What is an Online Community?

If our company is “all about online community“, then I guess I’d better define the term

A community is a group of people, variable in size, who come together around a common purpose, goal, or interest.

An online community is a group of people who come together using Internet technologies as their communication medium.  Most commonly, this is the web, but not always.  Instant messaging, IRC, email, SMS and others all qualify.  The revolution of the Internet has opened a huge set of doors to shrinking the world and bringing people closer together.  So, where communities once had to pretty much be in the same room to be effective in their interaction or the sharing of ideas, today a group of people can be spread out all over the world but still belong to the same (even tight-knit) community. 

A great example of an online community is the Sling Community.  This community was built by Capable Networks for Sling Media, the visionary company who brought us the Slingbox.  Here, those who own slingboxes or may someday buy one or maybe just think they’re cool – whatever it is about the slingbox that brings people together – gather to share common interest in this new technology.  Our community platform enables that (we’ll talk more about how it does that later).  This is an online community – a common interest shared by over 5,000 people all over the world via a bunch of clever Internet-based technology. 

For more “Terms and Definitions”, see the glossary page I’ve added (and will continue to update).

Technorati tags: online community, community, slingbox, sling media