I would have loved to have been at BookExpo in LA to see this panel with John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow, Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga about building online communities.
Scalzi talked about his experience establishing himself as the “benevolent dictator” of the conversational community that grew up around his blog, which has evolved into a culture that is capable of entertaining itself even when he’s not around, like when he’s up against a book deadline. Keeping the readers informed of deadlines and other parts of the writing process, he added, had an unexpected effect: “The community is kicking my ass to not blog so they can get the books.”
There’s nothing on YouTube that comes up in a quick search, but maybe somebody will post something. In the meantime, more details over at GalleyCat.