It seems to me that every page on the web is, or will soon be, a "community" page. Faster even than I expected, the social, participatory, read-write web, world is emerging. Put another way, every publication is an invitation to a conversation. And I believe that is a good thing.

I suspect it's also a major "duh" for many, and of course there are countless examples of it in action on the web today. Still, the majority of the web remains read-only and I believe the vast majority of people still view it that way. Closer to home, my personal reckoning suggests that a majority of Microsoft properties remain largely read only. Forums, blogs, newsgroups, Soapbox and the MSDN wiki are obvious exceptions -- and there are others.

Pages like this one, I suspect, constitute the majority of pages on Microsoft.com. But even there, way down at the bottom, is an opportunity to engage:

Not exactly a conversation -- but it's a start. What would I like to see?

Well, to start with, I might like to see a list of the user applied tags associated with the page. They would link me to related information other customers thought was appropriate. I like that for another reason -- user applied tags tell me other people have taken this path before me. User applied tags are a testimonial of sorts. They reduce feelings of risk.

I'd also like to see a list of the people blogging about this product, and the top "n" forum posts (both questions and answers). Add a "talk-behind" wiki page to every static page, and I think I'm satisfied for now (though an option for real-time chat with either an MS employee, or interested member of the community would be a nice addition). And all of this is assuming, of course, appropriate RSS support.

The theme is apparent, let people feel the presence of others. Is that the obvious, clear, and correct direction I think it is, or is there disagreement? Should we keep separate read-only content, and read-write conversation?

Assuming the trend is towards the former, that raises another question. If on every page we do all we can to let people feel the presence of others, do those "others" include the product team responsible for developing the product? Or should they enter the dialog elsewhere?