Chris Brogan listed 100 topics to blog on & it’s a very inspiring list! It made me realize that our readers over at DigiScrapInfo.com log far more hours than many of you I bet! They are passionately involved in online communities & utilize social media & networking for a variety of reasons & in a complex manner. Their goal is to combine their digital photos with journaling & embellishments to preserve their memories.

Digital Scrapbooking is more practical than paper scrapbooking: I have seen the digital scrapbooking community grow exponentially in the past year! Why is this? Well the answer is obvious – imagine toddlers & scissors & mom’s pretty papers for paper scrapbooking. Working on a computer is just so much more practical because they can hit save & walk away. And creating pages digitally simply allows for more creativity!

Online social interaction: Many of our readers are stay at home mom’s & the web allows them to interact with adults. Hence the need for communities with activities! The virtual world is very real & offers an escape from the everyday routine with young families. They can make social connections without the hassle of taking their children out. Visiting a library or going shopping is a lot of work with little ones

Community is based on learning, sharing & teaching: Everyone helps each other to learn to use the software, post pages to online galleries to share their work. People comment on each other’s work & provide constructive criticism. They play games, have celebrations & the intensity of the community building is incredible! These women are detail oriented, excel at multi tasking, & highly educated. They are experts at building community (it comes naturally).

e-commerce – purchasing: There’s a joke about not sharing the paypal account with the husband due to the amount of items purchased online! To participate in digital scrapbooking purchasing some of the pretty supplies (papers & embellishments) is a must. I’ve spent $25 on a set of papers. Most kits cost $4-8 though. And the beauty is that they’re non-consumable. The reality is that these ladies create & support their own economy online.

e-commerce – selling: There are many ladies that are creating digital supplies using Photoshop & other programs. They sell them & provide a supplemental income. Some make their living by it & others work a day job & do it as a hobby. But they are all entrepreneurs & need an outlet to sell their creations. So these sites also cater to that. A few have their own stores & others sell at consignment stores. In another post I will outline how complex the structures of these stores are & the unique ways that they promote their goods.

how much time spent? That is a good question. A poll shows that 29% of these ladies spend 2 hours online (reading their comments provides an overview of what some admit to!). For our site I’ve noticed usage peaks in the evenings & weekends which makes sense. That’s when hubby is home to help with the kids. And look out on the holidays!! On New Year’s Eve my sister came back & was laughing at me – I had sat for 5 hours straight offering tech support for ACDSee products!

I am quite proud of the digiscrapping community. It has been evolving & growing. There are hundreds of independent sites with membership ranging from a few hundred to 120,000! and people continue to believe in their abilities & create new stores. The level of entrepreneurship is phenomenal. I have been helping them explore the networking & marketing opportunities at Facebook & Kaboodle (a shopping social networking site). Then Kaboodle created a killer app for Facebook that perfectly melds the two social networking worlds. Dianne Rigdon commented that she had looked for that when she first registered at Facebook (click on her name if you want to see the level of designs these ladies are producing!). So intuitively customers know what they want! Keep that in mind if you’re creating a social networking site or a Facebook app. Ask the users what their needs are!