Since being elected to the Board of Directors of the Web Analytics Association I've started to think about what kind of Social Media tools would benefit WAA members seeking to communicate with each other - to add value to the membership.

One example that comes to mine is what the New York times did with it's travel section on going to Paris and where to stay (I happen to be going to Paris tomorrow, BTW).

Readers were asked to contribute suggestions - to contribute content - and it was focused on a subject (which makes it a little different than a blog post with comments).

There's also a lot of content created by The Times with attractions on what to see, where to eat, where to stay and nightlife (with user ratings).  For example, Paris Nightlife Listings are listed and rated by readers - this is a level of "engagement".  Personally, I find such listings extremely useful.

I think this approach would benefit the membership of the Web Analytics Association Membership site - with the subjects being created and voted upon by members and moderated by WAA volunteers on subjects such as first/third party cookie debate, mobile technology, user engagement you name it.

This is part of my notes of how I would build Social Media tools that benefit members - and there's an older model - Webmasterworld.com - which had a part of the site with content that only paid members could see as well as an email  system (sticky mail) and a user community.

I'm also thinking that KickApps might be one way to build the interactivity of a site - I haven't yet seen anything that is prepackaged version of what the NY Times Travel Section put together for Paris but I think it's worth looking into, at some point, to see if prepackaged solutions exist (I am thinking past what Magnify.net and Ning.com already provide out of the box).