Community websites and what makes them sustainable: evidence from Australia

Australia is leading the way in promoting the use of the Internet as a means of strengthening local communities. The Australian Domain Name Authority (auDA) has announced the release of Community Geographic Domain Names (CGDN), to be solely used by not-for-profit, self-funded local community groups. As Australian communities attempt to establish a management group and develop a website under this concept, they are faced with a range of issues. Longitudinal case study research has been conducted on three communities involved in a trial of the CGDN model, in the first research of this type. Based on data collected from the case studies and the CGDN model, a mapping of sustainability issues and a model of community website sustainability will be presented. There is limited published research into sustainability issues for community websites, with no models of community website sustainability currently available.