As Agarwal and Liu (2008) state: “Individuals experience a sense of community, a feeling of belonging, a bonding that members matter to one another and their niche needs will be met through online interactions.”
In order to understand the how social networks and social activities behave on the internet we must understand the concept behind them which is virtual communities.
Chin and Chignell (2006) consider virtual community important because people tend to gain the benefits of social relations with other like minded people. They also define virtual communities as accumulated social discussions that emerged from the internet when people carry these discussions publicly with human passion and for a certain period of time to create networks of personal relationships in the internet, from this raised a new common point that members of a community experience which is “Sense of Community” (SOC) which they define as the feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith the members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together . (Blogs)
An online community is a form of virtual community that exists online where members contribute positively to ensure it existence. It can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted number of people can initiate posts, such as Weblogs. Online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life.
The development of networking and communication technologies in recent years has completely set a revolution in the way information is acquired, stored and disseminated. A significant transformation of the traditional face-to-face communities to online communities, has allowed users of the internet to reach out to their counterpart in a manner that is unimaginable. A critical review of online communities will be considered, with the aim to propose a sequence of success attributed to the migration from offline to online communities. Fichter (2005) recognizes considerable number of users in online communities as information consumers, ranging from reading world news to reviewing weather forecast. But acknowledge that many assumed the role of information providers with contribution to important topics such as wikis, blogs, more recently podcasts and videos.
Boyd and Ellison (2007) define Social networking as the practice of expanding individuals business and/or social contacts via web-based services. The activities includes, (1) presentation of members profile within a bounded system to the public or semi-public, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.
The recent research of Lin and Lu, (2011) highlighted the rapid development of social networking sites (SNS) have become the major media by which people develop their personal network online in recent years. Members use easy and efficient way to build and manage their offline social networks online. Communities can be better informed more quickly through online social networking, and become more engaged and involved with one another in an era when social capital is on the decline. Social networks motivate people to enhance socialization and build new community within a similar geographical area for sharing common interest. Finally the ability of people to expand their network lies on searching for interesting members on site and add as friends or business associates.
Danah, D.M. Ellison, N.B., 2007. Social Network Sites Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, JCMC, [online]. 13 (1), available at: <http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html> [Accessed 29 March 2011].
Lin, K. Lu, H., 2011. Why people use social networking sites: An empirical study integrating network externalities and motivation theory. Computers in Human Behavior, ACM, [online]. 27 (3), pp. 1152-1161. Available at: http://be6rg4tf5u.scholar.serialssolutions.com/?sid=google&auinit=KY&aulast=Lin&atitle=Why+people+use+social+networking+sites:+An+empirical+study+integrating+network+externalities+and+motivation+theory&id=doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.12.009 [Accessed 30 March 2011].