URLs From the Edge

I've been having lengthy fireside chats with Master Ron again. He, Linda L and me are assembling the pieces of our new business and so many foundation level conversations are taking place over coffee.
Inevitably the topic came up - What are the commonalities found in each vertical community, and how to best serve their communications needs without having to custom roll all the tools for each one?

I have a working hypothesis; much of the common elements we use to self-identify within a group/culture are actually common to almost all cultures, in much the same way (and for the same reasons) that archetype personalities appear in every culture. Specifically for online communities I postulate that while specific nouns and 'merit badges' appear different on the surface, in actuality they each occupy an archetype niche whose effects are just below the surface. Not all Jungian niches are filled for every community, but I'll bet most of the missing ones are represented informally in some manner. The size of the community probably effects this; the larger the representative sample, the more likely we are to see the classic archetypes show up to the party. It's hard to escape biology, after all.

I've got some interesting experiments I'd like to build in order to validate this theory, and a lot of experts to poll. Fun fun!