Properties Of Online Community And Comparison With Offline Community

Properties of Online Communities

Explain the properties of an online community and how it differs from an offline community. What features of popular sites contribute to community building and what prevents community building. Describe an analyse three social sites (NOT including Google, Twitter or Facebook) and explain whether any of them has the potential to be as big as the three largest?

The virtual community which is used to interact with the people through the internet media is referred to as online community. To become the member of the online community people have to become the member of the community via any of the specific site for which an internet connection is needed (Chen, Yang and Tang, 2013). Now day’s online communities become very much popular in the daily life. Through the online community it becomes easy to maintain the relationship with the people and with the help of this online community people can also make new friends very easily. Due to the availability of the online community it becomes very easier to send the emails and also the some documents without any problem. Some of the properties of the online communities are given bellow:

Online communities can acts as social hubs and it also helps to connect and engage the more people or customers and due to the involvement of the more people in the communities if it requires gathering any ideas to the any problem it becomes easy to get the views from the different people and also there will be the diversification among the ideas because the ideas this will help more to get the proper solution of the problem.

An online community also helps more in marketing campaign. With the availability of the online community it becomes very easier to do the advertisement of any of the product which can improve the sales of the product.

Online community also increases the presence of the different channels, web sales and also the reference which is become helpful for many of the online sites.

With the availability of the online community the customer satisfaction also increase, also decrease the numbers of the support calls because it improve the customer self service process and also improve the collaboration of the customer service and also make a better platform for sharing the knowledge(Chen, 2013).

For instance here it considers the three of the online communities which are instagram , google+ and the flicker. Now a day the instagram is also becomes the great platform for photo-sharing, video-sharing in the mobile. It also becomes one of the networking site through which it gives also the facility of the social networking through which they can easily share the photos, videos etc. one of the distinctive features of the instagram is that it reshapes the photos in a very good shapes and also the availability of the many of the features available for the photos(Venzin, 2015). The people who are very keen of the photography for them instagram is one of the good platform. Instagram also give the possibility to share the as much photos and the videos with everybody and also gives the facility to see and comment on the others photos and videos(Champion, 2012).

Comparison between Online and Offline Communities

Google+ is also the other social networking site through which people can create the profile and also have the facility of doing chat with the others as possible like face book. The account of the Google+ is the public visible account in which everybody can see all the updates of the status of the account.  It belongs to the Google Inc. In Google+ people can use it as like face book but they needs to be connected with the internet. Through this it becomes very easy to do chat and also to keep contact with the people at a very distance in a very easy way.

Flicker is the other sites of social networking with the great facility of sharing the photos, videos etc(Capes, 2014). It is also known as the image hosting and the video hosting websites. Another great facility of the flicker is that here the people need not to open the account or there is no needed for the registration for doing the image and the video hosting. But if anybody wants to upload the photos and the videos it requires registering and also requires opening the account (Bovier and Mey, 2012).

Now coming to the offline community it describes the relationship and the contact with the person face to face which can be possible in the clubs, cultural organization, any social service etc. In offline community different people get together in any place and then discuss about the various things and every individual put forward their ideas and thinking related to the any issues. To continue the offline communication to a great level the community organize the cultural program where many of the people participate and also get along with the different people and also get involve to the program. They also can arrange the social service events where the maximum people participated and get along with the different people to do some social service and also get the opportunity to discuss about the various problems where they also can share the knowledge about the importance of the social service.

Community building is the field which is directed to do the creation of the interactive community where the people gather for any single purposes and also get along to the people(Chen, Yang and Tang, 2013). To build the community to a greater extent they arrange the some of the session of the programs and the games where everybody can take part and also perform so that they can feel free to communicate with the other people. In offline community people also can arrange the picnic, get together and also the many other things so that the interaction and the communication among the people can get increase. Comparing both the offline and the online community it looks that the percentage of the offline community are decreasing now days because the every person are getting more busy in their life so to attend the programs and the other things are getting more impossible in the daily life. So the use of the online community is increased in number than the offline community. In the online community the community building is getting easier and also the less time consuming. Through the online community if the people open the account of the particular online site and also get along with that site by regular visiting that site and also do the interaction with the different people so that it helps to built the casual relationship among the different people on the basis of that virtual media. In online community it also get to build the group of some of the people where the people can freely discuss about any of the matters. Through the online community people also can do the chatting with the unknown people and can do the friendship. Some of the similarities between the online communities and the offline communities are listed below:

• Share: in both the online and the offline community sharing is the common things. But the process of the sharing is different. In offline community people can share their ideas and the values by interacting face to face but in the online community the types of the sharing is different where the people only can give the advice, tips and answers to the question regarding the topics which will be helpful for them to get understand in a better way.
  
