A virtual community (VC) is an electronically supported social network: it can be seen as a group of people who regularly interact because of a common interest, problem or task assignment. When independence of time and place is achieved through utilizing mobile devices and wireless communication technologies, such a VC is called a Mobile Virtual Community.
Published in Chapter:
Perspectives on the Viable Mobile Virtual Community for Telemedicine
Jan-Willem van ’t Klooster (University of Twente, The Netherlands), Pravin Pawar (University of Twente, The Netherlands), Bert-Jan van Beijnum (University of Twente, The Netherlands), Chariz Dulawan (University of Twente, The Netherlands), and Hermie Hermens (University of Twente, The Netherlands)
Copyright: © 2010
|Pages: 12
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-611-7.ch082
Abstract
A virtual community is an electronically supported social network: it can be seen as a group of people who have regular social interaction, independent of time and space, because of a common interest such as a problem, task, or feeling exchange (Eysenbach, Powell, Englesakis, Rizo, & Stern, 2004; Rheingold, 1993). When independence of time and space is achieved through the use of mobile devices and wireless communication technologies, such a virtual community is called a Mobile Virtual Community (MVC). Existing research interests in the MVC domain are grouped into technology-centered interest, user-centered interest and businesscentered interest (El Morr & Kawash, 2007). The technology-centered aspects include issues such as platform design, development framework, mobile network bandwidth limits and intelligent agents. The user-centered issues include user interface, behavior, personalization, privacy, data security and trust. Business-centered aspects include marketing, investment and business models.