One of HiveLive's customers, BeyeNETWORK, recently launched its new online community. Their community, BeyeCONNECT, got me thinking about an important characteristic of business-purposed networks that we continue to observe.

As companies become more comfortable with the idea of using online communities to connect with their customers, I think they're realizing something critical: They need extensive powers of segmentation. They need to know who their members are and engage them accordingly. They need to create both public (anyone can join) and private (invitation only) groups, so they can run targeted programs, deliver relevant information to the right audience, and allow like-minded members to network. And -- beyond groups -- a lot of folks are establishing whole subcommunities to host different brands or areas of interest.

BeyeCONNECT is a great example of a community exercising these powers of segmentation. As the name implies, BeyeCONNECT is a network of business intelligence (BI) professionals. The new community provides an umbrella platform for the entire network, but allows individual thought leaders and experts maintain their own subcommunities. These subcommunities, or channels, can establish their own followings through member subscriptions. So members get only the information they want, and it's all very focused and targeted. Just as important, members can create their own groups for professional networking.

Though the HiveLive platform has been geared to support this level of segmentation and audience precision from the start, I think we're just beginning to realize its full potential.  As we see it, richness and depth continue to be a critical characteristic of business-purposed networks.  What do you think?