Virtual communities are groups of people who digitally interact and share common interests, ideas, or goals. Communication is digital, and membership is optional. These communities make it easier to find like-minded individuals, exchange information, and can be moderated. Communication can spill over to other websites, and members can correspond via various digital platforms. Virtual communities can be formed around any topic, and members willingly join. Not all members show an interest in getting to know each other personally, and turnover rates can be high.
A virtual community is a collection of digitally interacting individuals who share common interests, ideas, or goals. This type of community can also be referred to as an online community. Virtual communities can be dedicated to a specific topic or they can seek to bring together people with similar philosophies. In both cases, communication is digitally based, information is shared and membership is optional.
Virtual communities make it easier for many people to find individuals with similar interests, ideas, and philosophies. Opinions, ideas, knowledge and even property can be freely exchanged between people in the community. Some virtual communities may be moderated in terms of language choice and behavior toward other community members, but many communities are unregulated in regards to community interest or goal. For example, members of a virtual community dedicated to discussing a historic event may need to refrain from using profanities in their communications, but they can be encouraged to exchange all their opinions, ideas and knowledge about the historic event with others.
This type of group is virtual, so communication is mostly digital. Community members can correspond via email, instant messages, chat rooms, message boards, blogs, or newsgroups. These communications are usually text-based, are long-term, and can be archived, although video and voice chats can also be used by a virtual community.
The communication may also spill over to other websites not directly associated with the virtual community, such as social networking websites. In some cases, paper communications may also be adopted, such as newsletters or magazines. It is not uncommon for virtual community members to communicate with other community members by telephone or to meet in a physical location, although face-to-face meetings are typically not regular or required of community members.
Hypothetically, a virtual community can be formed around any topic chosen by its creator. A community can be dedicated to discussing topics such as relationships, self-help issues, academic pursuits, geographic regions, or even celebrity gossip. The potential topics are endless, but the community creator’s sole goal is to bring together people with similar interests for discussion and communication. By aggregating all these individuals, the community as a whole can benefit from shared resources. For example, links to appropriate websites can be shared among community members and then discussed.
One of the main differences between a virtual community and other types of communities, including virtual workgroups, is that members of a virtual community willingly join. However, despite being a community in the general sense of the world, not all members show an interest in getting to know each other on a personal level; their interest can remain solely on the topic of the community. Likewise, the member turnover rate can be incredibly high, and members may even leave after a single question has been answered or a particular opinion shared.
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