Reflection on social and mobile computing tools (41350119)

Online community through mobile and social computing tools

Since the appearance of Internet-based social network, online communities have become more popular everyday. Social softwares are designed to target different purposes and needs of the wide population.

Social networking services like Face book or Twitter aim for web-based communication among peers. They help people connecting to each other while they are accessing different functions that are provided in the application. Other applications such as Flicker and Google Calender play a role as a supporting tool for picture or timetable. Application like Blogger can be both an entertaining tool for personal reflection or serve as a communication method. These tools create different communities to gather together those who have the same interest or purpose.

Every member of such communities has different attitude and role as they are participating in. Amy Jo Kim had a theory on the membership life cycle of virtual community (2000) that a person might go through as they committed to the application long enough. Through activity such as searching, sharing and commenting, users get involve into the membership life cycle including: peripheral, inbound, insider, boundary, and outbound. This process begins with peripheral users start viewing the community’s content. Then they might decide to get involved into it by giving some information and discussion as inbound users. When the level of engagement increases, they will start interacting more with the community and having deeper connection to other members and become the insiders. Sometime, an insider can become a boundary by their enthusiasm contribution. When users leave the community, they become an outbound.

After joining some network, I can see myself also being in different stages within these online communities. As the demand of exploring the mobile and social network, I eventually go through the peripheral to become inbound or insider depend on how much I feel interested in each application. Eventually, Facebook become one of the most favourite website which can make its members visit on a daily basic. Blogger is also being visited in a weekly basic in order to check the course information and asking some question for myself. The others such as Twitter, Google Calender or Flicker might not be able to get the similar attraction because of certain personal demand.

I’m playing the roles as insider in Facebook and still the remain in outbound level for most application. On the other hand, some people are playing different roles as peripheral, inbound, insider, boundary, and maybe even outbound depend on how they are interacting with the system.

When I first sign up in Facebook, I became the peripheral. Then I come to the inbound level while I am making my own profile, find the COMP3505 group and start inviting friend. It’s really interesting when I could see other common friends who have already joined Facebook before connecting to me. Since I’ve joined into the group and got acceptance from others, I start checking out available applications of Facebook, commenting on my friend wall to turn into the insider level. The way Facebook organizing friend network is really clever and easy for users to use. Besides, many people also get addicted to it by various functions that Facebook offers. These addition applications are just spearing by peer-to-peer but they have become popular really fast. Since I’ve started my relationship network, I start leading a group of friend within my own network. In addition, people who create their own groups or making add-on applications in Facebook are absolutely members within the boundary level of this community.

What happened for Blogger is almost similar. However, a blog administrator is not necessarily in a boundary level with a personal blog. The activity of posting blog and making comment is also creating a community among blogger but the interconnection is not visible as Facebook. The COMP3505 course blog is a small community because there are not only administrators but also involves many contributors. Not only the administrators but also people who are having certain amount of feedback from the community are in the boundary level.

Later on, outbound level will happen to member eventually by any possibly reason such as lacking of time or boredom.

Some people may claim that there are cases when a member just jumps directly from the first step of peripheral to the fifth step of outbound without being in any other three intermediate levels. In fact, they haven’t really participated in the community yet. They might have signed up an account and start viewing some certain levels of content but not really being involved in the system. There are many reasons that could lead to lack of interacting with the community. For instance, I’ve been registered in Facebook a few years ago by one of my friend’s recommendation. However, I did not have time to check the site regularly and the friend I had in my network at that time did not keep in touch with me by this tool. For this time, I’ve signed up with another email and started joining in the community based on my course group. Actually, I was still in the peripheral level when I decided to leave Facebook last time.

Everyone has their own way to interact with the system and participate in the community. People involved in a certain level within the community since the interaction begins. The membership life cycle for virtual communities through social network is such a long process that might cause some time and effort on participating in the system. As these networks are becoming more popular and affecting every single relation among human, the experience that user go through is building their own level everyday.

Reference:
Kim, A.J. (2000). Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities. London: Addison Wesley