Taco Bell's FourthMeal.com is a teen-aimed site with activities that are similar to those of the social communities in the space: build an avatar, play games and check out videos. All great features, but what stops the site from becoming a community for the core audience is the desktop.

A lot has been said about Second Life. To me, one of the key reasons it has gained traction is that it's not a website; Second Life is a BDA. It is a downloaded application that relies on the web for real-time content.

In countries like South Korea, where broadband is ubiquitous and the internet culture is communal, social avatar sites like Cyworld can reach a penetration of 90 percent among 20-somethings within the browser space. In our culture of varied bandwidth and anonymous, singular internet usage, packaging these experiences in a BDA is key to delivering a consistently engaging experience that suits our desire to meet people through the filtered lens of avatars.

Simply taking what's already on the Fourth Meal site and putting it on the desktop means easily reminding users that the Fourth Meal community is still here, minus all the delivery hassles of email. Extending the power of the premise on the desktop with a single feature -- such as a chat client that includes your AIM, MSN and Fourth Meal buddies -- can make this community connection a daily habit.

Another Achilles' heel of most all consumer sites -- this one included -- is that users need to register in order to access bonus content. Even when users are registered, remembering their username and password for the site, among the sea of other sites they access, is a slim chance. But because BDAs are trackable to the individual computer and secured with SSL, users don't ever have to remember their credentials after registration to access all the benefits conferred upon them after completing the process.