Designing Online Communities: Community-Centered Development for Intensively Focused User Groups

In the wake of the 21 century the Internet plays a crucial role in the lives of millions of people. Common use of the Internet includes information retrieval, entertainment and commercial transactions. A significant number of organisations base their existence solely on this relatively new medium for communicating and doing business. In addition, millions of individuals live in a virtual world (cyberspace) where they form relationships and interact with each other by using the Internet. During the past few years, this interaction took the form of online communities, places on the Internet where individuals can communicate with each other using facilities such as e-mail, message boards and real-time chat. This paper describes and models alterations in the development process for online communities and examines how such changes, in a content centered community can increase website traffic and introduction of new members.