Online communities are all the rage these days. We even have our own conference, and an association is on the way. There are sooooo many online communities out there, it's a surprise it took so long to form an association.

Perhaps the original online community is Usenet, which still thrives today, though most people probably know it as Google Groups.

And before that there was bowling leagues. But I digress.

My point, and I do have one, is that despite the explosion of online communities in recent years, there's still not a lot of them in the outdoors industries (hence, the reason we exist). And there are even fewer of them at actual community events. That is, while you may use something like Meetup.com to arrange a meeting, little or none of the event itself gets commemorated online.

But even Meetup is an improvement compared to participatory mega-events like the Boston Marathon, the Bay to Breakers or the 24 Hours of Moab. Take a look at those sites. Pretty nice, lots of info, but they're essentially brochures. Wouldn't it be neat if they were more participatory, like the events themselves? Hmmm...