Do give me your feedback and ideas to this piece. HERE

Online Community Evolution: Key themes

There are many different facets of online communities that proved problematic when looking at the competition between different kinds of online communities.  The top 5 are summarised as;

 1.  What exactly is an online community- does the traditional definition apply?

2.  On what basis do you group competitors together and class it as a market?

3.  How do we measure the size of online communities?

4.  How can we research whether the social interaction tools provided are utilised within the community?

5.  Different social tools are likely to have a different impact on community development

   a)  Which are more successful?

   b)  How can we measure this?

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 1.  What exactly is an online community- does the traditional definition apply?

The word ‘online community’ is certainly banded around without much thought for exactly what it means.  There needs to be a certain number of people for it to be a community (otherwise it is a group) and there needs to be a level of cohesion, that I suggest needs to go beyond the initial reason for the group interacting.  For example neighbours are not a community unless they move beyond just being neighbours.  If people on the same street do not talk to each other can it be classed a community or just a group of people all existing independently but near each other?

Ummm No I dont think so....