What Is a Virtual Community?

Virtual community: A group of people who communicate with each other mainly through computer networks. They have a certain degree of mutual understanding, share a certain degree of knowledge and information, and care for each other as much as friends. The earliest definition of a virtual community was made by Rhingold, who defined it as "a group of people who mainly communicate with each other through computer networks, and they have a certain degree of understanding and sharing This level of knowledge and information is a community formed to the extent that they care for each other like friends. "

virtual community

Virtual community: a group

A virtual community is also called an online community or an electronic community. As a counterpart of the community in the virtual world, the virtual community provides a gathering place for online users with similar hobbies, experiences, or professional similar business related So that they can exchange and share experiences with each other. ^[1]

According to the real-time nature of communication, the types of virtual communities can be divided into two categories: synchronous virtual communities such as online games, and asynchronous communities such as BBS. The most important forms of virtual communities are BBS, USENET, and MUD.

1 Community communication. The community provides an electronic mailbox for each resident. Residents can use the mailbox to send and receive emails and communicate with each other, which is conducive to the exchange of residents when they are not online at the same time. Some large forums provide the function of sending mobile phone text messages, which facilitates communication between netizens. Of course it's not free, it's usually the other party "paying".

2 Chat services. The virtual community provides residents with two real-time interactive chat services. In addition to using text to express chat, the system also presets rich expressions and actions for invocation (some can also use voice for real-time conversation). The first method is a chat square, where anyone can come and go freely, and the content of the conversation is not restricted. The second way is a chat room. The owner of the chat room is the owner of this room. He can control the content of the conversation and choose between the people who are chatting. I heard a lot of network love here. The touching love story of the popular online novel "Xunzi Cai and Qing Wu Fei Yang" happened in the chat room.

3 Post a discussion. This is one of the most basic and main functions of the virtual community. Residents can freely express their thoughts mainly in the form of words in the community, such as making suggestions, discussing, asking questions, answering questions, etc. These all appear in the form of posting articles (posts). Residents can also repost their favorite novels and proses in the community. At present, many domestic community systems have also allowed residents to add file uploads, stickers, emoticons and other functions to posts. As a result, posts become colorful and lively. Makes residents' communication more effective. The previous "Northwestern University Japanese Student Incident" was initiated mainly through BBS. The parade was also adopted at the Northwest University Forum and Jiaotong University "

At present, there are three main categories of virtual communities influential in China: the first category, suitable for the general public

Virtual and real communities are not completely independent. The relationship between them is like the relationship between matter and consciousness.

Everything has advantages and disadvantages. Online communities also have their own limitations. First of all

With the advancement of IT technology and the dramatic improvement of graphics performance, the virtual community has gradually evolved from 2D to 3D. At present, Secondlife is more famous abroad, and HiPiHi (

Virtual community has been widely recognized as a business model for e-commerce, but how to tap its commercial value and obtain return on investment has become the core issue of community management. For virtual communities to realize business value, they must choose the main source of income that can achieve profitability. The profit of the virtual community mainly comes from the following aspects:

1. Advertising fees

Virtual communities are favored by enterprises because they gather their target customers, and more and more companies have begun to place advertisements in virtual communities. According to the survey, the current revenue model of virtual communities is based on advertising, and 50.8% of virtual community websites choose advertising as their profit model. The advertising revenue of the virtual community is directly restricted by the click traffic of the community. The larger the traffic, the higher the advertising revenue. For start-up and unknown virtual communities, click traffic is small and advertising revenue is very limited. In addition, the advertising income of virtual communities is also affected by the characteristics of netizens. Whether a company places ads on virtual communities depends on whether the netizens of the community belong to the target customers of the company. Therefore, the profit model that uses advertising fees as the main source of income is not suitable for all virtual communities.

2. Membership fee

The virtual community ranks registered members and charges different membership fees.

3. Content service fee

Virtual communities charge netizens by providing different content services.

4.Transaction fees

The virtual community collects fees by publishing and providing transaction information for netizens, or collects commissions from traders.