I’m a big advocate of companies starting their own communities in order to spur interest in their products and services. Well Napster, yes Napster, has made a very smart move and done just that with Narchive.

From the looks of it, Narchive is a Wikipedia style encyclopedia of music that’s created by the users of the site. Unlike Wikipedia, you have to be a member of Napster to contribute. That’s okay though because most community sites require you to be a member prior to contributing. If you don’t want to join Napster you’re still free to browse the community and see what other people are contributing.

If you do decide to join you get the added bonus of being able to comment and contribute your own take on the music and artists that you care about. As an added bonus, contributors have the option of adding special Napster links that will allow registered Napster users to play songs mentioned in your contributions. Members of the Napster affiliate program can make some money if those links are converted into purchases.

I’ve just browsed through the service so I can’t speak on usability, but I like the idea. Give people a place to contribute, converse and generally get excited about whatever it is that the community is all about and chances are that the activity can be converted into revenue. In fact, after browsing a page about my favorite artist Billy Joel, I’m already thinking about joining.

I don’t expect that most businesses reading this blog have the budget or time to create something like Narchive. But believe it or not creating an online community is not as difficult or costly as you might think. I recommend that any businesses even thinking about creating their own community check out Drupal.

Drupal is a powerful, simple to use content management platform with a large community of developers and a great number of themes and add on modules. I’m using it to develop a Podcasting community site. And I can certainly see the possibilities for other businesses looking for a way to engage current and potential customers.

[tags]Social Media, Napster, Narchive, Community, Music, Drupal, Business Ideas[/tags]