Online Community Management Research Articles

The active lurker

In this study, we focus on participants called lurkers, who do not post any messages in an online community such as interactive mailing lists and bulletin board systems. We propose a method of classifying participants including lurkers based on two criteria: what types of actions they take outside the online community, and whether or not the online community affects their thoughts. In addition, based on the results of interviews, we propose hypotheses regarding factors that characterize the categories of lurkers. We conduct a questionnaire survey of all participants in two in-house online communities to verify our method and test the hypotheses. There are a considerable number of lurkers who have a strong and wide influence outside the online community. We conclude that such lurkers cannot be neglected in an evaluation of online communities within a company. We also discuss the possibility of online community management by focusing on not only posters but also lurkers who are indirect contributors to increasing the influence of an online community on its outside environment.

The active lurker

In this study, we focus on participants called lurkers, who do not post any messages in an online community such as interactive mailing lists and bulletin board systems. We propose a method of classifying participants including lurkers based on two criteria: what types of actions they take outside the online community, and whether or not the online community affects their thoughts. We conduct a questionnaire survey of all participants in two in-house online communities to verify our method. There are a considerable number of lurkers who have a strong and wide influence outside the online community. We conclude that such lurkers cannot be neglected in an evaluation of online communities within a company. These results could also lead us to discuss a possibility of an online community management by focusing on not only posters but also lurkers who are indirect contributors to increasing the influence of an online community on its outside environment.

Some Value Propositions of Online Communities

Online communities are an integral part of the Internet. However, it is not entirely clear exactly what the value propositions of online communities are, and how firms should leverage them. This paper is an attempt to describe some of the value propositions of online communities and to suggest control structures that firms should employ to maximize community value. The general trend that emerges is that, under the conditions described in the paper, firms should take an arms-length approach to the management of online communities.