On-line community: Why pople join it ?

What is a virtual community?

“A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. (Wikipedia)

It is considered to be a social network which share a common interest, idea, specific task or goal that interacts in a virtual society across time, geographical and organizational boundaries and capable to develop personal relationships. This statement is support by Courtney by saying that the notion of community has been at the heart of the internet since its inception” Online communities are a social network with a common interest, idea, task or goal that interact in a virtual society across time, and organizational boundaries and is able to develop personal relationships. (Courtney, 14 April 2008)

Various kind of virtual communities have different levels of interaction and participation among their members. This ranges from adding comments or tags to a blog or message board post to competing against other people in online video games such as MMORPGs. Not unlike traditional social groups or clubs, virtual communities often divide into cliques or even separate to form new communities. Author Amy Jo Kim points out a potential difference between traditional structured online communities (message boards, chat rooms, etc), and more individual-centric, bottom-up social tools (blogs, instant messaging buddy lists), and suggests the latter are gaining in popularity.(Wikipedia)

Why Do People Join and Build Virtual Communities?

Frankly speaking, I initially, do not understand what a virtual community is really is all about not until after having gone through the lectures, tutorials and a lot of research. Then I have a clear picture and better understanding what a virtual community is about and why people join it.

Stated below are some examples what the people are looking for in on-line communities:

• “Socialize - meeting people, playing around, sharing jokes, stories and just taking interest in each other. Communities like this often focus around bulletin boards and chat rooms. An example of such a community is Electric Minds at http://www.electricminds.org”
• “Work together (business) - Distributed work groups within companies and between companies use online community to build their team, keep in touch and even work on projects together. A very detailed description of how online work groups work can be found at http://www.awaken.com and http://www.bigbangworkshops.com “.
• “Work together (community - geographic) - Freenets (see the Freenet Directory) have offered local communities ways to communicate and work together. Some have even combined this with ISP service. Community groups such as soccer teams, school groups and others have used online community to provide forums for information and discussion, helping bring groups together”.
• “Work together (issues) - Virtual communities have been very important to people who share interests in issues and causes. Support groups for people dealing with certain diseases, causes such as politics or the environment, opeople studying together, all can form a nucleus for an online community”.
• “Have topical conversations - Online salons and discussion forums such as the Well (http://www.well.com), Salon's TableTalk (as of mid 2001 a paid subscription model) (http://www.salon.com), Cafe Utne (http://www.utne.com) and others have formed communities of people who enjoy conversations about topics and shared interests. Forum One noted in 1999 that the top ten topics for forums registered at their site are around the topics of (in order): relationships (16%), "mega sites (diverse topics, aggregations of smaller conferences - 11%), business and finance (8%), health (5%), hobbies (4%), religion (3%), music (3%), international (3%). It would be interesting to revisit those stats at the start of 2002”. (Sue Boetcher, Heather Duggan, Nancy White. (1/2002)).

References:

Wikipedia

Sue Boetcher, Heather Duggan, Nancy White. (1/2002). What is a Virtual Community and Why Would You Ever Need One? Retrieved from: http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitywhatwhy.htm

On-line Banking

“Online banking (or Internet banking) allows customers to conduct financial transactions on a secure website operated by their retail or virtual bank, credit union or building society”.(Wikipedia)

Something else to think about: If you’re reading this, chances are you make purchases online, whether it’s from some of the many retailers who sell through e-commerce, or on eBay. You might have been a little hesitant at first, but by now it’s probably second nature to you. With some precautions—a good firewall, anti-virus and a spy detection program—and a dose of common sense about phishing and fake e-mails, you’ve probably had completely secure transactions. Online banking is simply the next step from that.I have to access my account from anywhere, pay bills (my credit card, electricity, phone etc), and move money from checking to savings and back again. About the only thing I can’t do is transfer money from my Commonwealth account to the overseas account, but that’s the way the law is set up (to prevent money laundering), so I have to wire transfer money when necessary through other institution which offer such service. Banking online is hassle free process. The login process is virtually as fairly straightforward as any other site and it is just a matter of extra precautions to take care. As we know, banks and financial institutions take a great many precautions, as they have to. And yet, people don’t seem to be convinced really. "A recent survey showed that, of computer users, only 39% regularly bank online, citing security as a major concern issues". (Nelson, March 2006)

