VIRTUAL COMMUNITY

BY KIMATI ELITRUDAH

Virtual community have  existed on the internet for almost quarter of century.The Well(http://www.com) started in 1985 and the usenet Newsgroup,started 1979 are widely regarded as the first virtual community on the internet.However despite the existence of over 100000 usenet, newsgroup with over 650 million messages(google.com,2003).only five to ten percent of internet users go to Usenet(Morochov,2003)

News group are internet  text based messaging system.These discussion group work like email except that message are posted to a public place where others can read them.They like chat in that they present public message, but differ from chat in that message are delayed.Message maybe posted  about something that is not currently being discussed in newsgroup or maybe written in response to one or many other existing messages.Newsgroup cater for both experts or novice debating topics of mutual interests. indeed a distinguishing feature of newsgroup is that they are organised by topic and they are public - posting free - for - all almost.Newsgroup topics span the interest of humanity and vary in their intended audience and geographical relevance.Newsgroup are created and discontinued daily.

What is being said about a company in newsgroup can have a severe impact on public perception of brands, products, and services.The facts that newsgroup posts or messages posted on the newsgroup , tend to be available for days if not weeks means that message may be seen by many people over extended periods.Negative messages may cause damage to an organisation's reputation a company's stock value and its sales revenue.

Virtual communities  have been characterised as people with shared interests or goals for whom electronic communication is primary for interaction (Dennis et all 1998) as groups of people who meet regularly to discuss a subject of interest to all members.(Figallo  1998) added that is the group of people brought together by shared interest or geographical bond who shares the same interests and practices that communicate regularly and for some duration in an organised way over the internet through a common location or mechanism. 
Newsgroup give professional communicators a ready resource for monitoring public sentiment and conducting issues research in much the same as chat does.Newsgroup lend themselves particulary well opinion ( rather than factual or knowledge)research because the quality of information provided by participants is often poor and usually  cannot be verified but opinions are readily available.Because specific newsgroup are created by people motivated  by and interested in particular  topic and because they are operated on the host computer that maybe located within a company...............