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Example of the Web Community Model

Sites that align themselves with this model offer services around a community. Examples of Web community sites include:
  1. A site that offers a consumer service that enables millions of people to get custom answers to their specific questions from real people or "experts"
  2. A site with a global audience, that offers users a localized look at the world of business news from the perspective that matters most to them, for example Asia, the US, or Europe, for example.

Community Model defined

The community model is a method of developing an online presence in which several individuals or groups are encouraged to join and participate in an ongoing interaction designed around a common purpose, like soccer or football. Web communities, or virtual communities are not only a way for like-minded people to come together online, they are also an increasingly important element of business plans. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw the cropping up of countless new Web communities facilitating one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many lines of communication and cooperation.
Communities utilize electronic tools such as forums, chat rooms, e-mail lists, and message boards, which are usually made for the particular community. Ideally, such communities are as interactive as possible, creating the greatest level of synthesis between their various offerings. Thus, the discussions that take place in the forums can be linked to content elsewhere on a Web site, while the company or community host can generate new content based on discussions that take place between community members.

Broadly, the community model comes in two basic varieties:
  1. Communities centered on relationships and
  2. those centered on tasks.

Communities centered on relationships

The former are informal communities that revolve around shared interests, ideas, topics, and goals. In these communities, the development of relationships is the primary goal. To maximize member involvement, community sites must offer maximum degrees of interactivity and personalization.

Task-centered communities

Task-centered communities generally are more structured and impersonal. The relationships established or augmented online are a means to a mutual end, such as enhanced profits. More specifically, Web communities are established between business partners, between businesses and their customers, between different groups of customers, within companies, and between individuals and groups devoted to particular topics.

In business-to-business (B2B) relationships, the community model provides all community members with the ability to share, communicate and exchange funds on secured networks, and resolve problems quickly and openly. Internet communities offer exceptionally streamlined workflow processes between and within companies, where the functionality of key tasks is integrated and synthesized. This necessitates less personnel, paperwork, and software, and boosts efficiency, thereby minimizing operating costs and enhancing profit margins.

Web Community Affiliation

Web communities are the beaches, parks and playgrounds of the community world. Facebook, linked In and Twitter are all good examples of web communities which also explains their monetization models.