Understanding the Video Bloggers' Community

Abstract

Video blogs (or vlogs) are a new form of blogs where each post is a video. This study explores a community of video bloggers (or vloggers) by studying the community’s structure as well as the motivations and interactions of vloggers in the community. A social network analysis of a list of personal vloggers identifies the community’s structure. Open-ended interviews with core vloggers in the sample provide in-depth understanding on the motivations and interactions of the vloggers. Overall, the results indicate that the vloggers’ community exhibits a core/periphery structure. Such a community is formed based on shared interest and active interactions. In addition, the rich communication provided in video blogs allows for a more personal and intimate interaction, making vlogs a potentially powerful tool for business applications.