Virtual Community
A virtual community is a social network of a group people that shares some common values and a group of interacting people through some form of a virtual avatar.
Contents
Introduction
A community is defined as "a unified body of individuals: as the people with common interests living in a particular area, and an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location." according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. This definition of a community minus the notation about having a "common location" or "particular area" describes a virtual community. A virtual community is very much the same as a traditional community but instead of sharing a physical area, a virtual community can be linked through many different virtual avenues. Such avenues include Social Networks, Online Chat Rooms, Virtual Worlds, Online Gaming, etc.
Types of virtual communities
Online Gaming
A virtual community can consist of being an online gaming environment. In an online gaming platform supplies the avenues in which a group of people can interact with each other and having a common goal (purpose of playing the video game) while doing so. The players interact via an avatar which can be directly linked with an online profile. In many cases the online profile is treated as an avatar itself.
Online Chat Rooms
A virtual community can also consist of being an online chat room. An online chat room can be describe as any form of synchronous conferencing. The term can mean any technology ranging from real-time online chatting over instant messaging and online forums.
