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I put my money on the former. 4chan is... itself. But it is definitely a vibrant community. And Poole himself has some thoughtful, unique insight into what makes a community vibrant and what kills it.

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Maybe. Creating successful online communities has a huge luck element to it. I don't think there's anyone who can reliably create new online communities out of nothing.

Indeed. That, and timing. It seems like Google with all its money and talent and unbeatable built in audience, pushed so hard and still couldn't get it done with Google+, it'll be interesting if they can get it done now.

It's a bit hard to 'lurk' into a theme related community in Google+.

Everything is too personal, too related to a particular individual and in that sense there are no communities, only egos.

Would you mind elaborating on his insight into online communities? I'd love to read his perspective in depth

His TED talk, for one: http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for...

That's an impressively on-topic username you've got there.

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