Recent Activity

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  Updates on thesis advancement and results

  Hello all!
  
  I want to first of all thank all of you for your graceful participation and your interest in my thesis. I have created this topic (as the title mentions, obviously) to keep you updated on my advancements and on my results.
  
  So far I am struggling with my literary review (I hold a full time job AND I work on my master's thesis, so struggling might not even be strong enough a word!). My first chapter reviews traditional community (social ie church groups and girl scouts, and consumption ie Harley Davidson), and its implications to the marketing management.
  
  My second chapter (that I am now working on) reviews the evolution of technology (birth of the internet, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, semantic web, virtual environments) and the evolutions of virtual communities (from controled communities of 10 years ago, to "free" user-generated communities of today).
  
  I am now trying to establish some sort of paralellism between the two (read only web = controlled communities vs. read and write web = user generated communities). I will also dig out the new implications for marketing management. And the next step will be comparing the traditional vs. virtual, find the most important differences, so that I can concentrate the rest of my research on a specific part of the whole phenomenon...
  
  So... there you go! I will certainly keep you updated!

  Posted 29 Jun 07

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  Web 2.0, community, and confidentiality

  Plaxo, on the new version of their service, offers a public profile, in which, if you choose a "Plaxo Nickname" all of your contact information will be available for all the world to see. cf: Plaxo public profile

  Posted 29 Aug 07

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  Using Tangler conversation in thesis research (please read!)

  Hi!
  
  As you might have read from my profile, I am doing a master's thesis on virtual communities. Although I don't yet have a clear idea of what aspect of virtual communities I wish to study, everything that is said in this group is of much interest to me.
  
  I am using this post to ask authorization to use information written in this particular group as part of my research (just because the medium is free doesn't mean I do not care about ethical issues!).
  
  If anyone has an objection to me doing that, please let me know, and anything you will contribute to this group will be left out of my research.
  
  Of course, for anyone who wishes it, my completed thesis will be available to you (if I ever finish it!!!!!)
  
  Thank you!!
  

  Posted 28 Jun 07

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  Facebook vs. Myspace

  The debate started last week through a grad's student's blog: MySpace and Facebook don't have the same cultures or the same users, according to that blogger's research.
  
  BusinessWeek re-opens the debate today with this article: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2007/id2007072_502208.htm
  
  I would like to have people's views on that. Do you think Facebook and MySpace are direct competitors?? Personnally, I think not. Like the BW article says, Facebook tends to build a network on existing relatonships. It's like a customizable start page on which you show your personality through the adding of content and applications, but you remain yourself, real name, occupation, age, no funny business. MySpace gives users the opportunity to play a role... to create a personnality from scratch, and to make connections with people with resembling interests and personalities, however fictional.
  
  Any thoughts?

  Posted 04 Jul 07

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  Facebook: fostering real relationships?

  With virtual communities such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo... and even Tangler... is it really possible to create and foster real relationships? Can these relationships be truly meaningful to the people involved? People will argue that online friendships are more superficial because of the lack of actual contact. But maybe we can argue that they can be even more meaninful when strong common interest is the source of the relationship?

  Posted 26 Jun 07

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  Are virtual communities really different?

  I wonder... we talk about Web 2.0, and the rise of virtual communities and social networking. But how are these communities, based on interaction and collaboration, different from the ones that existed 50 years ago, offline? What I mean is: church groups, girls scouts, sports teams... aren't they all communities?? So what has changed?
  
  Well it is obvious, first of all, that the social networks have evolved into being more accessible. They have extended geographically to not just include your neighbor or your girl scout friends, but to involve people far away, and even people you have never met.
  
  The second thing comes from the writable Web. People now congregate online to share and write content of all sorts, in an effort to bypass the conventional distribution channels...
  
  What else?

  Posted 13 Jun 07