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DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
1
History of online communities
Jenny Preece, Diane Maloney-Krichmar, Chadia Abras
Information Systems Department, and Language, Literature & Culture Program
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Baltimore, MD 21250
<preece,abras>@umbc.edu, diane.krichmar@verizon.net
1. Introduction
An online community is a group of people who interact in a virtual environment. They have a
purpose, are supported by technology, and are guided by norms and policies (Preece, 2000).
However, other authors may use different definitions. The problem with the term ‘online
community’ is that it refers to a wide range of online activities.
In this chapter we use the term ‘online community’ broadly to refer to all communities
that exist predominantly online. A number of factors shape the character of an online
community. The purpose of the community (e.g., health support, education, business,
neighborhood activities) and the software environment supporting it (e.g., listserver, bulletin
board, chat, instant messaging, or more often these days – some combination) greatly influences
the nature of the community. The community’s governance structure and the types of norms and
rules that develop provide a framework for social interaction within the community and vary
widely among communities. Other factors that contribute to the variability of online
communities include the size of the community (small communities of fifty people are very
different from those of 5000 or 50,000); the age and stage in the life-cycle; the culture of the
members of the community (e.g., international, national, local and influences that may be related
to politics, religion, gender, professional norms, etc.), and whether the community has a physic-
virtual presence (physical component as well as the virtual one) (Lazar, Tsao & Preece, 1999).
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
2
The characteristics of an online community are determined by the social interactions of
the members, and the policies that guide them, a concept known as sociability. Software design
also contributes to the character of an online community. A community that communicates via a
synchronous chat system will have quite a different ambiance from one that uses an
asynchronous bulletin board. The ease with which the software can be used is known as its
usability and this depends on how well the user interface supports human-computer interaction
(HCI) (Preece, 2000; Preece & Maloney-Krichmar, 2002). Attention to social policies and
software design is therefore an important component in community development and evolution.
In the remainder of this chapter we first briefly describe the history of technology that
supports online communities and the changes in user populations. Then we outline some key
research issues.
2. Evolution of technology that supports online community
Email, the first and still the most frequently used communication tool on the Internet (Project,
2002), was developed by ARPANET in 1971. Ray Tomlinson of Bolt Beraneck and Newman,
Inc. (BBN) choose the @ sign for use in email addresses in 1972. Early systems were point to
point – one person could send a note to just one other person. Listservers, invented in 1975,
allow one to many postings. The basic form of this technology has not changed much since that
time, although email readers have improved greatly. Listservers are used in two ways: trickle
through and digests. Trickle through systems distribute each message as it is received. Digests
comprise a list of messages presented one after the other, usually in chronological order of
receipt. All through the 1970s, small, technical, and insular communities developed on the
Internet to facilitate communication between researchers. The first emoticon was a smiley made
by using “-)” was invented in 1979, by Kevin Mackenzie, in order to soften the impact of the
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
3
otherwise dry text of e-mail. In the mid to late 1980s, systems with improved graphical user
interfaces started to appear. Dictionaries of emoticons followed throughout the 1990s (Lehnert,
1998)
Bulletin boards, in existence for a similar time, are designed based on the metaphor of a
physical bulletin board. People post messages to the board and they are displayed in various
ways. Usually the messages are threaded which means that messages on the same topic are
associated with each other. The first message forms the beginning of the thread and later
responses are stacked beneath it. During the last five years, systems have appeared that offer
many fine enhancements: search engines enable users to search on topics, user name, date;
emoticons; private conversation spaces; links to email, user profiles and web pages; and
graphical two dimensional pictures and avatars.
Usenet News, like a bulletin board, provides open areas for discussion of topics clustered
in hierarchies. Moderated newsgroups were introduced on Usenet in 1984. Email, listservers,
bulletin boards, Usenet News, and their web-based cousins, are asynchronous communication
technologies, which means that communication partners do not have to be co-present in time.
Messages can be read and then responded to, hours, weeks or months later. The most famous
and first widely recognized non-technical online community, The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link
(WELL) was established in 1985 (Rheingold, 1993).
Chat systems, instant messaging and texting systems are synchronous, which means that
correspondents must be co-present online. Typically, conversations are rapid and each individual
comment is short. In busy systems messages scroll off the screen as they are replaced by more
recent ones. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was developed in 1988 by Jarkko Okarinen. Instant
messaging made famous by ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger, is somewhat similar to chats in
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
4
that communication is synchronous and very rapid but individuals can control who participates
in a particular conversation. ICQ was developed in Israel by Mirabilis in 1996 and purchased by
AOL in 1998. Texting, a related technology, occurs across phone lines. Texting is popular in
some parts of the world, particularly Europe, parts of Africa, and the Middle East. Interestingly,
it has taken longer to become widespread in the USA, where cell phones are used predominantly
for voice messages. However, new models are coming on the market with additional
functionality that supports texting, digital photography, email and web access.
