online communities -在線社區

圖:在線社區(Source:http://www.wikilib.com/wiki?title=Orkut&variant=zh-tw)

A virtual community, e-community or online community is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as newsletters, telephone, email, internet social network service or instant messages rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. If the mechanism is a computer network, it is called an online community. Virtual and online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chatrooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks.

一個在線社區，是一群人聚集而成的電子社區或虛擬網路社區，主要是通過傳播媒體的互動，如通訊 ， 電話 ， 電子郵件 ，互聯網社交網絡服務或即時信息 ，而不是面對面，為社會，職業，教育或其他目的。 如果這個機制是一個計算機網路 ，它被稱為一個在線社區 。虛擬的網上社區也已成為一個補充形式的溝通，人與人之間的相互了解彼此的現實生活。許多手段都是在社會軟件單獨或合併，其中包括基於文本的聊天室和論壇使用語音，視頻文本或化身 。重大社會經濟技術變化可能是造成互聯網、聊天室、在線社區擴展的主要原因之一。