Online communities get real

via BBC NEWS | Technology | Online communities get real.

It is about how people assume online communities will behave and relationships develop within these communities. It was interesting to note how things have changed over time

One of the initial comments that online communities were “much more localised, more honest and less chaotic than original predictions thought” in 2003. However in 2012, I would perhaps describe communities as less localised but more focused

They also found that people were not “creating false online personas” however this has changed and people are becoming more aware of their digital footprint and are beginning to create online identities which are perhaps different to their own.

Mr Davies. “They don’t really want to get married, meet new people, or make money entirely on the internet. Instead they want to make the internet work for them,” he said. Again this is very different to 2003 as now many people do use the internet to find future husbands and wives. Whole businesses have been set up solely online and have made millions

Other findings are however still current “Social software is being used to support real world interaction and is enhancing face-to-face contact” and the suggestion that “”People are finally ditching the two-worlds view, which separates the internet from everyday life and now realise the two are part of one picture” was forward thinking at the time and appropriate.

This week I have been focusing on the community groups in a forum called Weight Weenies as you may have noticed!!!! I mentioned it on the discussion board and Jen said I needed to think about ethical issues around using a information from a private groups discussion “because people involved may have an expectation of privacy, that means not having their words or activities studied or published without their knowledge.”

I signed up as a member and had planned to post a question as mentioned in participation post on blog. I began to question what actually is the community and by posting do I actually become part of the community?

This is a further development from last weeks summary about being part of a community, I still do not feel part of this community and just by posting a comment I don’t think this will make me feel included.I began to question the idea that there is a particular amount of times I need to post to become a member or is it about the number of times I interact that make me become part of the community?

The site appears to have an answer – it values the number of posts – In the rules on sales a member has to have made 30 posts before they are allowed to advertise something for sale

How did they come up with this rule?
How did they come up with the number?
Did they check up on people?
What was the majority of the 30 postings about?

http://imgur.com/a/fUZhL#bd5VB

Video games have become so much a part of peoples lives, that they have been made actual world at this theme park. It would be great to see how this works out, to find what gamers think of the theme park? Is it really representative of the gaming experience or is it just tokenism. I think it will struggle to recreate the immersive environment of the game because of the distraction of commerce and real life needs and desires. The relationship between players / friend groups will be very difficult to recreate and real life relationships would create a further level of distraction. It’s a nice idea and a great marketing tool to make more money!