In 1991, one year after ARPANET ceased to exist, the World-Wide Web (WWW),
developed by Tim Berners-Lee, was released by CERN (European Organization for Nuclear
Research). This event facilitated the widespread use of web sites and the development of online
community groups supported by web pages and various forms of communications software.
Online communities appeared in a variety of media, which were gradually integrated into single
environments. In the early 1990s, highly sophisticated gaming worlds emerged, e.g., Doom,
Quake, and Everquest. In these worlds, participants represented themselves on the screen as
graphical characters known as avatars, which can move through the world accompanied by
sound, messaging, and streaming video. Graphical, three-dimensional environments such as the
Palace (www.palace.com), established in 1995, and Activeworlds (www.activeworlds.com ),
established in 1995 as AlphaWorld, started to appear. However, these features come at a cost;
they require state of the art computers with fast processors, large memory and high-bandwidth
Internet connections. Some developers admirably address the issue of universal access that such
environments raise by offering high and low bandwidth versions (e.g., www.activeworlds.com)
so that those without access to sophisticated equipment may participate too.
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
5
A U.S. patent was granted to Fraunhofer, a German company, for MP3, January 26, 1995.
This technology innovation also impacts the concept of community. It provided an interesting
example of how a community can form around a particular technology designed to facilitate
distribution, sharing and, some would say, stealing music! The open source movement too has
stimulated strong dedicated technical communities, such as slashdot.
Internet telephone, streaming video, photographs, sound, voice, web cam, blogs (i.e., web
logs), and wikis (an open source collaborative server technology that enables users to access,
browse, and edit HyperText pages in a real-time context) are all available on today’s machines
and can be used by online communities. As computers morph and migrate into all kinds of places
(e.g., into clothing, phones, upholstery) – a concept known as ‘ubiquitous computing’, online
communities will have to contend with smaller devices, and therefore, WebPages will have to be
adaptable to accommodate various sizes of screen displays and bandwidth.
3. Changes in user populations
Even though the technology that supports online communities has changed tremendously
over the years, the biggest change lies not in technology but in who is using it. Early online
communities for education (Hiltz, 1985), networked communities (Rheingold, 1993; Schuler,
1996) and office communities (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991), were developed for groups of users
with similar goals and experience and who used similar communications software. From the late
1990s, the combination of less expensive computing power, the Web, and several successful
Internet service providers, enticed tens of thousands of people online (Rainie & Packel, 2001).
“The increase in online access by all kinds of Americans highlights the fact that the Internet
population looks more and more like the overall population of the United States” (Rainie &
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
6
Packel, 2001).
According to a 2001 Pew Internet & American Life Project report, 84% of all Internet
users indicated that they contacted an online community and 79% identified at least one group
with which they maintained regular online contact (Rainie & Packel, 2001). Many used the
Internet to extend their contact with churches, schools, local clubs and organizations. Sociologist
Barry Wellman refers to this phenomena as “glocalization”—the ability of the Internet to both
expand user’s social contacts and bind them more closely to the place where they live (Wellman,
2002). The Internet provides virtual ‘third places’ (different from home and work) that allow
people to hang out and engage in activities with others in, for example, hobby groups, gaming
communities, and sports leagues online. Figure 1 shows the percent of Internet users who have
contacted various types of online groups.
50%50%
31%
29%29%
28%28%
22%21%20%
15%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Percent of Internet Users
Trade/Professional
Hobby
Fans/sports
Fans/entertainment
Local groups
Health Related
Share beliefs
Political
Religious
Sports Team*
Ethnic/cultural
Types of Online Communities
Figure 1: Percent of Internet Users by Online Groups to Which They Belong
(Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, Jan.-Feb. 2001 (Survey, Internet users, n=1,697. Margin of error is + or – 3%)
The Internet has transformed some work practices; groups of professional scientists,
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
7
engineers, health professionals, and researchers can now join forces informally to share their
expertise, experiences and knowledge to foster new approaches to problems. These communities
of practice (Wenger & Snyder, 2000) are emerging as new organizational forms that promise to
change the way we work, learn, and share resources. The Linux operating system kernel is a
good example of a product developed by a community of practice, whose members are
motivated by shared philosophy (Moon & Sproull, 2000).
