Background: With nearly 800,000 daily smokers in New Zealand, there is always scope for cessation services to focus on new ways to help people stop smoking. The Quit Group, which runs the Quitline, took the opportunity to try something new by introducing online quitting support. The Quit website offers a new way of receiving information about quitting, and an online quitting community with forums, blogs, and calculators.

Strategy: The aim is to create a site that can be used alongside traditional cessation methods, or can function as a stand alone quitting tool. We integrate both online and offline content deliberately for consistency. This gives another option for someone who wants to customise their quit attempt. Online communities have different cultures and social dividers to that of real world programmes.

Conclusion: This paper will outline what has happened to the site up on this point. The experience has been an interesting one as the online culture emerges and the demographics shed light on the theories that people have about the gender and ethnicity of users of the internet. Some things have been a surprise such as the supportive way in which the bloggers comment to other members. So far we have not introduced expert comment because there is a risk of destroying the online culture.

An online quitting community is proving a fascinating innovation. It can offer group support to people who are geographically isolated or don't want to use other available cessation methods.