Online communities : commerce, community action and the virtual university

Online communities: Understanding them, building them, making them work. A comprehensive guide to online communities-how they develop and how they impact e-commerce, culture, politics, and education Why some online communities thrive—and others fail Contributors include Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation Whether you're an online community developer, marketer, political activist, or academic, you depend on online communities. In this book, leading community-builders in e-commerce, non-profit, open source, and higher education share their insights on crucial issues such as: How are online communities organized? How do they change? What do their participants expect from them? What makes them work? And how can you make yours work better? Coverage includes: Leading models and key lessons for organizers of online communities. Corporate-sponsored online communities: social impacts and success factors Building alliances between diverse online communities Uses of online communities worldwide: the U.S., Great Britain, Mexico, France, Italy, Bosnia, South Africa, Brazil, Nicaragua, and elsewhere Distance learning: the promise and the reality Richard Stallman on how online communities can democratize universities Randy Connolly on why online communities may actually decrease social cohesion Chris Werry and Miranda Mowbray bring together an extraordinary range of perspectives—and deliver unprecedented insight into the phenomenon and future of online communities. Whether you're a public policymaker or a system administrator, a distance learning professional or an e-commerce executive, you'll find this book interesting and useful.