Education has also felt the effects of the Internet. Online learning communities have
sprung up in the form of distance education classes, knowledge-building communities, and
technological samba schools - a kind of virtual clubhouses where children can experiment with
technology and learn. Numerous online health communities that provide support and information
for members who are facing health problems have also come into existence. A survey of search
engines shows a staggering number of health related Internet sites, many of which are associated
with online communities. Yahoo alone provides 43 health subcategories linking to 19,000 sites
(Rice, 2001). Unfortunately the Internet also provides an ever growing platform for hate groups
which use it to create a sense of community, disseminate information (e.g. instructions for
building bombs), recruit new members, and sell hate paraphernalia (books, T shirts, posters).
Today’s online community participants come from all walks of life and cultures.
Furthermore, an increasing number of people from across the world are becoming networked;
particularly as small, handheld, relatively inexpensive telephones and other devices come onto
the market. In parts of Africa, for example, many users have gone straight to this technology, by-
passing conventional computers, because it is affordable (Rheingold, 2002).
4. Emergence of research
There is an increasing body of research on online communities coming from a variety of
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
8
disciplines including: communication studies, sociology, psychology, American studies,
information systems, business studies, computing, information science and newly formed
departments of cyber or Internet studies. It is impossible to do justice to the array of research
being produced. Some will be featured in other chapters so we have mentioned a few examples
that relate particularly to our area or interest, which is online community development.
Early seminal research set the scene with anecdotes and comparisons to face-to-face
communities (Rheingold, 1993; Turkle, 1995; Schuler, 1996). Online communities were seen as
exotic and fundamentally different from face-to-face communities. However, emailing, chatting,
working together, and participating in online communities has become a normal part of many
people’s lives (Rainie & Packel, 2001) making strict demarcation between online and offline
activity less meaningful. Having said this, it is important to point out that there are meaningful
differences, such as the lack of non-verbal cues in online textual environments.
Case studies, observation and various forms of Internet ethnography have provided rich
descriptions of life online. For example, Baym (1997) described the activities of a soap opera
community and Markham (1998) discussed real experiences in virtual space.
Questions about who relates to whom and about what has been examined using network
analysis (Wellman, Boase & Chen, 2002) and various forms of data logging have also been used
to track communication activity. Nonnecke and Preece (2000) logged activity in 100 Discussion
Lists (DL) over a three month period and showed that lurking (i.e., not posting) behavior
correlated with type of community, membership size, and message traffic.
Fundamental psychological and communications issues of importance to online
communities’ research are also being investigated. Some examples include development of
friendships (Fagin, 1998; Jensen, Davis & Farnham, 2002), the nature of trust and empathy
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
9
online (Preece, 1999) and online group dynamics (Maloney-Krichmar, 2003).
Lack of social presence in textual online communities has been noted as a problem by
several researchers. While avatars can compensate to some extent, limitations of screen real
estate make it difficult to show more than just a few individuals at any one time. A range of
ingenious visualization tools have been developed to support social presence (Erickson &
Kellogg, 2000; Smith & Fiore, 2001), which may enable participants to develop a better sense of
others. This may help participants to form cooperative relationships and assume responsibility
for their actions (Erickson & Kellogg, 2000).
A number of books have tried to draw together important themes. Wallace (1999)
synthesized work relating to the psychology of the Internet. Edited collections by Kiesler (1997)
and Smith and Kollock (1999) provide overviews of many salient issues, Kim (2000) offers
techniques for creating online communities, and Preece (2000) examines how supporting
sociability and designing for usability can help produce successful online communities.
5. Conclusions
To-date there has been little attempt to evaluate and measure the success of different
types of communities from participants’ and as well as commercial sponsors’ perspectives. A
step towards this is a proposal for an initial set of evaluation heuristics (Preece, 2001), which will
be refined and validated (Abras, et al., 2003). While research and development of high
bandwidth community software infrastructures continues, a second important strand of research,
that is just starting to gain momentum, is investigating lightweight applications that will improve
universal access and will also cater to different linguistic and cultural needs. For example, the
HCI International 2003 Conference has a track entitled ‘design of inclusive groupware systems’.
Hopefully we will see other efforts to reduce the international digital divide.
DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
10
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DRAFT: Preece, J., Maloney-Krichmar, D. and Abras, C. (2003) History of Online Communities In Karen Christensen & David
Levinson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Community: From Village to Virtual World. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1023-1027.
11
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