Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities and Technologies


Book Description

"This encyclopedia of virtual communities and technologies provides a much needed integrated overview of all the critical concepts, technologies and issues in the area of virtual communities"--Provided by publisher.




Practical Guide to Salesforce Communities


Book Description

Whether you are brand new to the world of Salesforce communities or you are looking to take your Community Cloud knowledge to the next level, this detailed guide will help you to build and manage a Salesforce community by leveraging the declarative power of the platform with clicks, not code. Each Salesforce community is a part of a widespread ecosystem, with thousands of communities and millions of users active today on Community Cloud. Through valuable social and business tools, this online platform enables companies to empower and equip their customers, partners, and employees in new, powerful ways. In this book, Philip Weinmeister, a Salesforce MVP and the first-ever recipient of the “Community Cloud MVP” Trailblazer award, leads you through the ins and outs of Salesforce communities and provides you with an array of best practices to deliver top-notch business portals on the Salesforce platform. Practical Guide to Salesforce Communities is the first book to comprehensively cover this next-generation offering from Salesforce, providing real, actionable guidance to help individuals build effective and engaging online communities. The book takes you through the entire process: from planning and designing a community to configuration/build, setup, and administration, all the way to deployment. Detailed explanations are provided of key components, templates, and features such as Community Builder, Audience Targeting, Lightning Bolts, and much more. Additionally, considerations and best practices are covered, including valuable tips and insights. What You’ll Learn Plan and design a community Conceptualize how employees, partners, and customers use and benefit from communities Assess available templates and make an informed selection decision Use Community Builder and Lightning components within a Lightning community template Apply topics and knowledge articles to a community to increase value and adoption Inject process automation into a community using Workflow, Flow, and Process Builder Create dynamic and personalized user experiences with audience targeting Build, export, and import unique templates with the Lightning Bolt solution framework Provide community data for members or community managers Who This Book Is For Salesforce administrators, Salesforce developers, Salesforce functional architects, Salesforce business analysts, and Salesforce community managers




Virtual Communities


Book Description

Does contemporary Internet technology strengthen civic engagement and democratic practice? The recent surge in online community participation has become a cultural phenomenon enmeshed in ongoing debates about the health of American civil society. But observations about online communities often concentrate on ascertaining the true nature of community and democracy, typically rehearsing familiar communitarian and liberal perspectives. This book seeks to understand the technology on its own terms, focusing on how the technological and organizational configurations of online communities frame our contemporary beliefs and assumptions about community and the individual. It analyzes key structural features of thirty award-winning online community websites to show that while the values of individual autonomy, egalitarianism, and freedom of speech dominate the discursive content of these communities, the practical realities of online life are clearly marked by exclusivity and the demands of commercialization and corporate surveillance. Promises of social empowerment are framed within consumer and therapeutic frameworks that undermine their democratic efficacy. As a result, online communities fail to revolutionize the civic landscape because they create cultures of membership that epitomize the commodification of community and public life altogether.




Studies in Virtual Communities, Blogs, and Modern Social Networking: Measurements, Analysis, and Investigations


Book Description

Social networks are a nearly universal element of modern, information-driven societies, one that presents many opportunities and advantages—and challenges and hazards—for organizations as well as individuals. Studies in Virtual Communities, Blogs, and Modern Social Networking: Measurements, Analysis, and Investigations provides a cross-cultural perspective of social networking, including ethical considerations and business implications. Readers will find a detailed treatment of technical, social, and legal issues inherent in online virtual communities, exploring methods of effectively implementing the latest social tools in their everyday practices, both professional and personal, in the interest of improved security and sustainability in digital collaborative environments.







Community Building on the Web


Book Description

What's the point of creating a great Web site if no one goes there-or worse, if people come but never return? How do some sites, such as America Online, EBay, and GeoCities, develop into Internet communities with loyal followings and regular repeat traffic? How can Web page designers and developers create sites that are vibrant and rewarding? Amy Jo Kim, author of Community Building on the Web and consultant to some of the most successful Internet communities, is an expert at teaching how to design sites that succeed by making new visitors feel welcome, rewarding member participation, and building a sense of their own history. She discusses important design strategies, interviews influential Web community-builders, and provides the reader with templates and questionnaires to use in building their own communities.




The Art of Community


Book Description

Online communities offer a wide range of opportunities today, whether you're supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or developing open source software. The Art of Community will help you develop the broad range of talents you need to recruit members to your community, motivate and manage them, and help them become active participants. Author Jono Bacon offers a collection of experiences and observations from his decade-long involvement in building and managing communities, including his current position as manager for Ubuntu, arguably the largest community in open source software. You'll discover how a vibrant community can provide you with a reliable support network, a valuable source of new ideas, and a powerful marketing force. The Art of Community will help you: Develop a strategy, with specific objectives and goals, for building your community Build simple, non-bureaucratic processes to help your community perform tasks, work together, and share successes Provide tools and infrastructure that let contributors work quickly Create buzz around your community to get more people involved Track the community's work so it can be optimized and simplified Explore a capable, representative governance strategy for your community Identify and manage conflict, including dealing with divisive personalities




Designing Online Communities


Book Description

Through analysis of this «how-to» literature, Designing Online Communities explores the discourse of design and configuration that partially structures online communities and later social networks.




Building Power, Safety, and Trust in Virtual Communities


Book Description

Virtual communities are a new frontier in the digital landscape. While these spaces are only in their infancy, it will not be long before they become a part of much of the population’s daily life. Before that becomes the case, it is important that we instill guidelines and parameters to ensure that those interacting with these digital spaces feel safe within them and are able to use them to their fullest capacity. Building Power, Safety, and Trust in Virtual Communities examines how online groups help people learn and change the way they think. In this book, different people with different academic backgrounds, methods, and personal experience with virtual groups look at this question. Case studies are included to help exemplify these findings. Together, these chapters discuss how virtual communities are built in ways that thinkers, researchers, and practitioners can understand.




Building Successful Online Communities


Book Description

How insights from the social sciences, including social psychology and economics, can improve the design of online communities. Online communities are among the most popular destinations on the Internet, but not all online communities are equally successful. For every flourishing Facebook, there is a moribund Friendster—not to mention the scores of smaller social networking sites that never attracted enough members to be viable. This book offers lessons from theory and empirical research in the social sciences that can help improve the design of online communities. The authors draw on the literature in psychology, economics, and other social sciences, as well as their own research, translating general findings into useful design claims. They explain, for example, how to encourage information contributions based on the theory of public goods, and how to build members' commitment based on theories of interpersonal bond formation. For each design claim, they offer supporting evidence from theory, experiments, or observational studies.