Today, you can find plenty of websites that allow you to watch a number of different videos. Each of those websites has a number of users who contribute videos, hence, expanding that site’s database and he amount of content. But does that alone turn a website into a community?
According to the definition of the word, a community is a group of people who interact amongst each other exchanging different types of information. Therefore, a site that focuses only on video upload would serve more as a video storage. In order to create a video community, many video sites took some of the following steps:
1. Organizing videos into different categories and adding a search option for the site. This allows users to locate videos of interest. This encourages users to spend time on the website watching videos uploaded by other users, as well as uploading videos themselves. This increases the interaction between users
2. Adding social tools like Forums and personal message systems. This opens the door to a conversation between two people who do not know each other, yet they happened to interact due to a video. This is the true aspect of a community.
3. Adding personalized profile options. A profile is a space where user is able to specify their personal information that can be seen by other users. For websites like www.Youtube.com , a profile option does not hold as much importance as for sites like www.Myspace.com . Main reason being, that Youtube is focused on the video sharing and discussions between users, while myspace is focused on personal interaction between its users, regardless of the content or subject being discussed. Websites like www.clipta.com are balanced between the two and consider themselves video communities. Sending messages, posting forum topic and adding comments have all been simplified and can be done with one click of the button. User’s profiles are very detailed and contain information that strikes the eyes of any user. Even when playing the video, you are surrounded by different options. You may add a comment, check if the video is being talked about in the forum, you can send a personal message to the user who uploaded it, or you can join the group where this video belongs.
In conclusion, there are many types of online communities. However, no matter what the differences are, they all have one thing in common. They are created by website developers, but are made by average users.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Nathan Rodnay
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