Community and the Blogosphere

Chris Abraham sums up the Blogosphere quite nicely:

"The blogosphere, on the other hand, is big city and feeds on naive innocents — you had better watch what you say and to whom. If you have anything of value, you had better lock your door and learn some street smarts otherwise the blogosphere like a big city could chew you up and spit you out, like it has done to so many who just got off the bus."

His Blog if you're interested.

The virtual communities got its start with passwords and entry ports. But the Blogosphere doesn't need that. Everything is out there. Everything is open. It's a land of opportunity and warring tribes. Like-minded individuals will seek each other out and make connections. After all, there are strength in numbers. But how do these communities start?

As Quentin Jones (1997) points out, we need to meet certain requirements; interactivity, communicators, common space, and minimal membership.

1. Communicators - The communicators are the author and the reader.

2. Common Space - The communicators peruse the blogosphere looking for information they find interesting.

3. Interactivity - when said information is found, they leave a comment, initiating conversation.

4. Minimal membership - If they like the comment, or the reader likes the author, they subscribe to the blog. Thus creating a link to that person, and, in a sense, starts the beginning of a beautiful community.

Example:

I'm looking for information on the Detroit Tigers and what people are saying about them. I find a blog called Motor City Bengals that blogs daily about the team. I sign up and add comments, thus creating banter with other individuals that were doing the same thing I was. A community has now started centered around the Detroit Tigers.

Here is a video of two students diving into the philosophy of virtual communities: