Introduction
The number of cyber citizens has rapidly increased in the past recent years. The population explosion of the internet has naturally placed people in virtual communities. Not everyone who uses the internet is part of a virtual community. Virtual communities are places where people go on a consistent basis to interact with other people. The number of virtual communities in the internet is growing and it may someday equal or surpass the number of towns and cities around the world. The growth of the virtual communities in the Internet is reaching megalopolis levels. Some communities have more than a million members. The pace and the direction of the Internet have facilitated the rapid development of the virtual communities.
Online Resources
The list below provided extensive amount of information on the topic. I invite you to click through the links and expand your knowledge on virtual communities. Most of the links on the list are also connected to other sites which yielded crucial information in completing this report. All of the links were informative and useful. These links were given from the instruction for this report.
http://rdz.stjohns.edu/~storm/ http://www.behavior.net/mhn/bolforum/message/32 http://www.shassan.com/ http://www.grohol.com/ http://www.netaxs.com/~jamesiii/papers.htm
Virtual Communities
Virtual communities are places where groups of people interact through computer-mediated communication (CMC). People exchange thoughts and ideas with words on cyberspace. Virtual community members do everything people do face to face but the main difference is that the community members in virtual communities are limited to expressing themselves with words they type on the screen. Through chats, discussions, and forums, people interact in real time or non-real time. The discussion may be private where only two people interact or a group interaction where an x amount of people interact all at once.
What is their purpose?
A Virtual community is just another way people communicate. Different virtual communities have different purposes. Research, entertainment and politics are common purposes of virtual communities. There are many virtual communities that are businesses. Other virtual communities have specific themes and topics where they discuss and address things like current political issues, medical problems, health problems and any other interest that people may have. The range of topics and reasons for building a virtual community is endless. There could even be a virtual community to help people chose a brand new dream car. The idea of a virtual community is to have people with the same interest discuss and share their thoughts, ideas and experiences.
The most common reason for building a virtual community is profit. Virtual malls are a type of virtual community. Virtual malls have many hosts who sell products and attract a wide variety of customers. The main purpose of virtual malls is to sell their merchandise. Although there are many virtual business communities, there is also an equal number of virtual communities with other goals and intents such as helping people with various problems or just plain sharing information.
Who creates them?Right now there is no regulation on who can build a virtual community. Anyone can build a virtual community. Anyone who has the time and the resources that is. It is not as simple as it sounds. First you must have an interesting theme or topic so that you can attract a loyal audience who would always return and actively participate in the virtual community functions. Rules and regulations for the virtual community are also needed to be set and enforced. To expand, you need to find many hosts who are willing spend hours with the community to help facilitate its growth. On top of all that the builder needs to constantly update in order to keep up with current situations.
Most of the virtual community builders today are entrepreneurs, investors and web publishers. It takes a lot of resources and efforts to create a successful virtual community. Builder.com has provided 10 essential tips on building a successful virtual community.
Tip 1: test the water
Place your topic or your concept in an existing community and see how people receive it. Make sure your concept or theme can evoke enough interest from people before you start investing time and resources in building the community.Tip 2: make it a party
Hosting a site is like hosting a party. As a host you need to make sure everyone is having a good time. Encourage discussions and make sure you introduce newcomers so that they do not feel left out.
Tip 3: have 'em waiting at the door
Send emails to potential members of your new virtual community before your grand opening.Tip 4: use your entire site to seed discussions
Use all of your site's potentials. Create forums and chats based on the topics and themes that are embedded in your community.Tip 5: recruit help
It is not practical to have a single person running a virtual community. Volunteers and a paid staff are needed to run a community. There are many people on the net who are more than willing to volunteer their time to help host or act as moderator for a certain chat or forum. More likely than not, a small paid staff might be needed to keep the community in order.
Tip 6: set and enforce rules
Decide before hand what type of atmosphere you want your members to have. Set rules and enforce them to maintain a good atmosphere. Some virtual communities use bots, a software that censor profane language, to help enforce community rules.
