According to Owyang 2007, online community can be simply understood as a group of people who connects with each other using the web tools and the internet by exchanging similar goals or interests. Blog communities usually consist of two layers of elements where the first layer, readers and users aggregates the content after finding a homepage such as new posts from various individual blogs and so on. On the second layer, readers will find individual blogs of all the users which help them reflect on their individual concept or ideas. The community homepage also serves as a platform to ease communication among members (Kinkeldei 2007).
Nancy White who is a well known e-facilitation and e-community specialist based in Seattle, USA, worked out on a theory and mentioned that there are three types of blogging community that includes the One Blog Centric Community, the Topic Centric Community and the Boundaried Community.
One Blog Centric Community
One Blog Centric Community is owned by an individual owner or organization but it encourages group interaction between the blogger and the commentors as well as among the commentors themselves (White, 2006).
Topic Centric Community
Topic Centric Community is formed by a network consisting of readers and bloggers who are linked closely by the similar topic and the boundaries of the network is between the members and the subject (White, 2006).
Boundaried Community
Boundaried Community is whereby a group of people who are interested will be asked to ‘join’ and register with the community and is offered a chance to kick-start a blog or a forum which helps to connect people more closely within the community by encouraging active involvement and communication between everyone (White, 2006)
One of the examples of Boundaried Community would be the Photomalaysia.com where it unites people with the interest in photography or camera gear together.
It is a forum based community where everyone is welcomed to join and exchange their ideas, opinions and discussion in the forum that are related to camera and photography. People will have the opportunity to learn from the experienced ones and also expose themselves with different stuffs out there across the nation.
Kinkeldei, B 2007, ‘Forging Connections and Promoting Growth Through Blog Communities’ Whitepaper Blog Communities, retrieved on 2nd April 2012, from http://www.21publish.com/pub/21publish/blogging-whitepaper.pdf
Owyang, J 2007, ‘Defining the term: “Online Community”’, Web Strategy, retrieved on 2nd April 2012, from http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/12/28/defining-the-term-community/
White, N 2006, Blogs and Community-launching a new paradigm for online community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 10 April 2012, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>.
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