Online communities in the digital economy

Abstract

Online Communities were considered one of the most important innovations resulting from the Internet revolution. Community building and community development, i.e., community management were proclaimed as a key success factor in the digital economy differentiating business models in the digital economy from traditional ones. As a result online communities emerged in different forms –as part of online shops, as portal sites, as part of B2B platforms, or as design, relationship or game communities. At the same time research was mainly related to topics as for example how to build a community and how to gain critical mass and market shares as soon as possible. Today, findings show that in many cases online communities did not meet expectations. Only few online communities are financially sustainable, many disappeared and in many cases companies could not get the promised gains out of online communities. Consequently, the most important research questions concerning online communities are related to investigation of online communities through longitudinal studies and to questions how to build sustainable online communities providing financial success and other benefits to companies and customers. A related and newly emerging research area considers new forms of online communities – the so called mobile communities. This minitrack comprises a series of papers that align with the shifted emphasize of research related to online communities. The papers provide longitudinal studies and case studies of communities, address critical aspects of community building such as personalization and trust, provide design directions for new types of communities as mobile and implicit communities and propose new methods for assessment of the needs of community members.