3 Rules of Virtual Communities
- You are dealing with real people. This rul is sometime lost in the pursuit of good design or community objectives.
- Make it easy for people to contribute to the community.
- Give people something interesting to respond.
Steps to Build a Virtual Community
Interested now in building your own community? Read on, we have lots of materials and resources to help you on your way. But before you rush off, here is the overview of the steps it takes to build your own virtual community:
-Identify your community purpose or goal
-Identify your target audience
-Think about which interaction tools would serve your purpose and audience and how to structure the space.
-Think about how you want to host or facilitate your community
-Build it
-Draw in the members
-Go and nurture it
Social network based virtual communities and business
Virtual communities commonly provide both profit and non-profit services and can enhance major social and economic advancements. These digital environments contribute to the increase of creativity and enable citizens to develop interaction and establish socio-economic forces at higher standards (Einemann and Paradiso, 2004). For example, the AOL network aids in delivering locally relevant commerce information and enhances the features such as local advertising opportunities for vertical markets (e.g. auto, real estate, employment and health) (Ishida, 2002). Without profit services, virtual communities are seldom attractive and fail to become a portal to the city. Without non-profit services, the city may become too homogeneous as a result of pursuing economic efficiency (Ishida, 2002).
Social networks also play an important role in commerce activities and economic development. For example, the use of computer-mediated social networks provides opportunities for users to share information about the wide variety of products offered, costs or prices, and quality of the services to increase the popularity of the business site and the services they offer. eBay is one example of virtual community (virtual marketplace) where millions of users worldwide buy and sell products, discuss the products, share common interests and best practices, get help and feedback from others, and advertise the products that helps enhance reputation. This type of virtual communities stimulates economy by augmenting transactions between loosely connected diverse communities of individuals and small businesses.
People in virtual communities use words or screens to exchange plesantries and argue,engage in intellectual discussion, conduct commerce, exchange knowledge share emotional support, make plans, fall in love etc. They do just about everything people do in real life but we leave bodies behind. To the million who have been drawn into it , the richness and vitality of computer-linked culture is attractive, and for many even addictive.
Personal Opinion
Flickr and Facebook are two social networkin website that i prefer the most. We can do lots of photo sahring in them and the other most interseting thing is that what they call groups or communities of people that can communicate and interact with each other via message boards. Each group has user statistics which I found quite helpful. These social network are a great platform for sharing with the masses, not just with small collections of friends. Flickr and Facebook are all about facilitating sharing however the user wants, whereas other sites are more about uploading photos so you can easily print them.
Virtual Community in itself is not bad. But every good thing has to pay price. Thus it could be on the bad books as well. Hositle behaviour is one. Hostile Interactive Behaviors-flames, trolls, spam, and cyber-rape-are those behaviors which do suggest interaction between members of the virtual community, but which emphasize overt aggression and conflict rather than just a social exchange of information. Thus if it is used in a right spirit it could be more informative and a strong medium to create a strong bond of social network.
References
Einemann, E., Paradiso, M. (2004), "Digital cities and urban life: a framework for international benchmarking", Proceedings of the Winter International Symposium on Information and Communication Technologies, Cancun, Mexico.
Ishida.T. "(2002),"Digital City Kyoto" Communication of the ACM.Vol.95 No.7
David Trend (2001) "Reading Digital Culture"
