71 Top Online Customer Communities: The Big List

Please note that this list us currently being updated and we will have a new, current list by October 2014. 

As is the nature of online community, many listed here have changed, been acquired or simply closed. We leave this post up as a reference to mark a point in time as it very popular and clearly sought after information, but a new”big list”  is in the making! – edited on 8/11/14

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Online customer communities are everywhere — you just have to look for them — sometimes in unlikely places. Because they are dedicated to serving customers, often they are not evangelized to the general public or consumer audiences. But they are alive, well and thriving within many enterprises. By way of definition, when we say “online customer communities,” we mean an interactive, often gated, website that a company sets up for customers to collaborate on topics of mutual interest.
And, we are NOT including customer service websites; e-commerce sites where goods and services are bought and sold; online customer panels that focus on customer research; online publications that let readers comment on articles; or blogs, twitter and general use of social media broadcast tools. These styles of interactive interplay are an important aspect of the evolving web 2.0 world, but are not, by definition, online customer communities.
I’ve tweeted and shared a lot of information about online customer communities. Some recent posts, in case you missed them, are “6 Reasons Firms Build Customer Communities” and “Spot the Winners: Three Patterns for B2B Community Success,” which identifies the common characteristics of successful customer community builders.
We’ve also been doing the research, gathering an extensive list of online customer communities and developing a suite of case studies about some of the more innovative examples. So without further ado, here’s our initial list from the Customer Community Project — seventy-one of our top picks — so far.

1. Adobe Learning Communities
2. American Express Business Travel Connexion
3. American Express American Express Open
4. Avnet Partner Community (gated community)
5. Bank Of America Small Business Community
6. Bloomberg BusinessWeek Business Exchange: Online Community Management
7. BT Radianz Financial Services Community
8. BT Transform operational capabilities in defence (gated community)
9. Building.co.uk Building Network
10. Caterpillar Caterpiller Community
11. CHCA CHEX Knowledge Exchange (gated community)
12. cio.com Executive Council (gated community) (gated community)
13. Cisco Learning Network
14. Cognizant Cognizanti eCommunity (gated community)
15. Constructing Excellence Collaborative Working Champions network
16. Cortera Community
17. CSC Meaningful User Community
18. CWFM Connect with FM (Facilities Managers)
19. Dell Small and Medium Business
20. Diversified Communications Integrative Practitioner
21. Dow Jones Dow Jones Communities
22. EMC ECN Community Network
23. EMC Customer Council Connect (gated community)
24. EMC EMC-SAP Ecosystem community
25. EMC Networker Online Community
26. EMC TheCircle (gated community)
27. EMC Velocity Partner Xchang (gated community)
28. Flexera Software Community
29. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Business Community
30. Hewlett Packard Business Support Forums
31. Hewlett Packard Software Solutions Community online forum
32. Hewlett Packard Live Network (gated community)
33. HSBC Business Network
34. IBM Communities
35. IBM Center for CIO Leadership
36. IDC IDC Insights
37. InfoGroup Exchange Exchange – Powered by Infogroup (gated community)
38. Institute for Human Resources (Many different HR topics) Community Home Page
39. Intel Intel Software Network Communities
40. Intuit Intuit Community (many different Intuit support communities)
41. Intuit Accountants Community for QuickBooks Practitioners and Accounting Professionals
42. Intuit Developer Network (gated community)
43. Jigsaw Jigsaw Community
44. Kinaxis The Supply Chain Expert Community (gated community)
45. Kodak Grow Your Biz
46. LexisNexis LexisNexis Investigators Network (gated community)
47. LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Connected
48. Mathworks MatLab Central
49. Microsoft (UK) Microsoft Small Business Community
50. Microsoft Microsoft Developers Network
51. Microsoft Microsoft Dynamics Community
52. Motorola Enterprise Mobility
53. NAHB Reshaping and Enriching our Communities
54. NetPromotor Blogs
55. NetApp New Products for Building a Shared IT Infrastructure
56. NetApp University
57. NetApp User Groups
58. Oracle Community
59. Oracle Enterprise Manager
60. Oracle CFO Central
61. Palladium Group XPC
62. Pitney Bowes User Forum
63. SaaS4Channel.nl SaaS4Channel.nl
64. Salesforce.com SalesForce Discussion Forums
65. SAP Community Network SDN Community
66. Sage Group Act! Community
67. Sermo MDs-only Community
68. Spiceworks IT Community
69. Staffing Industry Analysts Executive Forum
70. Taleo Customer Executive Council
71. TCN The Construction Network

This list is just a start, so feel free to post a comment about them. If you run, manage or participate in an online customer community and would like to be included, please take a moment to add your community.