Under circumstances, people should be aware about their money, especially these days, when reports of identity theft have risen significantly. This is a horrible incident where it does happen; however, few have come from proper online transactions. But the introduction of high security standard of 128-bit encryption provides a security means; it’s the same as you find when buying online through secure sites (and if you purchase from non-secure sites and give credit card details… Sorry, but you get what you deserve). Online banking makes sense for me; I do most of my banking in the Australia online, too, other than putting money in the bank. But does it for you? I think it’s something you should be doing right now. As you have better control of your money, you also be able to check current balances in all your accounts, and view at your previous transactions for several months (in some instances, years) without having to request a statement—and most banks would charge for such a paper service. Majority of the banks offer online bill payment, allowing you to take care of that at home, without physically writing checks or having to buy stamps or run to the mailbox. Commonwealth Bank, for example, has a long merchant list to choose from, or you can add others. You should probably still allow a few days for the check to progress through the system so you don’t end up with a late fee. Through on-line banking, it allows you to check your balances and move money between your accounts at the click of a mouse. It helps to eliminate the danger of being overdrawn, while still letting you keep money in a higher-interest savings or other account until it has to be moved. This gives you the flexibility to let your money really work for you, the way banks always claim it should in their ads ". (Nelson, March 2006)

References:

Wikipedia.
Chris Nelson. March 7th, 2006. Shouldn't You Be Banking Online? Retrieved from http://news.digitaltrends.com/feature/49/shouldn-t-you-be-banking-online

Why go for open source?

“Open source software is computer software for which the human-readable source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It is often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open source software is the most prominent example of open source development and often compared to user generated content”. (Wikipedia)

“All software is written with source code. By using open source software, the code is protected by a special license to make sure that everyone has access to that code and use it”. This is referred to as GPL(General public license) That means no individual or a particular company can fully own it. That's why open source is considered to be inevitable. It is created to benefit to the customer. The code can be seen explicitly, change it as you wish and learn from it. Bugs are more quickly identified and fixed. And when customers don't like how a particular vendor is rendering a service to them, they can choose another without overhauling their infrastructure. No more technology lock-in. No more monopolies. Freedom means choice and choice means power.(Why open source?, 2008).

Most people I believe open source simply creates better software alternative. In terms of budgeting, it is a save cost budget. No license is required to use it. You can change or edit according to your needs.

In a business environment, it increases one company's production capacity many times over. As everyone collaborates, the best software wins. Not just within one company, but among an Internet-connected, worldwide community. It's no coincidence that the rise of open source closely followed the rise of the Internet. The perfect breeding ground for collaboration, the Internet circulates ideas and code around the world in an instant. This statement is supported by the article written by Campbell. As a result, the open source model often builds higher quality, more secure, more easily integrated software.(eg. OFBiz, Apache OFBiz (Apache Open For Business Project, Compiere ERP). And it does it at a vastly accelerated pace and often at a lower cost. In the proprietary model, development occurs within one company. Programmers write code, hide it behind binaries, charge customers to use the software--then charge them more to fix it when it breaks. No one ever has to know how bad the software really is. The problem worsens when you become tied to a company's architecture, protocols, and file formats. Bruce Perens says in the article calls this addiction model of software procurement. “Any model that puts customers at such a fundamental disadvantage is conceptually broken.” (Bruce Perens, 2002)

“Open source is not nameless, faceless, and it's not charity. Nor is it solely a community effort. What you see today is a technology revolution driven ever forward by market demand. The concept behind open source is not new for us. For centuries, universities and research communities have shared their knowledge and relentless effort. Monks copied books by hand. Scientists publish new discoveries in journals. Mathematical formulas are circulated, improved, and redistributed. Just imagine if all of this past knowledge was kept hidden or its use was restricted to only those who are willing to pay for it. Yet this is the mentality behind the proprietary software model. In the same way shared knowledge drives the whole of society forward; open technology development can drive innovation for the whole industry. (Why open source?, 2008)

References:

Wikipedia.

Why open source? Retrieved on: 2 May 2008 from http://www.redhat.com/about/whyopensource/