  
• Educate: In offline neighborhood, for instance the people can share their views and also give the advice regarding the topics anywhere in the place. But in the online communities they don’t need to get outside to get the idea about the topics of the things. The members of the team can teach and learn through the conversation with the expertise through the online media.
  
  
• Conversion: Conversion is the common thing on both the online and the offline communities. The people of the both online and the offline communities discuss about the matters of the subject in an elaborate way. They also can discuss about the common topics and also about the common interest. So both the online and the offline communities are the bases of the people to do the interaction, conversation and also the best platform to cultivate the relationship.
  
  
• Entertainment: Entertainment is also the common things in both the online and offline communities. In online communities the entertainment is on the basis of the online participation of the games, puzzles and also the many other things. And in the offline communities the entertainment is on the basis of the organization of the cultural program, cultural events, get together etc.
  
  
• Help: in online communities help or assist is on the basis of the online media. It can help only by giving the idea and the tips so that they can get idea and also can understand about the matters. But in the offline communities the help or assist is little bit different form the online communities because in it both the virtual and the real assist is also possible.
  
  
• Common goal: in the offline communities, working at the common goal is like to attend any of the social events and also do any service in the social events. In online communities, the working at the common goal is like to give the virtual education to the people which are also acts like social service.
  
  
• In both the online and the offline communities it helps the people to get extrovert so that they can freely ask and discuss their own problems and also the ideas of the problems (Anglano, 2014).

Community Building and its Comparison in Online and Offline Communities

• No physical interaction: in both the online and the offline interaction the physical interaction plays the one of the important role. In the offline communication there is the face to face communication and also the both the conscious and the unconscious physical contact and the responses. In offline communication people also can understand the facial expression of the people which also the important part of the offline communication. But in online communication there is no possibility of the physical contact and also there is no possibility of the visibility of the facial expression (Chen, 2013).
  
  
• Communication types: in online community most of the communication is text-based but in offline community the communication is by talking with the people in the face to face interaction. Online communication can also be sending the recorded messages of the voice through the internet media, by sending the graphics and the other multimedia techniques.

The above discussed media of the online community becomes most popular in the daily life of now days. People gets so much self-concerned and become busy in their life that they don’t have the time to form the offline community and also don’t have the time to take part in the offline community so to form the community they select the online media because most of the people use internet media in their daily life. So they form the online community where the people take part and discuss the topics. They also visit many of the social sites and gather the knowledge about the things and then discuss about the things in their perspective so that it becomes easy to get the diversification of the knowledge of the matters which will helps the people to enhance their skills without the enough knowledge. To avail the facility of the above online community like hike, whatsapp and LinkedIn there is the requirement of the smart phones because all of them are the facility of the smart phones unlike face book, Google and twitter because these three is get available if there is the possibility of the internet connection. So to get the potentiality to become big platform like these three largest one of the things they have to do is that they need to make their software in such a way they it can be available in phones except smart phones, laptops, computers and also the others electronic devices. But in face book it also have some of the extra facility which is much more different from all the social networking media because face book offers all the facility doing chatting, uploading status, browsing the profile of the different people and from this browsing it becomes easy to get the ideas about their likes, dislikes and the interest of the people and also get the basic idea about the people. In face book and twitter there is the requirement to get signed in to get the messages but in whats app there is no requirement to get signed in it can automatically receives the messages if the internet connection are available.

So to concluding this it is noticed that both the online and the offline community of the communication have their own points to consider. In online community it is become easier to get into the social life, easy method to get in touch with the old friends where there is no possibility to remain in with each other (Chen, Yang and Tang, 2013). For example without meeting each other in a certain place they can discuss and gossip about something by having conferencing with each other of all the members which can save time and effort. There are many people to get mingle who belongs to the different race, religion etc which will help to get socialize with the thousands of people of different background and also from the different places of the world which is not get possible outside the virtual world. Online community also has the cons side to consider which is not possible to identify the theft and the fraud where someone pretending to be someone by making the fake profile. By offline community there is no possibility of the doing fraud because in offline community the meeting of the people occurs with the face to face interaction. So there is the no possibility of threats and fraud.  In the offline community people also can arrange the session of games, picnics etc to improve the interaction and the connection of the people. Coming to the cons side of the offline community it is time consuming and it is not possible to get mingle with the friends who are at the different places of the world because there is no possibility to get the people of the different places to get in one place.

References

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