Remember when you
were young and you dreamed of starting a
secret club, but you couldnt find anyone else to join? Well, what if
the problem wasnt that it was a crazy idea, but just that
your pool of potential members wasnt big enough? Or maybe the
club was a huge success, but since
then everyone has scattered across the country and keeping in touch has become
difficult.
Whatever the case, MSN Web Communities
are the perfect solution. The Web Communities service will
help you create and host your own set of free
personalized Web pages that will form an online meeting place around any topic
you can think of, or a convenient place where your
family or your friends can meet and communicate.
It only takes a few simple steps to create a new community, so
your club may be just moments away from a whole new beginning.
Create and customize your community To get started, the first
step is to register your community. Simply sign in on the
Communities home page, and youll be asked to name your community,
select the language you will use, choose a category under which it
will be listed, then decide whether your community will be public,
accessible by anyone who wishes to join, or private, where new
members can gain admission by invitation only. You will also be
asked to rate your site based on the content and subject matter you
plan to include, and agree to a Code of Conduct that outlines some
brief rules for communities.
Once you have registered your community, youll instantly have
a set of your own Web pages, complete with a message board, chat
room, and many other features. In addition, youll find templates
and toolbars that will help you update and customize your community
pages. The toolbars function like a word-processing program, and
allow you to give pages their own unique look by adding Web links or
selecting from multiple fonts, colors, text sizes, and a collection
of ready-made images.
Communication is the key
Once your community is up and running, use it to stay in touch with members
and to keep track of their goings-on. You can invite others
to join by using an e-mail feature that lets you send a quick
message telling them how. Any time you log in, your home page will
display how many new people have joined, and let you know if any new
messages or pictures have been posted.
Inside your community pages, the message board can be the central
point for communicationa place to post announcements, files, links
to Web pages, or to start a discussion on any given topic. If your
family or group prefers to communicate in real-time, its easy to
set up a private chat room where community members can have online
conversations.
Share memories around the world Since a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe
you'd like to communicate using your own images or photographs.
Its easy to create an online
photo album that can be viewed by anyone in your community, so
you can share photographs of your baby with relatives who live on
the opposite coast, or pictures of your vintage car with auto club
members around the world.
As a member of an MSN Web Community,
you can download a helpful tool called the Photo Uploader (you
must be a member of an MSN Web Community to access this feature). Using the
Photo Uploader, any community member can add photographs or clip art
to the shared photo album in a few simple steps. You can upload
several photos at once from your computer, and the tool will
automatically create a thumbnail image of each one for quick
viewing. The Photo Uploader will also let you title your photographs
and add text descriptions of them.
Creating a custom community for your family, sports team, club, business,
or any other group will give you a gathering place where everyone
can easily exchange ideas, view photographs, chat, discuss plans,
organize events, share information, recommend books or
CDs, or just plain have fun. They are free of charge
and so easy to create, youll have yours up and running before you can
say what's the secret password?
![Mark Reed](../../../../images/edtMark-2.gif) Mark Reed's secret club won't be quite the same without the old tree
fort.
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Create your own MSN Web
Community:
1. First, youll need a Microsoft
Passport. If you have a Hotmail e-mail account, you already have
a passport.
2. Click the Create a Community link near the
top of the MSN Web
Communities home page.
3. Provide the requested information, then click
Go to read the Code of
Conduct.
4. After reading the Code of Conduct, click the Yes, I agree button to immediately
display your new community's home page.
Note: You must agree to the Code of Conduct in
order to successfully create your
community. |