The notion was that having a place to hang your HTML would foster a sense of belonging or purpose as well as serve as a way to attract visitors to your site and keep them coming back for more. That was the idea, anyway. But a very different kind of community is being used by some of the better web sites these days.
Sites make extensive use of personalization and data-driven webs to attract and keep visitors.
So wirelessdimension serves a good purpose by cutting through the confusion surrounding the different cellular options. The second site, Chemical Scorecard, also speaks towards reducing the data clutter. They help those of us concerned about what is being dumped into our backyards. In addition to searching the Superfund and other federal databases, the site has some nifty features where you can send form letters to the offending corporate officials. The site also has a subscription service where visitors can sign up and receive the latest news via email, similar to my own modest efforts here with Web Informant.