Tip 7: remember it's their community, too
If the virtual community becomes successful, members of the community will define the goal and purpose of the community. Yes, you may have created it, but you must be flexible enough to let the members decide what topics they want to address or they will pack their thoughts and ideas and move to another virtual community.Tip 8: project personality
Your virtual community needs to have a certain attitude that would set the atmosphere. It can be hip, warm, intellectual or humorous. It is up to you and the members what attitude you want to project on the net.Tip 9: grow carefully
Grow slowly but surely. Do not grow so fast that you lose control of the community. Make sure you have enough mediators, volunteers, and hosts to address the community growth.Tip 10: be a skillful moderator
Moderators need to be very familiar with the rules of the community. They need to be proactive and help facilitate discussions.
So there you have it. If you are able to accomplish all of the tasks on the list above then you should have no problem building a virtual community.How do virtual communities work?
How do they work?
Virtual communities have given people another medium to share information and create relationships. Once a virtual community is set up and people consistently return to the community and interact with each other, the community thrives. As more and more loyal members return again and again to participate and interact in the virtual community, the faster the community grows.
How do they spread?
The more participants the community has the better its chances of acquiring more members. I think the key of it all is to have an interesting topic or scheme where it draws many possible members. Often times virtual communities are link to other sites and they also advertise, especially the business virtual communities. Links and advertisement draw some possible members but the most effective recruitment tool is the members themselves. The members draw friends and colleagues to join virtual communities. More often than not a member joins in because he knows someone in the virtual community.
Besides interesting topics and online discussions, which I believe are the foundations of virtual communities, community building devices such as online surveys, contests, and even real events such as parties and meetings also facilitate the growth virtual communities. Each virtual community has its own set of rules. The community will only grow within the set parameters.
What types are there?
There are as many types as there are topics and reasons for building a virtual community. There are online malls, chatrooms with specific topics, newsgroups, and many more. The list is endless. The main types as far as time is concern are real time and non-real time. Real time interaction is when people interact as if they were face to face. People in real time chatrooms can simultaneously communicate with each other without too much delay. Non-real time interaction usually takes the form of posting. A person would post something on a bulletin board and another person would look at it at another time.
Case History
Talk City is a virtual community that was created from the rubbles of Apple Computer's eWorld. It initially had only 5,000 members and 65 former hosts from the old eWorld but now it boast more that 1.5 million chat hours between its members per month. Talk City has chats on every topic you can think of. They have chat on business, entertainment, college, romances, art, sports, and the list goes on and on. These chatrooms or chat areas are only name for these sites. The members are free to discuss whatever topic they want to discuss. Talk City uses bots software to help stamp out unnecessary offensive language. They attract many net novices due to its fun and safe atmosphere. They have both paid and volunteer moderators that help maintain the community.
Community Member
Would you be a member of virtual community? Under what circumstances?Currently I would not want to be a member of anything. I am too busy as it is with school, work and other things. I do not need anymore responsibility right now in my life. Virtual community members need to be proactive with discussions and that means spending some time on the Internet. Members have the obligation as a member of the virtual community to participate in community forums or chats.
I would probably join when I have more time on my hand. For now I will just continue lurking throughout the Internet. I just do not feel that I have the time to commit to a particular community and it would not be fair for the members and myself if I signed up and I do not participate.
Virtual community Vs. Face-to-face communities
ComparisonThe mediums of the way people communicate in both communities may be different but people do everything in virtual communities what they do face to face. The big difference is that people in virtual communities do not have the luxury to use things like facial expression, gestures or body language to communicate. They must communicate only with their keyboards and words.
I found that virtual communities have many advantages over face to face communities. Virtual communities are not confined to one single locality. People from different places can be a member. A Honolulu based virtual community may have members from South Africa, London, or anywhere where people have internet connection. A diverse population brings diverse thoughts and ideas. The exchange of information due to the diversity of the virtual population enhance the quality of the process where opinions from different prospectives are encompassed.Another advantage that the virtual community has over face to face community is that members of the virtual community do not see each other. No one knows how the other person look unless they describe how they look like. Discrimination because of race, age or gender is totally minimized. Everyone is equal. Is this the egalitarian society that humanity have been striving for? Maybe.
