virtual community

Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together (Digital Formations)
$32.95
Does contemporary Internet technology strengthen civic engagement and democratic practice? The recent surge in online community participation has become a cultural phenomenon enmeshed in ongoing debates about the health of American civil society. But observations about online communities often concentrate on ascertaining the true nature of community and democracy, typically rehearsing familiar communitarian and liberal perspectives. This book seeks to understand the technology on its own terms, focusing on how the technological and organizational configurations of online communities frame our contemporary beliefs and assumptions about community and the individual. It analyzes key structural features of thirty award-winning online community websites to show that while the values of individual autonomy, egalitarianism, and freedom of speech dominate the discursive content of these communities, the practical realities of online life are clearly marked by exclusivity and the demands of commercialization and corporate surveillance. Promises of social empowerment are framed within consumer and therapeutic frameworks that undermine their democratic efficacy. As a result, online communities fail to revolutionize the civic landscape because they create cultures of membership that epitomize the commodification of community and public life altogether.

Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities
$24.95
Originally published in 1997, anyone fortuitous enough to follow the advice of the authors is most likely a major player in the "virtual community" space right now.

This book accurately predicted the future direction of eCommerce community building whose advice if followed would have built formidable barriers to entry for would-be competitors. The concepts presented are solid and have been proven right. While much of the online landscape has changed over the years, I still found the vast majority of this material relevant and useful.

It's a bit wordy, but I considered that a small price to pay for the information provided. I found the section on "Building a Virtual Community" particularly helpful insomuch as it discusses choosing the proper strategy for constructing the community, generating traffic, concentrating the traffic, and finally locking in the traffic for long-term economic benefit.

As presented, the book crystallizes a clear plan of attack for creating a community by breaking the task into manageable steps. This is a good book to get your thought processes - and project - heading in the right direction.

How to Make Real Money in Second Life: Boost Your Business, Market Your Services, and Sell Your Products in the World's Hottest Virtual Community (How to Make . . .)
$21.95
After reading articles on Second Life in the Wall Street Journal and on CFO.com recently, I felt I needed an independently written primer to show me the basics of this intriguing social network. Robert Freedman's book provided me with that, and much more.

Unlike some other authors of books on Second Life, Freedman is neither an acolyte nor an attacker--but rather is a dispassionate professional who's seen how this social network has impacted his own industry: real estate. (Freedman is a senior editor at Realtor magazine.)

That doesn't prevent him from bringing a strong, valuable point of view to his account, however. The view is that serious corporate readers seeking more than "game-playing" from a social networking site can find real profit or other promotional advantage from Second Life if they act intelligently. In a way, following Freedman is like having the friendly guidance of your kids in some newfangled electronic world--except that he's a trained professional observer who is dedicated only to the reader's wellfare.

He accomplishes wonders by starting with the basics--explaining why people, and companies, use Second Life, in a way that the uninitiated, like me, can get quickly and easily. He then gives eight simple, invaluable rules for using Second Life without becoming either sick of it, or a "convert." But the greatest virtue of this book is that it approaches the business reader on his or her own terms, with information about currency, real estate and banking on the site. He then takes the reader through test models for making real money, and exposing a real-world company to profitable opportunities in Second Life.

It's nice to have a "guide" who thinks like you do.

Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
$35.99
This volume explores the theoretical, design, learning, and methodological questions relevant to designing for and researching web-based communities to support the learning process. Coming from diverse academic backgrounds, the authors examine what we do and do not know about the processes and practices of designing communities to support educational processes. Taken as a collection, the chapters point to the challenges and complex tensions that emerge when designing for a web-supported community, especially when the focal practice of the community is learning.