There is a clear agency issue in the case of online communities who claim to be official ones. Whether they are ordained by the respective authoities ( of entities that these online versions claim to represent) or not, they would be acting as abassadors of the real entities. Thus the character of these online versions would be used to judge and understand the real entities ( a school, college, religion, organisation, business group etc). These online communities would be continuously emitting signals to the outerworld, which inadvertently would be part of the communication to the environment. Here is a case for active management of such signals, for it can affect with force and possibly with detrimental effect. Who would do this? The agency issue would mean the community owners or moderators may not be objective enough, as they themselves may be having private interests. These interests could be more members on board, more discussions on a particular topic etc and they would have instruments for manipulation of content and form, including power to delete what they dont want to be on the community.
What is the business opportunity here? What would be the third party ( or fourth party?, considering three already exist as in organization, owner of online community and the host of the community) value addition.
The lonlooker( Lets call it thus) would add tremendous value. It would be doing the role akin to that of a security head in a mall with multiple screens in front of him, watching closely with constant alert for possible mishaps. It would flag the organization for possible miscommunications, misdemeanours etc in the online communities. It could also flag the parent organization of new opportunities by gauging the new directions clubmembes ( the present ardent supporters of the parent entity) are taking.
Why the parent entity take up this role for itself? Why should it be outsourced? Well, here are the possible answers. Cost, Quality, mechanisation possibilities and hence early warning systems, possible solution generation and learning from others.
When it be more relevant . When online usage increases more, say another 5 years.
About Me
- Writingpad
- Bangalore, Karnataka, India
- striving, Preseverance, Critical, Reflection, Suspended thoughts
3 comments:
whoa. this is one B-O-R-I-N-G blog!!
Man, you should break your keyboard, otherwise someone will come and break your arm. You know why? You are boring the blogdom to extinction. How can you be so turdaceous? Stop at once and win a trip to Timbktoo!!
Hi ,
I was reading ur blog posts and found some of them to be very good.. u write well.. Why don't you popularize it more.. ur posts on ur blog ‘WritingPad’ took my particular attention as some of them are interesting topics of mine too;
BTW I help out some ex-IIMA guys who with another batch mate run www.rambhai.com where you can post links to your most loved blog-posts. Rambhai was the chaiwala at IIMA and it is a site where users can themselves share links to blog posts etc and other can find and vote on them. The best make it to the homepage!
This way you can reach out to rambhai readers some of whom could become your ardent fans.. who knows.. :)
Cheers,
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