A Virtual community is open 24 hours a day seven days a week and 52 weeks a year. Interaction with another human being is only a sign on and a modem away. In face to face communities, you can not go knocking on your buddy's house in the middle of the night when you feel like chatting about the current events. Virtual community offers to satisfy your need when you need it.
Could there be an evolution of the virtual communities?
I definitely think so. With the advancement of our technology and the ever growing number of internet users, I strongly believe evolution of the virtual communities is inevitable. Just like the evolution where our villages became towns and our towns became cities, we will see a similar evolution with the virtual communities.
His report on Acquiring Cyberspace Citizenship was about his learning experience through the generational curriculum. A week by week journal on how he was doing in class is included in his report. I can relate to how he felt as he went through the class. He was excited and enjoyed the first few weeks of class. He mentioned how he was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about the internet. He got frustrated when he ran into things that he did not understand. I felt exactly the same way when we started to actually publish our home pages. He was confused and frustrated. He persevered and he was glad he did.
He said that time and patience are critical things needed by new cyber surfers to be able to obtain citizenship on the internet. Many countless hours have to be spent on navigating, reading and learning about the internet. It can be frustrating at times but once you understand how the internet works, it can be a powerful resource.
Her report on Cyberspace and Mind discussed the idea of duality where people live as netizens and as citizens. As a netizen, your identity in virtual space is different from your identity as a citizen in the face to face community. Virtual space is an intangible space that exist within our computers through our interaction with others. Because there is no face to face interaction, people can project, create or take on any personality they wish to portray.
Yes, I agree with Asako. There is duality that your life in the internet is different from your physical life. In Virtual space, one does not have the physical responsibilities such as being a brother, sister, mother, or father. A person can take on any identity. However, he or she may be part of a virtual community where he or she is responsible for virtual participation. The interaction process between the two worlds is also a duality. Interaction in the virtual space is based on the cognition or internalization of the person in front of the computer. The act of clicking the mouse and hacking on the keyboard is more spiritual than sensory. Your ideas and thoughts are posted on the screen without physical verbalization. The internet is growing and the future generations will depend on the Internet more to interact with each other but our physical health dependencies such as eating and physical exercise will always be there to remind us that we have a physical face to face life.
G8 Comparisons
I have clicked through my generation and there only a handful of people who researched this topic. Most of the contents of the reports are similar. The similarities of content is probably due to the same instruction for this report. No one that I reviewed deviated too much from the instruction. The approach, presentation and the format of the reports are also similar. Some peers added backgrounds and other jpegs to spazz up their reports. Alona Tabios', Mike Silva's and Nicole Young's reports are good. Their reports are presented well and I encourage you to take a look at their reports. You will not be disappointed.
Conclusion
Well, this is my last report and I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to be a part of the generational curriculum. This particular report on virtual community has showed me the limitless possibility on what people can do in the Internet. As we move forward into the next millennium and our technology advances, we will depend more on computers to communicate and interact.
I have learned so much in this class. Before this class, I did not know anything about the internet. I heard of it and I used it once or twice but I did not know what was a search engine, HTML or newsgroups. Beside the reports and the exercises we learned in class, I also learned more about the computer itself. I learned how to install softwares and I got more familiarized with the general functions of the computer. I would not call myself an expert on computer but I know more about the computer and the internet than many people.
For the future generations, the secret to success in this class is time and effort. There will be times when you will run into some things you will not understand and you will be confused and frustrated. Do not withdraw. Many students who withdrew from this class were students who did not put time and effort into this class. This is not your typical class where can cram for midterms and finals. The learning in this class is gradual and if you do run into something that you do not understand ask for help. Dr. James is always around to help and you can always ask other students to help you out. I have one last advice for the future generations. Click though the generational curriculum in the beginning of the semester. There are lots of information and reports that can help you through your class. Good luck and have a good cyber day.
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