UPDATE – Om Malik ponders whether social networks are just a feature. It’s a good question. I think yes for the most part, especially today.

At Golfnow.com, we are leveraging the customer relationship (booking tee times) to build a community. For a long time, the founders thought they would just code it themselves. I bugged them to move faster – no surprise.

They launched Golfnow.tv a few weeks ago and it is a quick success. In the end, they decided that the tools were more efficient than starting from scratch. Good decision. They are offering customers used to ONLY transacting, a little something more. It is a simple trivia game. Here is today’s trivia with Keri doing a great job:

They are using Kickapps tools to build out the community offerings. Not perfect…yet.

Every community is different. At GolfNow, the customers don’t need anything complicated or something elaborately produced. Simple and interactive.

The average age of existing Golfnow users is 43 years old. I guarantee we can expand the customer base and bring that down by backing in Golfnow.tv.

My friend Eddie Daroza who I met from his comments on this site is going to spearhead a new blog initiative at GolfNow and bring about some new and different energy to the semi mundane golf blogging world. Eddie is the man. I read his Rad Report everyday. I love golf and I plan on writing a little for the golfnow blog as well. Already started.

GolfNow is such a great service. Everybody wins because Golf courses sell times they struggled selling and their average sales price actually rises. Because it is a mom and pop industry at the course level, there has never been a definitive way to leverage the internet to sell tee times before GolfNow’s middleware.

Over the next few months I expect it to be a kick ass community for golfers as well.

By the way – winter is over in Phoenix. It is 80 degrees and perfect outside. Golf is definately on my mind again.

Disclosure – I have an investment in GolfNow.com