was very needed. Long term has been my mantra.

I know the former owner had some questions about why some similar communities had continued to grow, while ours hadn't...I think the answer lie largely in what I'm reading about now...

I'm totally digging this book. My background is in psych, and this aspect of the whole thing is fascinating to me.

To others who are interested in building interest and participation in their community, I'd suggest they take a look at this. A paper copy of this puppy can't be had for under $100, but you can get the PDF for under $25.