TECHCRUNCH — Last August, we wrote about Lunch.com, a reviews site that’s setting out with the goal to make the world a better place by changing the way people think about each other (as I wrote then, it’s a pretty lofty goal). Today, the company is launching a new feature called Communities that lets users build their own review sites around any niche topic. The new feature can be likened to a ‘Ning for review sites’. As a community founder, you select a topic on whatever you’d like, then invite other users to contribute reviews and other content (you can elect to moderate this as it comes in)...

THE SOCIAL TIMES — Sometrics is today launching GameCoins.com – a community and virtual currency marketplace website targeted at social game players. GameCoins.com focuses on highlighting sometrics’ partner games, such as War Rock and Sorority Life, and then providing a marketplace and community site around those games. Gamers can chat with other players about the games, but using the marketplace they can also earn their favorite games currency using Sometrics’ offers and standard payments. GameCoins has already signed up 20k users who have used the community elements of the site to post several strategy guides to each of their favorite games...

NEW MEDIA AGE — Unilever is planning to create bespoke social networks across its brands to involve consumers in its product development process. The FMCG giant, which spent £148m in 2009 on advertising for brands including Lynx, Magnum and Pot Noodle, is to integrate social media into product development and insight following a trial with men’s fragrance Lynx Twist in the UK and the US. Unilever’s move highlights a trend among advertisers to create invite-only online communities to gain greater understanding of consumer opinions...

THE COMMUNITY ROUNDTABLE — A lot of people might say that the secret sauce of communities is conversion, lower cost of advocacy, lowered support costs, faster information discovery, etc and they would not be wrong. Communities – done well – can drive a lot of specific business outcomes in a sustainable way while reducing the long-term costs. And for the most part, that is how they are currently being planned and deployed but there is a much bigger, larger value communities can provide to enterprises. Real-time data. And I’m not just talking about traditional market research which also can benefit from a community approach – see Forrester’s take or this overveiw. What I’m talking about is using communities to make the interface between the discussions going on within the organization much more permeable to the conversations going on outside of the organization...

E-CONSULTANCY.COM — Occasionally, firms, especially larger brands, choose to build forums into their websites as part of their marketing strategy. The idea is that the social network or forum will attract new and repeat visitors, build brand loyalty and recognition, boost your organic SEO and increase trust in your website. Without a doubt, a successful forum can do that, but it can also be a huge amount of work and a gamble, since most forum attempts fail. Recently, a few of my clients asked about forums and so I’ve been considering best practice. Here are my ten golden rules...