Howard Rheingold tours the "virtual community" of online networking. Howard Rheingold has been called the First Citizen of the Internet. In this book he tours the "virtual community" of online networking. He describes a community that is as real and as much a mixed bag as any physical community—one where people talk, argue, seek information, organize politically, fall in love, and dupe others. At the same time that he tells moving stories about people who have received online emotional support during devastating illnesses, he acknowledges a darker side to people's behavior in cyberspace. Indeed, contends Rheingold, people relate to each other online much the same as they do in physical communities. Originally published in 1993, The Virtual Community is more timely than ever. This edition contains a new chapter, in which the author revisits his ideas about online social communication now that so much more of the world's population is wired. It also contains an extended bibliography.

-- Your detailed roadmap to the emerging virtual landscape! -- Powerful new tools for drawing on the awesome power of the Web's collective mind. -- CommonSpace business opportunities: increasing market awareness, saving money, and building brands. e-Community is the Internet "killer app." Decision-makers and Web designers alike must come to terms with the rapidly growing online community and its "collective mind" in order to effectively communicate their messages or sell their products. CommonSpace: Beyond Virtual Community is the first book that offers a realistic roadmap to the emerging virtual landscape -- and practical ways to leverage it for competitive advantage. CommonSpace is the collective online mind that arises as millions of people worldwide make the Internet their home. This book offers new insight into the impact of CommonSpace on both human culture and business decision-making, and identifies new business strategies and opportunities that are only now emerging from it. Mark Surman and Darren Wershler-Henry show how to leverage CommonSpace to promote market awareness, drive new cost savings, and build your brand. They present seven key principles of CommonSpace, review powerful new CommonSpace applications, and offer a roadmap for businesses that want to understand where the Internet is headed next.

Provides an analysis of virtual communities, explaining their lifecycle in terms of maturity-based models and workflows.

In a highly engaging style, Rheingold tells the story of what he calls the patriarchs, pioneers, and infonauts of the computer, focusing in particular on such pioneers as J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay. The digital revolution did not begin with the teenage millionaires of Silicon Valley, claims Howard Rheingold, but with such early intellectual giants as Charles Babbage, George Boole, and John von Neumann. In a highly engaging style, Rheingold tells the story of what he calls the patriarchs, pioneers, and infonauts of the computer, focusing in particular on such pioneers as J. C. R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Bob Taylor, and Alan Kay. Taking the reader step by step from nineteenth-century mathematics to contemporary computing, he introduces a fascinating collection of eccentrics, mavericks, geniuses, and visionaries. The book was originally published in 1985, and Rheingold's attempt to envision computing in the 1990s turns out to have been remarkably prescient. This edition contains an afterword, in which Rheingold interviews some of the pioneers discussed in the book. As an exercise in what he calls "retrospective futurism," Rheingold also looks back at how he looked forward.

"This book gives in-depth coverage of state-of-the-art research on virtual community participation,covering the concept of virtual community participation, followed by several streams of virtual community participation theories"--Provided by publishe